I know it can be annoying sitting on a train or bus with someone next to you listening to music through headphones... but this is ridiculous:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7535840.stm

Seriously though, that is horrific, the perpetrator is obviously seriously unstable, or had been in a cabin alone for too long, and how unimaginably awful for the victim's family.

Well, as you can imagine this is major news here in Manitoba. Apparently when the perpetrator first got on he sat at the front of the bus, it's only later that he moved to the back to sit beside his victim. That being said, none of the passengers seem to indicate that the music was loud or annoying. I think it's to everyone's credit that no one panicked and they all got off the bus safely.

Thank nature (or God who prefer) we are not animals. What only would happen if we are... Human nature.

This tragedy happened less than 100km from here, so it's all over the news. Absolutely senseless.

They should send the perpetrator to Gitmo so he can get a good lawyer and have his rights protected.

They should send the perpetrator to Gitmo so he can get a good lawyer and have his rights protected.

Dr. Harter (Jerold):

I think there is a very high probability that the perpetrator is going to be sent to, and spend the rest of his life in, an institution for the criminally insane.

Matt

It's a major news item out here. WOW that must have been quite the incident for the passengers. Some of them probably won't be able to sleep well for a LONG while. A stabbing is one thing but a decapitation is something that doesn't doesn't sit well with regular folks.

Obviously a tragedy, but the interesting thing to me was that initial passenger reports was that the guy was quite large (in addition to having the large knife), so nobody wanted to attempt to restrain him (although it wouldn't have helped the victim much due to the multiple stabbings/slashings already incurred before he could cry out as he was apparently asleep at the time).

He had a court appearance today, and it turns out he's an Asian man of "average Asian" build - less than the estimated 6'1" given by some witnesses.

Interesting what extreme stress will do to your perceptions/memory.

Dr. Harter (Jerold):

I think there is a very high probability that the perpetrator is going to be sent to, and spend the rest of his life in, an institution for the criminally insane.

Matt

Which I would think is probably the correct thing to do. Sending him to a prison to be tortured and held without being charged or given a chance to argue his case would only lower everyone.

Dr. Harter (Jerold):

I think there is a very high probability that the perpetrator is going to be sent to, and spend the rest of his life in, an institution for the criminally insane.

Matt

I was mocking, sorry.

Interesting that often onlookers assume that people who commit heinous crimes must be insane. Definitely not so. I know nothing about this guy, but I would not assume that he is insane. I am not being difficult, but I notice that those who generally advocate against stigmatizing mental illness are often the same ones that assume people who do bad things must be crazy. Gives the mentally ill a bad rap.

Also, it is a very false assumption that anyone "spends the rest of his life" in a mental institution. I would say that is rare, regardless of the crime. Hence the zeal of the defense attorney to plead insanity. The other reality (in the US) is that it is very difficult to be exonerated on the basis of insanity. In my experience, even very crazy people who commit crimes knew that it was a wrong thing to do. Hence the efforts to conceal the crime or escape the consequences.

History is full of examples of perfectly normal people which did horible things, murders, genocides, torturing, etc...

I think it is something religion, christianity in particular, was establish as way of thinking, and that is: people are good (as God who made them on his image is good) and only few individuals are bad (under Devil's influence). People are bad and good, depend of needs, desires and situations, but human species is not good by definition with few exceptions.

I think being good is exception, not rule.

I was mocking, sorry.

Interesting that often onlookers assume that people who commit heinous crimes must be insane. Definitely not so. I know nothing about this guy, but I would not assume that he is insane. I am not being difficult, but I notice that those who generally advocate against stigmatizing mental illness are often the same ones that assume people who do bad things must be crazy. Gives the mentally ill a bad rap.

Also, it is a very false assumption that anyone "spends the rest of his life" in a mental institution. I would say that is rare, regardless of the crime. Hence the zeal of the defense attorney to plead insanity. The other reality (in the US) is that it is very difficult to be exonerated on the basis of insanity. In my experience, even very crazy people who commit crimes knew that it was a wrong thing to do. Hence the efforts to conceal the crime or escape the consequences.

Dr. Harter (Jerold):

I think that if you were to look at the Canadian situation, you would find that it varies significantly from most of the United States.

I don't practice criminal law anymore, but I have done so in the past.

I also have acted for people suffering from mental illnesses (primarily schizophrenia), although never in a situation where an insanity plea would be warranted.

I also (thankfully!) have never represented anyone charged with anything even close to being as horrific as this situation, but I certainly have worked with or been advised by some who have been involved with either representing or prosecuting people who have been charged with some awful acts.

In Canada, there is a recognition that a finding of not guilty due to insanity is probably more likely to end up in a life sentence without any subsequent freedom than a life sentence itself will. Findings of not guilty due to insanity are rare here as well, but not just because they are hard to support with evidence.

The facts, as they are revealed in the news reports (which I always take with a large grain of salt) seem to me to suggest strongly that this man was acting under the most horrible of delusions - i.e. did not understand the nature of his actions, or know that they were wrong. Of course, this assumption could be totally wrong, but the barbarity of the act, the indication that he was calm throughout, the fact that he apparently neither knew the victim or appeared to interact much with him, as well as the fact that (apparently) he is in his 40s and has no criminal history, all seem to me to make an insanity finding much more likely.

Matt

Is this the latetst craze or something...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7539944.stm

Looks like another sad story of undiagnosed mental illness.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/story/4208033p-4800486c.html

Just yesterday, a guy in Santorini, shot his wife, cut her head off with a butcher knife and went parading with them in town.
A cop comes to stop him, gets off the car and the "maniac" (as they call him) assault him with the knife and wounds him in the belly, while also being hurt himself. Then he takes the police jeep and on his escape ride, he wounds two female doctors who were coming from the beach with their scooters. Thankfully he didn't get far and was arrested.

I bet ya, that every and each one of us is capable of such deeds with the right environmental condition and trigger. Some, are just more prone to it.

Now news reports (http://www.torontosun.com/News/Canada/2008/08/03/6341606-sun.html) here from the leaked police communication tape indicate they witnessed (through the door/windows) the attacker cut off pieces of the victim's flesh and eat it.

If there was any doubt of the attacker's sanity, I'm pretty sure this ends it.

the special verdict of Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (in the British courts at least) has no basis in medical diagnoses of psychotic illnesses. there are cases here of people acting under altered states resulting from epilepsy being offered the special verdict. the majority of murders, no matter how horrific are not carried out by people with mental illness.

Armin Meiwes in Germany dismembered and ate a willing victim - he was not mentally ill. There are countless other cases in history of people doing such things, yet invariably they are not suffering from mental illness. They might be said to have a "personality disorder" or register somewhere on the high end scale of psychopathy ... but what does that really mean? not a lot usually.

It's no surprise that this man is now suicidal - I suspect (provided no diagnosis is found) this is a reaction to his realisation that he'd finally acted on his dark fantasy and now had to face the consequences. To label brutal killers as mentally ill so easily only serves to remove ourselves from accepting the possibility that a fellow human being could be capable of such things. Another example of the over-medicalisation of behaviour that is steadily increasing in the western world.

People with mental illness are stigmatised enough by society, without being grouped in with deviants and criminals.

This story just keeps getting more bizarre.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/story/4209152p-4801884c.html

More madness:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/08/06/peta-mclean.html

More madness:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/08/06/peta-mclean.html

To use a scientific term, poor Rev. Fred Phelps is as crazy as a shithouse rat. Look him up online. I hope he gets stopped at the border.

His "church" consists of him, a few relatives, and a few other sad souls. He doesn't represent the faith I am relieved to say.

To use a scientific term, poor Rev. Fred Phelps is as crazy as a shithouse rat. Look him up online. I hope he gets stopped at the border.

His "church" consists of him, a few relatives, and a few other sad souls. He doesn't represent the faith I am relieved to say.

Are you sure you read the right article?

Are you sure you read the right article?

Yes.