Comments by a Rambling Wreck about the killing on the Georgia Tech Campus

First let me say, the riot on campus last night was staged by outside agitators, intent on provoking violence. That is not how angry Tech students vent their wrath. Tech students would have built a robot in the shape of a 30 feet long Godzilla and dispatched him toward the Campus Police station, while they ate pizza and watched re-runs of Star Trek. Well, while I was at Tech, my fraternity built a giant catapult, hidden inside the mechanical room on top of our frat house. It lobbed rotten eggs at a fraternity house several blocks away, who had offended us.

It is clear now that the tragic death of a 21 year old Georgia Tech student was a case of "suicide by cop." The young man wrote three suicide notes then called 911 to say that there was a deranged man walking around the Georgia Tech Campus with a knife and a gun. He then began to walk around campus like a zombie, carrying only a unopened utility knife. He never threatened anyone, but obviously had experienced a mental breakdown. When ordered repeatedly to drop the utility knife, he didn't.

The Georgia Tech law enforcement officer aimed at the young man's heart and hit it. The student screamed in agony for almost a minute before dying.

This would have NEVER happened at Georgia Tech when I was a student there, even though, there was no such thing as a TASER then. In fact, we had more problems back then because the drinking age was 18 and the university system allowed excess consumption of alcoholic beverages in public, at parties and even at football games. We did periodically have violent, belligerent students and non-students provoking dangerous problems on campus. Some would be armed with broken beer bottles, boards, rocks or sticks. All were swinging their fists and acting aggressive towards passersby.

The most common approach back then was for campus cops to walk along at a distance with the belligerent person and talk calmly with him or her, until he or she settled down. In most cases, the person would start crying . . . either about being dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend . . . or else flunking a class. Such things do not deserve the death sentence.

There was NO NEED for use of a gun or a Taser in this case. For decades, companies have manufactured net guns for incapacitating lions, tigers and jaguars. Inexpensive ones have a range of 50 feet.

Why are law enforcement agencies using high powered fire arms and Tasers instead of net guns on mentally deranged people? Well, there is big money to be made by corporations on those guns and Tasers. The manufacturers of such expensive weapons use lobbyists and salesmen to prevent the public and law enforcement agencies from even thinking about net guns. Mentally ill persons and their grieving families are paying the cost of militarized law enforcement with increasing frequency. It is not a "racial" thing. Most of the notorious, recent killings of unarmed mentally ill persons in Georgia had Caucasian victims.

When a society has degenerated to the point where violent death is the solution to any anti-social or abnormal behavior . . . it is a doomed society.