Another horrible and unnecessary school shooting today. It doesnt take a CSI team or FBI profiler to figure out which way the alleged shooter T.J. Lane, was headed in life. Look up his Facebook profile. He has a sister. He looks glum and detached. He likes to play Assassins’ Creed , a violent videogame that is advertised as “For True Professional Assassins” and is into “cats and Anime”….

Liking cats isn’t so bad, but he also claims to be “inspired” by David Icke, a conspiracy theory nut who believes that lizard-like aliens haunt us daily. His favorite movies are the Fight Club, Let Me In, and The Others, movies all describing dark depressive environments of violence, horror, frustration and detachment. In “The Others”, a boy and his sister live in a ghostly world cut off from other people, and turn out to be actually dead already. In “Let Me In”, a quasi-vampire movie the plot is even more telling as a boy is bullied relentlessly and plots his violent revenge. The Facebook essay that TJ wrote on his FB wall is consistent with the other main characters just described. They are social loners who seeks to turn the tables violently on those who live in safe “castles”.Only four people “liked” his FB post written while in school, one of which was his sister. Ok, I have a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology but I dont think it’s necessary to have that much higher education to recognize that this person was emotionally troubled and very much in need of professional help. Some might even look more closely and describe it as a “cry for help.” Our society, however, often fails to provide this recognition or support and allows vulnerable and potentially violent individuals to simmer for many years until they finally boil over. In a way that too is criminal and it is our culture that is squarely to blame.