Lawrence Hall, HSG
11 March 2024
“Help Me”
Murderer Ethan Crumbley scribbled “Help Me” on a geometry paper [Counselor who allowed school shooter Ethan Crumbley to stay in class despite drawing guns and threats says he thought it would be 'better' for him to be around students than alone after his parents refused to take him home | Daily Mail Online]. Many have inferred that this was that now ubiquitous “cry for help” employed as an excuse for all sorts of violent behavior, and that those who allegedly ignored this one of all the many cries for help are thus guilty of murder themselves and should be imprisoned or even executed.
There are three flaws in this conclusion:
1. That every complaint, whine, resistance, tantrum, protest, or scribble issuing forth from the mouth or pen of an unhappy person is an absolute moral, ethical, and legal imperative for every other human on this planet to shut down all economic, legal, cultural, artistic, and domestic activities until the complainant’s perceived needs are addressed.
2. That every man and woman who fails to read the minds of others or notice any of those famous “red flags” in the behaviors of others should be imprisoned or executed.
3. That Ethan Crumbley was not given help.
I wish to address item 3.
Ethan Crumbley wrote “My life is useless” (and it was; he chose to make it so), “The world is dead,” and “Blood everywhere,” along with foolish adolescent drawings, on a geometry handout on congruent triangles given to him and every other young person in his class as a review in preparation for a coming exam. A look at the exercises and at the vocabulary in the reason bank at the top right of the paper indicates that the instruction offered Ethan Crumbley was of a high level.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through, among other things, a high-expectation mathematics class to help him prepare for a useful, productive, and happy life not only through the immediate mastery of the needful science of mathematics but in extending those challenging lessons in problem-solving and logical thinking into all other fields of human endeavor. A Uyghur teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through the provision of a warm, well-ventilated, well-lit place to learn. A Ukrainian teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through the offer of a hot meal at school every day. A Haitian teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help, through his school, church, and community, with opportunities for cultural and charitable activities in music, dance, informal prayer meetings, fellowship, athletics, art programs, Boy Scouts, theatre programs, science clubs, roadside litter pickups, food drives for the poor for Thanksgiving, Christmas toy drives for the poor, nursing home visits for shut-ins, and other programs. A Communist Chinese teenager working long hours and with bleeding fingers to make junk for the amusement of Americans and the enrichment of Beijing oligarchs would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through association with hundreds of other young people from diverse backgrounds and with all sorts of wonderful goals. The young, like adults, are not always likeable. Welcome to reality, kid. Deal with it. A Venezuelan teenager in the streets with no school and no hope and no supportive peers would envy him all those happy possibilities.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through a world of books, music, dance, cinema, parks, after-school jobs, healthy recreation, youth clubs, and volunteer service to people young and old who could have used his help and kindness. But in the end Ethan Crumbley found nothing more interesting in life than his own sulky self-pity.
Ethan Crumbley’s parents, like the leaders of a drug
cartel, didn’t help at all; they gave him a semi-automatic 9mm pistol.
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