Every time there’s a school shooting or any sort of mass violence, the subject of SSRIs comes up from one commenter or another.

Sometimes people also bring up the subject of fatherlessness and mass shooters, which I wrote about at length in this post, the gist of which is that there is no connection although it’s popularly thought that there is.

Now, on to SSRIs. It is notoriously difficult to do research on whether SSRIs trigger more violence, have no effect, or help prevent violence, and if so in what populations. It’s a popular internet meme that they trigger violence, but the evidence is not at all clear that that is so, and as I said it’s very difficult to design a good study. One obvious reason is that such people are often at higher risk for violence in the first place, and drugs are not given randomly. There is almost certainly something already different about the people who get them and those who don’t.

This is one of the better-designed studies, and as you can see if you read it it’s very hard to tell what it all means, if anything. For example:

As is often the case, the authors of the study themselves are rather cautious. While obviously concerned that it is possible that SSRIs may actually cause violent behavior in a small minority of people, they fully recognize that other explanations are possible. These include the possibility that what is driving the violent behavior is medication undertreatment, based on the finding that the risk with violence was only found among individuals who were likely taking subtherapeutic doses. As reported by MedScape, one of the study authors, Seena Fazel, states: “Our own view is that some evidence suggests that it’s a bit more complicated than that, because we found a link with subtherapeutic doses of SSRIs, and that would suggest to us that it may be that it’s actually a lack of treatment [and] it could be residual symptoms that are driving this link.” At the same time, if antidepressants really worked wonders for young people, we should see that therapeutic SSRI usage was associated with a reduced risk of violent behavior, which it wasn’t.

A couple other factors also deserve mention. The idea of comparing periods on and off medication within the same individual is a clever design, because many individual factors that might be related to risk of violence, like one’s socioeconomic status or DNA, are held constant. However, because the period of medication use was not randomized (and couldn’t be), it introduces the very likely complicating issue that individuals were taking medications during times when they were feeling more depressed, anxious, and angry to start with, and thus at higher risk of acting violently. Finally, it is important to note that a statistically significant association certainly does not mean that most people taking antidepressants are out there hurting others. When taking SSRI medications, the conviction rate of violent crimes was at a 1.0% rate compared to 0.6% without medications.

There’s also this:

Our study encompassed nationwide data over a 15-year period. In this period, the homicide rate per 100,000 remained fairly constant, with a moderate decline in recent years, leading to an average of 160 homicide victims per year. The suicide rate decreased steadily from 10.26 (approximately 1,500 victims) in 1994 to 8.77 (approximately 1,400 victims) per 100,000 in 2008. The homicide–suicide rate remained relatively stable, averaging at 0.05 per 100,000 (varying from 4 to 14 victims per year, see Fig. 1). In the same period, the rate of total antidepressant use increased considerably, from 3,038.81 in 1994 to 5,650.58 per 100,000 in 2008. A similar increase was observed for the rate of SSRI use alone, which more than doubled from 1,482.25 in 1994 to 3,161.15 per 100,000 in 2008 as well as the rate of SSRI use including venlafaxine, with an increase of 1,486.81 in 1994 to 3,904.20 per 100,000 in 2008. Over the same period, the number of defined daily doses used rose from 59.6 million in 1994 to 245.3 million in 2008: a fourfold increase. This indicates that not only more people used antidepressants, but also that the mean duration or intensity of the treatment grew…

Rates of the use of SSRIs including venlafaxine were also found to be negatively associated with both homicide rates and suicide rates. No significant independent association was found between rates of SSRIs including venlafaxine and homicide–suicide.

Here’s an article about suicide and SSRIs for young people:

The 2004 study examined the clinical trial data that had been collected on two types of medications, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) and selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI). The results of the study prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue a black box warning, the most serious level of warning in prescription drug labeling, for the risk of suicides in children and adolescents being treated with antidepressants in 2004. The warning was extended to young adults ages 18 to 25 years in 2006.

The researchers in the current study performed a meta-analysis of 41 studies, reviewing the data on a total of 9,185 youths, adults, and geriatric patients who were treated with fluoxetine (Prozac is one common brand) and venlafaxine (Effexor) immediate (IR) and extended release (ER) preparations…

In all three age groups, treatment with fluoxetine and with venlafaxine IR and ER resulted in a statistically significant improvement in depressive symptoms when compared to treatment with placebo. The decline in depressive symptoms was also faster for patients treated with medication than control group patients. In the adult and geriatric patients who were treated with fluoxetine or venlafaxine, suicidal thoughts and behaviors decreased over time.

As the patients became less depressed, they had fewer suicidal thoughts and attempts. Although the youths who were treated with medication showed the same statistically significant decrease in depressive symptoms as the older populations, they did not show a decrease in suicidal ideation and actions.

“In kids, we don’t see a harmful effect, but we do see a disassociation between the beneficial effects on depression and the potential beneficial effect on suicide,” said the study’s lead author…

The newest analysis did not support the idea that there was an increased risk of suicide in children and adolescents taking fluoxetine, an SSRI. In explaining the difference in their findings, the researchers note that these original meta-analyses included fewer studies and the studies were of shorter term than the longitudinal data they analyzed.

There probably will be a number of readers here who say something like this: “It’s all lies promulgated to cover up the damage drug companies do and to preserve their profits.” You’re welcome to that point of view, and certainly during the COVID years the CDC and many other official entities have earned our distrust. But if you throw out all research, including older studies such as these, you are left with internet memes and paranoia. That’s not science, either. I believe that most of these studies are attempts at valid research on a subject that is inherently difficult to study, and that the bulk of the evidence indicates that SSRIs do not increase violent behavior.

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The killer was 16-year-old John J. Griffin, who had once attended the school:

John J. Griffin II, 16, was armed with his mom’s pump-action shotgun when he opened fire inside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend – killing three kids, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher, law enforcement sources said.

The shooter also critically injured another student, 7, and teacher, 54, before a brave bystander and dad of two little girls at the school shot him dead — before police even arrived at the scene. …

The killer’s parents are cooperating with authorities, who executed a search warrant on the family’s home, taking computers and other electronic devices to sift through for possible clues to a motive behind the carnage, sources told The Post.

If the parents left the shotgun loaded and unlocked, they could be in trouble themselves. Of course, they are also dealing with the fact that their own child was a killer, and is now dead.

The armed bystander who shot the perpetrator was Kaylub Giamanco (I think “Kaylub” is an eccentric spelling of “Caleb”):

… a carpenter and father of two girls who attend Silver Rail Elementary, [who] was driving home from his break on Thursday when he heard gunfire, his brother, Kyle Giamanco, told NBC News.

Kaylub Giamanco, 36, who owns a concealed weapon, bravely pursued teen gunman John J. Griffin II into the school building’s special education room and fatally shot him, his brother described.

There’s a great deal of discussion online about restrictive gun laws in Oregon and the fact that the school was a no-gun zone. But I don’t actually think Giamanco will get into trouble in this instance, although one can’t be sure (it’s Oregon, after all).

The case illustrates, among other things, the fact that locks on doors don’t deter shootings. Locks and/or windows near or in locked doors have been shot out before; I’m thinking, for example, of the Sandy Hook shooter who was not stopped by locks.

RIP to the victims.

NOTE: I will add that I know Bend, Oregon, very well. It’s a town in the heart of what’s known as the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, or U.S. Route 97. I’ve traveled on it many a time with Gerard, and we stayed in Bend many times as well. It’s a beautiful although touristy town in a fascinating setting for those of us who are interested in volcanos. I am one of those people.

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According to Irish media, Obama – speaking about the Israel-Palestinian conflict at an event in Belfast – said it was “undeniable” that Jews who settled in Palestine to escape persecution “took land off people and they were excessive. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back.’”

Read those words again, and consider who spoke them. The problem is not merely that Obama said it. It is that countless people will believe it precisely because Obama said it.

This was not some 5th grader history student speaking. This was a two-term president of the United States, a man who remains one of the most influential figures on the planet …

His influence is actually less now than when he was president, but he still is respected by many. However, I doubt his saying this persuaded those who were previously unpersuaded; Obama is very much preaching to the choir and what he said is now a standard belief among Democrats (and many people on the right, as well). Many are ignorant of history, but is Obama? Does it even matter?:

In one fell swoop, Obama, either knowingly or through astonishing ignorance, peddled one of the most pernicious myths about Jews and Zionism – a myth which perhaps more than any other has been responsible for a century of conflict, tens of thousands of Jews killed, and many more times that of Arabs. All because of this false claim that the Jews stole the land.

If this is what Obama truly believes, then, in my view, he is an antisemitism superspreader

And if he says it without believing it, then he is even worse – a knowing, evil antisemitism superspreader.

More:

It is not “undeniable” that Jews “took land off people”. It is, in fact, very deniable, because it is quite simply untrue. You do not need to be a professor of Middle Eastern history to understand that the Jewish people have maintained a connection with the Land of Israel for more than 3,000 years. We are not strangers who have appeared here out of nowhere. Jews who more recently settled in waves of aliyah did not steal the land, as you inferred, but bought it legally from Arabs, even paying exorbitant prices. Don’t take my word for it – you can check for yourself in Ottoman and British documents.

And what exactly was it “excessive” that, according to you, the Jews did? Flee from gas chambers? Were my own parents “excessive” when they escaped to Palestine in 1932 because Hitler was round the corner? They bought their own home, by the way.

“Excessive” is just one of the words du jour about Israel. I doubt Obama sits around thinking about the details of that “excessiveness.” It is like the word “disproportionate” to discuss the war; people use the word without even knowing what it means in terms of a war.

You can read a deeper analysis of Obama’s remarks here.

I am heartily sick of this man, who has done so much damage to the nation and the world and who became president based on a masquerade about his intentions, which were always far more leftist and transformative than he initially let on. Yes, he spoke of “hope and change” – but he didn’t specify what the change would be. He just let his sonorous voice do the talking and let the listeners fill in the blanks with whatever they imagined to be his goals.

And he knows it. He’s long known it and used it: “In the prologue to the second of his autobiographies, The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama said: ‘I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.'”

NOTE: By the way, Belfast is in Northern Ireland, not Ireland proper. Ireland itself is probably the most anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and pro-Palestinian country in Europe – which is saying a lot. Northern Ireland is more mixed.

If you want to hear about what’s going on in Ireland vis a vis Israel, watch some of this:

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The Virginian-Pilot obtained the video from Officer Brian Torrez’s camera after a court order unsealed it. On the tape, reading specialist Amy Kovac is holding the boy in a bear hug while he tells police he stole the 9mm from his mother’s purse.

“My mom had that,” the boy says, pointing toward the weapon. “I stole that from my mom.”

In the footage, he also says he does not care if he goes to jail and relentlessly taunts officers on the scene.

“If you want a piece of me, come get it on, b****,” the boy says. “I don’t care if you call backup. I don’t care if I go to jail, b****.”

“We know you know that language — and you know that’s not appropriate,” the reading specialist said. “Mrs. Kovac’s NOT happy with that.”

You might well ask why the focus on bad language, when the child had already nearly killed a teacher? Perhaps the reading specialist was shellshocked by the entire episode.

It seems this child was already lost at the age of 6. Can a child who clearly has been exposed to terrible parenting be saved if rescued at that age? I would say it depends. It depends on whether he’s a psychopath. Let’s just say I wouldn’t want him mainstreamed. But what to do with a child who’s already shown such a propensity for evil?

The day of the shooting, multiple warnings that the boy had a gun were ignored:

Former assistant principal Ebony Parker was charged with eight felony counts of child neglect, one for each round in the gun, after prosecutors said she ignored repeated warnings and never ordered a search of the boy.

On May 21, 2026, just four days into the trial, Circuit Judge Rebecca Robinson dismissed every count, ruling that Parker’s inaction was not a crime under Virginia law.

The civil jury assigned her some level of responsibility with their decision, finding her grossly negligent.

The boy’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor, was also charged. She bought the 9mm, and on the morning of the shooting the boy took it from her purse on a dresser, put it in his backpack, and brought it to school.

The shooting happened in January of 2023, three and a half years ago. The boy would be at least 9 years old now. He was placed with his great-grandfather, and I have no idea how he’s doing now.

I want to add a personal note, though. Reading about this boy brought up a memory for me. In the year 1965, I had a boyfriend who worked at a camp for poor children from Manhattan. The camp was rural and run by social workers. I visited him there and was shocked to notice that a certain number of the very young boys – who were probably around 6 or 7 years old – were already acting in an absolutely vile manner. The form it took was that, when female counselors (teenagers or women) passed by, the boys would grab at their private parts and shout obscenities.

I have no recollection of what was done to the boys, if anything. But I do recall their behavior – and this was sixty years ago.

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The South African-born jurist and former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, who presided over a commission that declared that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for what the committee described as her efforts to promote peace and international law.

Her win is sure to be seen as a stinging, high-profile rebuke to US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both rejected the findings of a UN commission she led that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Both leaders also have been highly critical of the institutions where Pillay has worked, with Israel previously accusing her of being a “Hamas proxy” with a long history of vehemently anti-Israeli and antisemitic positions.

“Stinging, high-profile rebuke”? Hardly. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu – nor I, nor probably you – give the Nobel Prize Committee or the UN any credence or respect. The Prize about as meaningful these days as anything else the UN does (or as meaningful as another Trump impeachment, which will happen if Democrats win control of the House in the coming election). Only the left cares about this sort of thing, and only to them it’s a “high-profile rebuke” to the nefarious Trump and Netanyahu and Israel.

However, on a certain level it still shocks me – although it should not – that so much of the world believes this sort of thing to be the height of virtue. How can they not recognize the absurdity of the assertion that Israel is committing genocide? And yet I’m sure that most of the people I know would probably nod right along – people with advanced degrees in this or that or the other thing.

It is a puzzlement to me how people can buy into the most transparently stupid – and actually evil – belief systems without questioning them. And yet, here we are.

The post The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to lawyer who accused Israel of genocide appeared first on The New Neo.

Here’s the announcement:

The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

That is quite a turn-around. It’s been 17 years since the shooting, a terrorist act that killed thirteen military members and injured 33. So the carrying out of the verdict has been much delayed by appeals. Now that the appeals seem to have run out (although I’m not 100% sure they have), the military seems to want to make up for lost time by using an especially violent means of death and by making it public.

There’s a long history of public executions in the US and elsewhere, but the last public execution in this country was in 1937. The idea was that the spectators would learn a lesson from the spectacle, but I find that unconvincing and I’m not in favor of making anyone’s death public in a sort of snuff film. If you look at the list of countries engaging in public executions these days, it includes Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia (although the latter is changing). Is that a group to emulate?

Some history here:

States started to change the policy as an increasing number of people witnessed botched hangings and as broader concerns grew over the events, Radelet said.

“Instead of promoting the sanctity of life and how solemn the circumstance was, with people applauding and having a carnival-like atmosphere, that really turned people off,” he said.

I fully expect many of you to disagree with me.

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In some ways, the post-10/7 wars have gone better than expected for Israel. At the beginning, it seemed as though Hezbollah, for example, would be a more formidable foe than it has been. That doesn’t mean it’s been easy, or that Israel can ever rest. But it does mean that 10/7 acted more as a wakeup call to galvanize Israel into taking the threats seriously and understanding that its enemies really do mean to destroy it.

Unfortunately, another thing that’s been learned is how powerful Jew-hatred is, including when it’s cloaked in a fake “anti-Zionism” that is nothing more than a vicious double standard that will not allow Israel to defend itself. This did not begin on 10/7; I’ve written two posts so far about how far back it goes, and how instrumental the Soviets were in spreading the word (please see this as well as this).

The anti-Jewish forces got busy right away, as early as 10/8 when Israel had done nothing as yet except be viciously attacked. But Jew-hatred always finds fertile ground, and it has spread immensely since 10/7, both on left and right. A lie really does get halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. It is sobering and depressing, but it’s reality these days.

Please see this:

Has there ever been a people more frequently or more preposterously lied about than the Jews?

I don’t ask that in expectation of sympathy. It’s perversely flattering to excite the sort of malign curiosity that cannot be satisfied by what’s observably true. But there’s also been a heavy price to pay for being a figment of such superstitious fear and loathing that even the presence of Jews isn’t necessary for fear and loathing to take root and flourish. Distant hearsay can be enough. …

… [F]olklore hasn’t quite given up on the figure of the Wandering Jew, cursed to roam the earth homeless as punishment for taunting Jesus on the way to the crucifixion. Long before academic anti-Zionists began to call for the expulsion of Israelis from Israel, Luther had posited their eternal exile as an expression, sanctioned by God, of their vagabondage of soul. And as for the Jew as companion of the devil, not to say the devil himself, I can personally vouch for the tenacity of that superstition, as more than one of my schoolfellows have asked—in Prestwich, north Manchester, England, 1954—if I would show them what remained of my tail.

Regarding the Blood Libel, the malicious medieval defamation that told of Jews kidnapping and killing Gentile children for their blood, either to add zest to matzah or to replenish the blood of male Jews who menstruated profusely as a consequence of circumcision—another fantasy, too lurid and deranged to be simply called a falsehood—it too has resurfaced in recent years, determining the way the deaths of Palestinian children in the latest Gaza war have been presented as the result of Israel Defense Forces soldiers killing little ones “for sport” and laughing as they do so. No footage of such vile behavior exists, of course. I myself was widely misreported as arguing, in a piece in the [London] Observer a couple of years ago, that the press should cover up all word of such deaths. In fact, I argued for no such thing, nor would the left-leaning Observer have printed the piece had its staff thought that was my meaning. My target was the narrative strategy of the BBC and other news outlets, in which nine stories out of 10 led with the latest death count of Palestinian children—too cruel had they been even a quarter true, but which time and again proved unverifiable.

The charge of genocide leveled at Israel, a charge that invariably comes with the pseudo-authoritative definite article—the genocide, to muffle dissent and to rejig the hierarchy of genocides in favor of Israel’s victims—could be said to be the biggest lie of all.

And an extremely successful lie, at that. On the left in the 2026 election in the US, it is almost required that a Democrat candidate support the claim. The right – or the former right, such as Tucker Carlson – has its adherents, as well.

Powerline has this post of remembrance. The stories remain heartbreaking, just like the 9/11 stories. But there is no going back and undoing what happened. The only way is to go forward. But how to do that in the face of the remarkable moral inversion of much of the world? Here is a comment there which deals with that question:

The most stunning thing to me is the response of Western Civilization to the horrendous Satanic acts of Hamas on October 7th. In a functional, optimistic and honorable civilization, our collective response should have been total commitment to the eradication of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamism in general. Sadly, the opposite has happened. Many (mostly European) countries have doubled down on Jew hatred, admiration for the sub-human “palestinian cause” and total fecklessness in the face of their suicidal choices of importing millions of proto-terrorists into their own countries.

Israel and the United States of America* have stood virtually alone against the creeping scourge of “submission”.

And there’s this, on Britain’s Green Party:

‘Tell me what you accuse the Jews of [and] I’ll tell you what you are guilty of’, said the great Soviet writer Vasily Grossman. Today, that grim, eternal truth was starkly illustrated by the Green Party’s passing of a motion saying ‘Zionism is Racism’. To throw around the word ‘racism’ even as you single out Jewish sovereignty as uniquely demonic, to pose as an enemy of bigotry even as you dream of the erasure of the world’s only Jewish state, takes moral duplicity to sickening new heights. In their snivelling whisperings about ‘racism’, these scumbags reveal their own.

It was at their conference in Brighton that the Green Party of England and Wales voted in favour of the ‘Zionism is Racism’ screed. The motion expressly defines the Greens as an ‘anti-Zionist party’. It says Zionism is a species of racial hatred, and will henceforth be ‘treated as any other form of racism’. Most obnoxiously of all, it commits the Greens to campaigning for the scrubbing of the Jewish nation from the face of the Earth. It calls for ‘the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital’. So no more Jewish homeland. No more tiny patch of land, a poxy 263 by 71 miles, for the Jews to call their own. All of it would disappear. Imagine accusing others of being ‘genocidal’ even as you agitate for the total dismantling of the ancestral kingdom of the Jews.

I have been meaning to post this interview with Dara Horn, who has written penetratingly on Jew-hatred and what is actually behind it. Now seems like a good time to recommend watching it. A great many people have tackled that topic, to be sure. But I’m especially impressed with her insight:

The post On the third anniversary of 10/7 appeared first on The New Neo.

The Pentagon announced Monday night that Nidal Malik Hasan, 56, better known as the Fort Hood shooter, will be executed by a U.S. Army firing squad on a date to be determined by the Secretary of the Army.

The former Army major and psychiatrist fatally shot 13 unarmed U.S. soldiers and wounded 32 others during a deadly rampage on Nov. 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas. He shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the massacre.

The shootings occurred inside a crowded medical building where soldiers preparing to deploy were waiting for medical exams and vaccinations.

It was the deadliest non-combat attack ever on an American military base.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced on X that “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan.”

The original recommendation when he was sentenced was for the death penalty.

Hasan was a terrorist act waiting to happen:

Retired Colonel Terry Lee, after working with Hasan, recalled the fatal shooting of two recruiters in Little Rock, Arkansas, greatly affected Hasan. Lee told Fox News that Hasan made “outlandish” statements against the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, reportedly saying that “the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor”, referring to American soldiers. Hasan expressed hope U.S. president Barack Obama would withdraw troops. He was frequently agitated and argumentative with other Army personnel.

Despite these problems, in May 2009, Hasan was promoted to major. In July 2009 he was transferred to Darnall Army Medical Center in Fort Hood, Texas, moving into the city of Killeen. Two weeks later, he lawfully purchased an FN Five-seven handgun. Prior to his transfer, Hasan had received a ‘poor performance’ evaluation from supervisors and medical faculty. Despite concerns, his former boss, Lt. Col. Ben Phillips, graded his performance as “outstanding”.

Why is he still alive? This:

Due to mandatory appeals and the military’s historical reluctance to execute convicts, USA Today noted in 2019 that an execution would still be years away.

My guess is that Hasan would just as soon be executed and that he would consider it martyrdom.

The post Nidal Hasan: the wheels of justice grind slow appeared first on The New Neo.

According to the officials, al-Hammami began his attempt to seize control of the aircraft only after it reached Jordanian airspace because he intended to continue toward Israel as though the flight were making a normal landing at Ben Gurion Airport, then crash the plane into the airport.

If he was unable to reach Ben Gurion, investigators believe al-Hammami planned to crash the aircraft into a U.S. military base in Jordan.

The investigation also found that the Omani pilot had planned to carry out the attack as early as July but postponed it because of a personal connection with one of the crew members aboard his flight at the time, deciding to “spare him” and wait for another opportunity.

Nice guy.

Note that the heroic passengers on the FlyDubai plane felt that some of the crew members were acting suspiciously, as though they might be in league with or at least sympathetic to the terrorist.

When a person is willing and even eager to martry him/herself, the sky’s the limit for the destruction possible. That is one of the main reasons Islam, with its emphasis on the rewards of martyrdom, is so potentially dangerous. Israel had gotten careless in letting others do the vetting:

“I searched and checked which company flies to Tel Aviv, and that’s why I chose flydubai,” he was quoted as saying. “I tried to get accepted by all the airlines. I planned the operation even before I was hired by the company.”

Earlier Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced a review of the security arrangements governing foreign civil aviation to Israel, following scrutiny of security gaps exposed by the incident.

It really was nothing short of a miracle that this plane and all its passengers were saved.

There’s an opportunity to close those gaps. And the problem isn’t limited to Israel or the Middle East. Jihadi pilots or and/or crew are possible anywhere, and with that ax in the cockpit – which I assume is standard equipment – the opportunity to do damage to a non-jihadi pilot is there.

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The story:

Christa Pike, now 50, has been in prison since she was 18 years old over the murder 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. She wasn’t the only one found guilty — but she is the only one who ended up on death row.

According to the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Slemmer was a 19-year-old Job Corps participant when she was tortured and murdered behind the agriculture campus steam plant on January 12, 1995. Pike and two others — 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson — were also involved.

Shipp – who was Pike’s boyfriend at the time – was found guilty but because he was 17 years old he was ineligible for the death penalty. Pike was 18 and received the death penalty. Peterson – also 18 – is alleged to have been the lookout, and agreed to testify against the other two:

However, Peterson, who was initially indicted on a first-degree murder count, cooperated with police and entered a guilty plea to an information charge of being an accessory after the first-degree murder, according to Knox News.

Where is Shadolla Peterson now?
In exchange for testifying against Pike and Shipp, Peterson received 460 days in jail and a six-year probation sentence.

Pike was the only white defendant; the other two are black. Did this factor into the decision? I have no way of knowing, but the differing sentences seem to have more to do with the different ages of Shipp and Pike, plus Peterson’s cooperation.

Does this differential treatment based on one year of age bother you at all? It bothers me. In addition, most of the coverage till now has maintained that it was Christa Pike who carved a tetragram into the victim. But this is apparently untrue; in a post-conviction hearing, Shipp confessed to doing it.

Legally, it doesn’t much matter. They could all be argued to have been guilty of felony murder, including Peterson, had the prosecutors wanted to treat the perps that way. But I assume they needed Peterson’s testimony to convict the others, and let her walk.

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