I don't even know where to start

[sabotabby]

Greyhound beheading.

No really, I'm just making all sort of horrified noises right now. Poor kid. Poor everyone-else-who-saw-that, including children who'll probably be in therapy for the rest of their lives.

I wish I had something intelligent to say, but as far as I can tell, this was just random and senseless.

Comments

[febrile.livejournal.com]

Well ain't that cheery?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's horrifying.

Random and senseless are the words.

Fuck.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

I sort of stared at troubleinchina's post this morning, blinked, clicked the links, stared, blinked, stared ...

The huh?

Yeah. Poor ... everyone.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

You know, I thought when I read the link saying "Greyhound beheading" that some heartless bastard had decapitated a dog in front of kids. And that would probably mess them up quite a bit too.

And now I read it and I'm, like, THE HELL. Jesus F. Christ. I have no words.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

Me too! This is far, far worse than what I imagined.

(And eek! my SO is riding back here on Greyhound tomorrow night...)

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I know that I won't be able to tell you adequately not to worry, but try not to worry: nineteen million people ride Greyhound every year. I am so going to hush my complaining if they ever get in late or anything in future.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my brain knows everything will be fine. But I am prone to worrying about these sorts of things anyway. I doubt it will affect me that much, but I will worry no matter what.

The only problem I've had on Greyhound is random dudes trying to pick me up. But the rest of the time, I felt safe.

[una-m.livejournal.com]

Ditto except make mine the alternate driver trying to pick me up.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I thought too. Then I read the comments.

I am not going to read the news item itself. Just... no.

[tanyahp.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought too. Both would be traumatic, but I think this is a little more traumatic.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

Caton described the attacker as surprisingly calm. "It was like he was at the beach or something. There was no rage in him. He wasn't swearing or cursing or anything. It was just like he was a robot or something."

Maybe he can do a correspondence course in analytic philosophy from prison.

[sabotabby]

It's bad that I giggled at that. Very, very bad.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

haha

[apperception.livejournal.com]

You know that wasn't even an "afterthought" when I read the article. I thought it within two seconds of reading that sentence.

[funnel101.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing this is not something I want to read...

[sabotabby]

I wish I hadn't, but it's all over the news here.

[starborn-scribe.livejournal.com]

*stares*

I have a greyhound. I'm so not following that link. Would someone please tell me one thing? Did some nutjob literally behead a greyhound?

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

It's actually Greyhound bus lines. But I wouldn't follow it anyway. Horrible story!

[starborn-scribe.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. 'Nuff said.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

(I wouldn't ordinarily say things like this but:)
I like greyhounds. Please hug your greyhound for me.

[starborn-scribe.livejournal.com]

Will do. :)

[squirtlle.livejournal.com]

holy crap.

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

Questioned about whether weapons regulations should be put into place for buses, Day said it would be premature to look at such precautionary measures...

Yeah, after all it's not like not allowing knives on the bus would have prevented this kid from getting stabbed or anything. And what about all the legitimate non-assault-related reasons you might need fucking weapons while you're travelling.

I'm on a Greyhound in around 36 hrs. I don't imagine the vibe will be too serene.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Don't you know someone's going to jump out in a few seconds and say that had someone on the bus been allowed to carry an AK-47 this could all have been averted.

[joxn.livejournal.com]

It's one thing to say "no knives allowed on the bus" and another to enforce it. To be honest, I think a knife ban without a concomitant security state apparatus probably wouldn't have stopped this guy. And implementing a security state apparatus really would be a disproportionate response to the threat.

[thasolumn.livejournal.com]

The Greyhound rules (in the States, at least) clearly say no knives. When I traveled, I packed mine (multi-tool and 3' pocket knife) up in the bag that got put below the bus, but I very easily could have carried them on. Currently, the highest police presence at the stations I've been in is some hired or local guy going around telling people not to sleep on the benches. (Which is a whole other issue. If you make me wait in a station for 8 hours, I'm going to sleep. Neither of us have any say in it, it will just happen.) They'd have to dramatically alter every single station and bring in a massive security force to be able to enforce weapons rules.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, a bunch of us were seeing a friend off to another city on a Greyhound bus, and it was just after some shooting incident elsewhere or other. So they were making a great show of security. They'd put up those stretchy barriers around the station, and hired some square-badged goons to do weapons checks. So my friend goes off and has her bag searched, and of course they don't find anything, and then they transfer their attention to the next passenger and she wanders back and starts chatting with us again. I almost laughed out loud-- of course if she'd wanted to carry anything onto the bus someone could have slipped it to her then. If you're going to do it properly, the point is to require people who want to pass between an unsecure and a secure area to undergo the inspection, but I think they were far less concerned with doing it properly and far more concerned with making a big show.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

The drivers are now ensconsed in plexi cages, with a little saloon door that swings shut to seal them in. If you really wanted to do them harm you could easily aim a gun around or over one of the edges, but I think it might actually be hard to stab a g.hound bus driver to death since they put those in. Must have been some time in the last two years that those became standard equipment on greyhound busses, because I don't remember seeing them before that.

I"m less worried about some lunatic going HIghlander on me than I am about the bus blowing a fan belt again.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

They haven't become standard equipment in Canada yet... But I am sure now they will.

Too bad, chatting with drivers on long hauls helped keep them alert, I found during my days of coast-to-coast bus travel.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was just fucked up beyond words.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Fuck man...

I generally oppose the death penalty, but then something like this happens, and... Sometimes I question my stance.

Seriously, wtf? Really, what can you say?

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

What about this case makes you question your death penalty stance? I find that really surprising!

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

man when i rode a greyhound bus across the country once, the bus driver was explaining to me why no passengers in long haul desolate drives are allowed to sit directly behind the driver - all kinds of random attacks on the drivers, included an ATTEMPTED beheading.

[5-miles.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what to say. It upsets me that this happened where I live, Manitoba gets shit on enough already as it is, there doesn't need to be anymore fodder. Of course it upsets me more that this happened at all. I don't deal well with random acts of violence.
I actually logged on to LJ with the intention of mentioning to you that if you ever wanted to come to Winnipeg for a visit, you would have a place to stay, as well as to say that your journal (and maybe one or two others) is the only reason I am here anymore. Now it sounds kind of weird to say that, why would anyone ever want to come here? fuck.

[sabotabby]

Hey, don't say that! I don't know when I'll ever have a chance for a vacation, but certainly a random Greyhound murder wouldn't deter me.

[5-miles.livejournal.com]

That's good to hear. Maybe next summer?

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard Winnipeg is a frozen shithole

[5-miles.livejournal.com]

Is that for real? I don't listen to that band.
I realize I just made a slight disparaging comment about my province, but that guy sounds like a fucking cry baby. I find that most people who move away from here and talk so much shit about it are the type of people who are solely interested in making a tonne of money and think they can only do that in Toronto or Calgary. I don't really like those kinds of people anyway so I am glad they leave.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

It is. TBH, I don't find that EP very good anyways.

I think it was just him dealing with SAD, personally.

V-Snares is really fucking great (at least his later work, his earlier stuff is a bit simplistic and... repetitive.) Not sure what kind of music you like, but I bet you wouldn't like it, since you don't know of it. He's pretty much the king of this genre (breakcore).

But I highly recommend checking out "Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett" which is a fucking masterpiece, even if you don't like the rest of his crazy work.

In all honesty though, I really love the group formerly known as Manitoba (now Manitou). They're from Manitoba (not sure where), and are sort of a live electronic band. Don't know how to describe them. But I love them.

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

I am way to jaded. I blame Baltimore.

[billie0.livejournal.com]

This is the first thing I heard this morning. It's like it's out of a horror story. I haven't been able to get it out of my head all day.

[joyful-grrrl.livejournal.com]

holy shit! that's the first i've heard about it.

[una-m.livejournal.com]

Man, not even a month after my i-wanna-be-a-driver post? I don't think it was me, though people have called me "sir" for years now. /not funny

I'm guessing the victim probably was "random", as random as stranger murders ever can be; in the killer's very very disturbed head, something fit. I have no words, except I hope the killer is put away for life and is capable of feeling some remorse eventually. Too late for this victim obviously. God.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Undoubtedly the perpetrator was undergoing a psychotic episode; the voices told him to do it. Same as that guy who was acting normal before he pushed someone he'd never met before under an oncoming subway train. It happens distressingly often and nobody has any idea what to do about it.

[sabotabby]

I suspect that there are certain people who will just snap spontaneously, regardless of how good or bad circumstances are. People are already calling for the guy's head (probably a poor choice of words) but I doubt there's much that can predict or prevent these things.

[una-m.livejournal.com]

I dunno how much I believe in a "snap" any more, myself. I do believe there is a hell of a lot we can do to predict, if not necessarily prevent (especially in the cases of clever sociopaths; this guy, from the little I've read, strikes me more as suffering deeply from schizophrenia, just a guess). I've had to shape my own life in that belief the past few years, anyway, and so far I'm right a lot more often than I'm wrong. Have you read Gavin de Becker's "The Gift of Fear"? Good, scary, but very powerful and power-giving stuff.

[theoldanarchist.livejournal.com]

I saw this posted elsewhere, and I am just speechless.