Reply to Would-Be Wootton Mass Shooter Found Guilty of Threat of Mass Violence

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So, will they get prison for life?[/quote]

No, nor should he. Ye was a minor when he wrote the "manifesto" and was already in treatment for what appears to be pretty significant mental illness. With time and treatment, and given that no acts of violence were actually committed, there is a good chance he can be a functioning member of our community again.

Oh stop it

MCPS did a great job with this,

My child was at Virginia Tech when their Mass shouting occurred. Fairfax county and VT did a crap job. 
In a lot of ways, this is a best case scenario. From the reporting, it seems Ye was already in a residential therapeutic setting when the "book" was discovered, and had disclosed the plans to a HS counselor.

So here we have a young person essentially asking for help, school officials correctly identifying a real threat and taking action, and parents willing to fight for residential placement. Not to mention a lack of readily available weapons.

Think about the school shootings that did happen, all of the times school authorities brushed off a threat, or parents resisted treatment, or kept firearms in the home.

I know this is scary, but it's actually kind of a model case for what happens when the system works. [/quote]

This only did not become a big news story since the parents don't own guns. I can imagine what would have happened if they did. This person needs to be in a psych facility and monitored and hopefully will not acquire a gun ever.

[/quote]

The part that's NOT being reported on in the press, is the extent to which Alex's parents used their wealth, privilege and the medical system to shield their child from the consequences of their dangerous behavior, allowing them to continue school through virtual school rather than forcing them to go to an alternative school or facing expulsion, as certainly would have been the case if they were lower income and Black or Hispanic. MCPS was complicit in this.[/quote][/quote]

So how would rich Black and Hispanic do differently?[/quote]

This is a good question and certainly points to the fact that class was in play here. My child knew Alex a little bit, and so I've followed the case with interest. Money is what allowed the parents to get Alex into treatment, not race. It's also what allowed them to support at-home learning, which MCPS was at the time offering to a lot of kids who might otherwise be attending in-person alternative placements.

Expulsion was never on the table, regardless of class and race, because MCPS just doesn't expel kids in the absence of an actual act.

But, yes, it's bad that only UMC families can afford the kind of intensive care that Alex was getting, but it's not an indictment of the parents - it's an indictment of the US mental health care system. [/quote]

The so-called "intensive care" Ye was receiving didn't work. The expensive care and psychiatrists were merely an expensive shield his parents bought to protect him from the consequences of his actions.[/quote]

You seem to have some sort of axe to grind against this family, who by all appearances is dealing with a horrific situation. Alex disclosed these threats while already under intensive supervision/care, which makes it clear that the psychiatric support he was receiving was not just an "expensive shield."

Is this some sort of anti-Asian thing on your part? Yeah, mental health crises are terrible, and time-consuming, and sometimes resistant to treatment. That doesn't make a person untreatable, nor does it make a family bad because a member has a mental ilness. [/quote]

I have no anti-Asian biases. I am in favor of two things:

1) [b]The safety and wellbeing of students and staff.[/b] Ye threatened that, and then when exposed, Ye and their parents knowingly lied and pretended the manifesto was just fiction and not an actual threat to the MCPS schools named. Thankfully, a judge did not buy that garbage and Ye is facing prison time, but that line of defense tells you that Ye and his family are not holding themselves accountable and looking to see what they can get away with.

2) [b]Fair and equitable treatment.[/b] If Ye was not UMC and Asian, this story would have gone very differently. White and Asian students are not suspended at the same level for the same infractions as their Black and Hispanic counterparts. If Ye was a Black or Hispanic student, MCPS would not have been as accommodating and supportive with alternative arrangements and probably would have pursued expulsion and punitive consequences more aggressively. You don't have to take my word for it. There are reams of data and reports that back up the disparities in suspension and expulsion between White & Asian students versus Black and Brown kids in the state of Maryland.[/quote]

I actually do think you're very biased. There was no violence committed, and the parents were doing their best to care of their child - of course they're going to argue in court in defense of their child, they want to get their child psychiatric care, not prison, otherwise he won't get any better. You would do the same if your sick child's wellbeing was at stake. It's because the parents were so open that investigators were able to find so much!

At my kids' high school, most perpetrators of violence are not white or asian, and they get off scot-free with a slap on the hand, even when they give a concussion to the guard or punch the Principal. They get to return to school pretty quickly, even after being seen with an airgun at school, or firing an actual gun outside of school. You have no idea how much kids get away with in MCPS!!!

And I reject your notion that punishment falls disproportionately on black and brown students because of race. It's because of poverty. Low-income kids often don't live in stable homes and can more easily fall in with the criminal types. Low-income kids are mostly black and brown. Hence the numbers of black and brown kids misbehaving in school. They're not specifically targeted. That's the socio-economic breakdown, PP. [/quote]

The parents are NOT doing their best. A friend is neighbors with them and said they did not want Alex to get psych treatment because they were worried about how it would be reflected on their record when they wanted Alex to start applying for Ivy's.   If the mental health professionals had not stepped in and basically forced Alex into an in-patient facility, the parents would have likely done nothing and this could have been so much worse. [/quote]

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