Shooting in Reston

[Anonymous]

This is just a shout out to the two/three posters who discussed the de Becker book The Gift of Fear way, way back near the beginning of this thread. I ordered the book after reading your posts and the book arrived yesterday. I just finished it. You're right that it has a lot of merit, especially in context of this situation. Thank you for your discussion of the book so that I, and hopefully others, were able to learn from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:maybe stop speculating so much - much of what is being guessed at on this thread has already been answered by reputable sources. the FC Police have released the dispatcher's tape (WJLA). NOT the girl's 911 call, but the dispatcher relaying information from the girl's call to the police on scene and en route. The daughter called 911, and said her parents had been shot. As police arrive at the scene, an officer requested that the dispatcher tell the complainants to step out of the house with their hands up -- the dispatcher relayed that the caller said they are sending 10 year old male outside. The dispatcher than states "the caller is still upstairs with her boyfriend." At this point the officer stated, "shots fired." When asked to confirm, the officer replied, "yes." There is then a few seconds with officers asking if another officer is inside - he says, "yes," and something about "one down" - it is difficult to hear clearly. An officer states he is in the front door and asked where the other officer is. As that officer begins to say they are going to be upstairs on the second level, there is a muffled sound and as he continued talking, there is a longer muffled sound (reported to be the daughter screaming) and the officer states, "I think we have the shooter down." A few seconds later an officer says, "the shooter is 10-61." {best I can find that means dead}. There is then several minutes of back and forth of officers en route and then one asks the dispatcher to send a couple of units to "follow the ambulances to the hospital, Reston Hospital." Clearly it was chaotic as we now know Giampa was not dead, but critically injured. It is clear from the tape that the parents were both shot, the daughter called 911 while with her boyfriend upstairs, and Giampa was alive until the officers entered the house when he apparently shot himself.

so if you must, google, people, and stop wildly speculating - and spreading lies - about things that are now known.

and please stop second-guessing and demonizing the Frickers. They were clearly concerned, loving parents handling a deeply disturbing situation in their family the best they knew how. Almost everything in life can be done "better" with hindsight (think about how many times you've wished you'd handled something better).... but hindsight, by definition, is unavailable in the moment. None of you know the details of this situation, none of you know the steps they previously took or what they were thinking, none of you know the people involved or the particulars of their mental health and family situations. And none of you know how you would have handled it in the moment - and I hope none of you ever have to find that out.

Face it, there is no 35-second soundbite that will summarize and explain complicated human emotions and actions - get over it.

Now, let's all try to show our best humanity and give a deeply grieving family the dignity and space they deserve.

haters - don't bother responding as I won't bother to read your posts

Well said. Thank you for posting this and may the Frickers rest in peace.

+1000

Thank you for this. The posts second guessing and blaming the Frickers are disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Funeral was today and it was reported close to 800 attended.

[Anonymous]

Posted too soon. RIP.

A friend of his is trying to raise money for the kids. Noble idea, but we need to wait until we know more and make sure the daughter was totally innocent in this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Posted too soon. RIP.

A friend of his is trying to raise money for the kids. Noble idea, but we need to wait until we know more and make sure the daughter was totally innocent in this.

Seriously. For all we know, it might end up being the daughter's legal defense fund.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is just a shout out to the two/three posters who discussed the de Becker book The Gift of Fear way, way back near the beginning of this thread. I ordered the book after reading your posts and the book arrived yesterday. I just finished it. You're right that it has a lot of merit, especially in context of this situation. Thank you for your discussion of the book so that I, and hopefully others, were able to learn from it.

You're welcome! You should also read Protecting the Gift. I found both books very eye opening.

Signed,
One of the posters who got flamed for mentioning these very applicable books

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a shout out to the two/three posters who discussed the de Becker book The Gift of Fear way, way back near the beginning of this thread. I ordered the book after reading your posts and the book arrived yesterday. I just finished it. You're right that it has a lot of merit, especially in context of this situation. Thank you for your discussion of the book so that I, and hopefully others, were able to learn from it.

You're welcome! You should also read Protecting the Gift. I found both books very eye opening.

Signed,
One of the posters who got flamed for mentioning these very applicable books

And you didn’t find they made you more paranoid and anxious? I’m personally afraid to read them. I’m anxious to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is just a shout out to the two/three posters who discussed the de Becker book The Gift of Fear way, way back near the beginning of this thread. I ordered the book after reading your posts and the book arrived yesterday. I just finished it. You're right that it has a lot of merit, especially in context of this situation. Thank you for your discussion of the book so that I, and hopefully others, were able to learn from it.

It's a GREAT book!

Next take a look at this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Sheep-No-More-Awareness-Survival/dp/1682616045/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514682888&sr=8-1&keywords=sheep+no+more

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have installed a home alarm with window/door alarms and kept the code to myself. Also would have taken the phone away. My kid can hate me - that’s fine.

You sound like someone who hasn’t parented a mentally ill child. One of the scariest times I’ve had was when my son left his phone and then disappeared for hours. We rely on the phone to track him. Tactics that typically work may not be effective with kids who suffer from mental illness.

You are right, I haven’t. But the alarm would have gone in the DAY I first found that kid hidden in my house. And if a kid can’t be trusted out of the house alone, then the kid needs to be babysat. Like a 5 yo.

Not to blow your bubble but I had the alarm codes to my house from the time I was 16 and took the bus home. Unless you have your kid in expensive after-school activities or lessons or you yourself are at home 24/7, they need the code in order to open their own front door.

It sounds as though the girl had been taking a cab to/from school. Her mom had asked for an alarm system for the house as a Christmas present.

I tend to agree with the PP that I would have taken the phone away and put her on restriction the first time I discovered that she had snuck a boy into the house. Getting an alarm system installed would have been priority #1. But that is assuming that I knew about her sneaking the boy in the house. It's possible that the parents only recently found out that she had been doing that and simply had not had enough time to get an alarm system installed. They couldn't take the girl out of town for Christmas break because they already had guests on the way to visit them.

It is so easy to say "Well I would have done X,Y,Z differently".

True. i think from articles she knew he was sneaking in for a while. If that is true then i would have bought an alarm system myself and paid extra to have it installed rather than ask for an XMAS gift. They could afford it. I also would have taken the phone. Easy for me to say in retrospect and reporters don't always get the story right. Plus, this really is a worst case scenario. Unstable-highly unstable kids get dumped and can't handle it and do all sorts of problematic, but don't kill.

I bought this one:

https://simplisafe.com

Was to my house in a couple days, had it up and running in a couple hours - and I'm mechanically incompetent!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Funeral was today and it was reported close to 800 attended.

Police were at the house today as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a shout out to the two/three posters who discussed the de Becker book The Gift of Fear way, way back near the beginning of this thread. I ordered the book after reading your posts and the book arrived yesterday. I just finished it. You're right that it has a lot of merit, especially in context of this situation. Thank you for your discussion of the book so that I, and hopefully others, were able to learn from it.

You're welcome! You should also read Protecting the Gift. I found both books very eye opening.

Signed,
One of the posters who got flamed for mentioning these very applicable books

And you didn’t find they made you more paranoid and anxious? I’m personally afraid to read them. I’m anxious to begin with.

I'm the first poster. I'll be honest that I work with unstable and disturbed children so I was interested in finding a book that I could give to my children/friends/etc that would help them understand how to avoid escalating bad situations to achieve better outcomes. I've had quite a bit of hands-on experience and training but I'm not as good at synthesizing & presenting the information in in laymen's terms for friends/family in a way that they can find applicable and actionable.

I found the book had lots of very good, practical advice and sound reasoning. When I was done I passed the book off to one of my daughters (a high school senior) and she looked up a while ago to say that once you get over the topic it is quite reassuring to hear what you SHOULD do. So, PP, I think you might find it empowering rather than anxiety producing. I found that de Becker's writing style is very calm with no hyperbole, which was very helpful.

I highly recommend the book and I think you'll find it very useful, PP. In the meantime I will be checking out the other book, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a shout out to the two/three posters who discussed the de Becker book The Gift of Fear way, way back near the beginning of this thread. I ordered the book after reading your posts and the book arrived yesterday. I just finished it. You're right that it has a lot of merit, especially in context of this situation. Thank you for your discussion of the book so that I, and hopefully others, were able to learn from it.

It's a GREAT book!

Next take a look at this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Sheep-No-More-Awareness-Survival/dp/1682616045/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514682888&sr=8-1&keywords=sheep+no+more

Thank you! I will check this one out as well.

[Anonymous]

I think the Frickers did they best they could in an impossible situation. While at first I was taken aback by discussion of what they could have done differently, I now see the value of looking at this in retrospect and wondering how we could handle this if we are ever in a situation with a lunatic.

One issue besides the fact we now know he has mental illness is level of cognitive functioning. If it was low, it might make him more vulnerable to brainwashing. Plus, we don't how much anti-Semitism etc he was exposed to in his family and community. Maybe hate was taught at an early age. We also don't know if he has ever been abused, etc.

Thinking about mental health and cognitive abilities I might not label him crazy Nazi right away, but instead indicate he is showing scary red flags and I am concerned. I would insist my child breakup, but in addressing the parents of the boy I might tread lightly since we don't know their level of mental health. Share concerns, insist them must not continue dating and also say we are alerting them both to get their support in keeping him from visiting, but also because we wanted them to know because we know teens can take breakups very hard. I would also say I found these sites and think they are his, but unless I had proof I would not insist he is a neonazi.

I would contact the school and share facts and suspicions calmly, but also ask for a game plan as to how to keep him away from my daughter. I would also explore with them other options for school for my child and there may be none. Perhaps consider homeschooling for a few months as they adjust to the breakup. Are there other schools with as small a student teacher ratio as Dominion?

This whole approach may not have prevented this. It is MUCH easier to reason through AFTER you know he was indeed a psycho killer, but maybe we can benefit from figuring out other strategies because guns are easy to get and who knows if we might one day deal with a mentally ill teen with a gun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a shout out to the two/three posters who discussed the de Becker book The Gift of Fear way, way back near the beginning of this thread. I ordered the book after reading your posts and the book arrived yesterday. I just finished it. You're right that it has a lot of merit, especially in context of this situation. Thank you for your discussion of the book so that I, and hopefully others, were able to learn from it.

You're welcome! You should also read Protecting the Gift. I found both books very eye opening.

Signed,
One of the posters who got flamed for mentioning these very applicable books

And you didn’t find they made you more paranoid and anxious? I’m personally afraid to read them. I’m anxious to begin with.

It's 100% the opposite. Bought Gift of Fear and read it when he was on Oprah the first time (this was sometime in the mid-1990s, probably when the book was released). It completely changed the programming I was raised with and made me more confident across the board. Read them; you won't be sorry.

[Anonymous]

I am not sure where the children are now, but it seems the brother is seeking custody.


https://www.gofundme.com/fricker-family-fund