“A black friend of the white man accused of murdering nine people at a Charleston church says the suspect told him a week prior to the killings that he planned to shoot up a local college campus,” foxnews.com reports. “Christon Scriven, [above] a drinking buddy of Dylann Roof, told The Associated Press that he thought Roof’s statements were just drunken bluster. However, Scriven said that he was concerned enough that he and another friend, Joey Meek, went out to take his .45-caliber gun, hiding it in an air-conditioning vent of a mobile home until they all sobered up.” And then gave it back, later. Here’s how Scriven described the conversation . . .
“He just said he was going to hurt a bunch of people” at the College of Charleston,” said Scriven, 22.
“I said, ‘What did you say? Why do you want to hurt those people in Charleston?'”
“He just said, ‘In seven days. … I have seven days.'”
Just a week later, Roof, 21, is believed to have gone into Charleston’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, sat in for a Bible study class for at least an hour and then fired upon participants.
There are two times when you can intervene to prevent or at least reduce the toll of a spree killing: before and during.
Time and time again friends, family, law enforcement, psychological professionals, educators and others have failed to address obvious ongoing serious mental issues in people who’ve revealed their desire to commit murder (e.g., Newton killer Adam Lanza’s “hero wall” on the Danish spree killer).
So all that’s left is intervention at the sharp.
Not to coin a phrase, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The maxim applies here. (Roof was apprehended by armed officers) It will continue to apply elsewhere. [h/t DrVino]