Common Sense

That’s right, 40 years ago today Charles Whitman massacred people from the observation deck of the tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus before finally being taken down by a cop.

The Statesman has a really good series of stories, from a retelling of the tale, to an interview with Houston McCoy, the officer who shot Whitman and ended the madness, complete with audio and video.

Looking into Whitman’s life is kind of disturbing. He kept a daily journal but it was so banal and non-introspective that it seems eerie. He professed to love his wife and so he stabbed her to death with his bayonet. Things that are just chilling. At least with Columbine or other massacres, there seems to be an obvious ‘why’ that seems a conspicuously absent from the Whitman murders.

Maybe it was because of his father and his childhood. Maybe David Koresh led all his followers to a horrible death because he really thought he was Jesus. Maybe people just shoot other people for no reason sometimes.

That’s right, 40 years ago today Charles Whitman massacred people from the observation deck of the tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus before finally being taken down by a cop.

The Statesman has a really good series of stories, from a retelling of the tale, to an interview with Houston McCoy, the officer who shot Whitman and ended the madness, complete with audio and video.

Looking into Whitman’s life is kind of disturbing. He kept a daily journal but it was so banal and non-introspective that it seems eerie. He professed to love his wife and so he stabbed her to death with his bayonet. Things that are just chilling. At least with Columbine or other massacres, there seems to be an obvious ‘why’ that seems a conspicuously absent from the Whitman murders.

Maybe it was because of his father and his childhood. Maybe David Koresh led all his followers to a horrible death because he really thought he was Jesus. Maybe people just shoot other people for no reason sometimes.