Violence and Whitman

Charles Whitman was a young man who grew up in Texas in the 1950s. He was raised as a Catholic and eventually married in the Catholic Church. He was a hunter and an excellent shot, a skill he developed as a Boy Scout and Eagle Scout. He was tested in school with an IQ of 139. He graduated  from high school, joined the Marines and took courses in physics and math that would allow him to become a mechanical engineer. He was a gambler and lost a rank in the Marines because of it. He was always upset about the poor relationship between his parents; his father was a heavy drinker who abused his mother. Eventually his parents divorced, which upset him more. He got headaches. He began to worry about his own mental health and consulted a psychiatrist. There were a number of social factors in this man's life that could influence his happiness and he discussed these with the physician. He was trying to get help.

 

At one point he wrote this letter:

I do not quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts. These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and progressive tasks.

In his note, he went on to request an autopsy be performed on his remains after he was dead to determine if there had been a discernible biological contributory cause for his actions and for his continuing and increasingly intense headaches.

On August 1, 1966 Whittman killed his mother with a knife and then killed his wife the same way. He left notes praising both of them by their bodies. Then he took weapons to the tower at the University in Austin, killed three on his way to the top of the tower and then spent an hour and a half firing at people at random, killing an additional eleven, wounding another thirty-one, before being killed by police officers.

An autopsy was done which found an astrocytoma, a fatal brain tumor.

Here was a talented man from a disturbed background who seems to have been a victim of a serious disease, sought treatment and eventually  performed many savage and cruel acts that he himself did not understand. 

There are 300 million people in this country and the bell curve does not change.  

So someone on low end of the 3 standard deviation curve, would be .15% of the population. The population is 300 million; so .15% of the population would be .45 million people on the low end of the 3 standard deviation curve. 450,000 people.

And we seem to think with surveillance, guards and algorithms we can prevent these outbreaks.

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