Thursday, January 22, 2009
Student Decapitated at Virginia Tech
Source: AOL News
BLACKSBURG, Va. (Jan. 21) — A graduate student (Xin Yang) from China was decapitated with a kitchen knife in a campus cafe at Virginia Tech by another graduate student who knew her, police said on Thursday.
This article reports on an incident which took place a day after U.S President Barack Obama's historic inauguration . Virginia Tech, site of the deadliest shooting incident in US history, has suffered yet another on-campus tragedy which would no doubt revive the horrors of April 2007.
Before delving further into personal opinions, let us first quickly examine the article starting from the headlines. By including the name of the school and the means of death, it will no doubt capture the attention of most readers by either drawing upon their previous knowledge of the Virginia Tech Massacre, or interest in the unusual means of death. Compare the current headlines to "Student killed at US College" for example, there is no dispute as to which is more informative and eye-catching: a key point to constructing a good article.
Moving on to the main article, apart from providing details about the incident and brief backgrounds of the victim and alleged killer, the inclusion of quotes from public authority figures help lend an air of credibility to the article. This could be seen as a method for winning over public trust through substantiation of the facts provided. The second part of the article addresses the actions taken to deal with the case, such as the suspect being apprehended by the police as well as a mention of the campus alert system, throwing a positive light on efforts taken to minimize casualty rate. Condolences are also offered by the Virginia Governor, and in this context, his reference to the massacre in April 2007 is only natural and justified.
Being a relatively new student myself, it is indeed heart-wrenching to hear of others embarking on a new journey of knowledge and discovery only to be halted in cold blood. One laments the loss of an innocent human life and the grief felt by those who knew Xin Yang must be unbearable. According to the article, the victim and suspect were not arguing prior to the decapitation, nor was the suspect known to the university to be mentally unsound and this makes the brutality of the murder all the more astounding. Three immediate questions that come to mind are :
1) Why did none of the witnesses react to stop the assault ?
2) A huge debate regarding firearms legislation was raised following the Virginia Tech Massacre. However, in this case, a kitchen knife was used as the murder weapon. Given the arsenal of everyday items that can be used to snuff out a human life, is there no way then, to ensure the safety of the students on-campus ?
3) The instigators of both the massacre and decapitation were all asian. How will this consequently affect the perception of Americans towards asians in general ?
Hopefully, subsequent investigations will shed light on the case and may justice be done.
9 comments:
it is truly saddening to see students having to resort to such violent methods of resolving issues. the perpetrators of these Virginia Tech incidents were probably under tremendous psychological stress but it is hard to imagine what might have led them to such acts of violence.
I have just discussed this over my CNY Reunion dinner. Weird? But it's true, is it not surprising that such things are happening over and over again? Despite the very fact that you are educated does not seem to prevent one from falling to the side of insanity.
There has been no evidence now, as to why he has done what he did and apparently no reason at all pointing to exactly why he do so. But all evidence points toward that he has apparently prepared to do so.
Some people will say it's money, some people will say it's love. No matter the case, it's too late now. No one probably had the chance to react to someone slicing off other's head from a distance so i seriously doubt any witnesses could do anything...
Anything can kill when it's insanity that takes over, especially one person who seeks to kill and not to escape. Then anything could be a weapon since he will not want to throw it away.
In my point of view, asians or not, the place seems to be a bad one. Twice in a row it has to happen and to international students too... perhaps the stress level is too high... or the times is really really bad...
Apart from not having much time to react to someone slicing off other's head from a distance, I guess the witnesses were also afraid that they might become the victims themselves if they stepped in.
As for the safety on campus.. if the person is set out to kill, then anything can be a weapon, even a simple pen or a metal ruler.
Hopefully these killings will never happen again.. :(
With asians being a minority group over there, I guess it stands out a lot more when they commit a crime, perhaps even due to media highlight.
not a pessimist by nature, but i feel that nothing can be done to prevent such murders from happening. esp not so when carrying firearms around for them is likened to having tissue in our bags. anything can be used as a murder weapon, as you have pointed out.
the only thing that the sch authority can do to prevent such tragedy from repeating itself is to drill into the students' mind to lend a helping hand if they are to witness such brutality taking place. u will get to learn in psychology that even when a murder case happens right in front of a group of people, no one might lift a finger to help. this is called the diffusion of responsibility. "ehhh i dont help never mind la, the person beside me will help. anyway he also saw it mar!" this is the kind of mentality we are talking abt here. the school needs to do something about this mindset, esp when virginia tech already has such reputation.
and i presume that the issue of discrimination against asians might worsen after this murder episode.. it's just like how the Americans are more wary of Islams after the 9/11 case.
and who knows.. maybe chinese chinese have second thoughts abt going overseas for studies or work alr... just look at Singapore and count how many chinese chinese are decapitated or murdered over here... >____<
kakaka.
"1) Why did none of the witnesses react to stop the assault ?"
Self-Centered?
"2) A huge debate regarding firearms legislation was raised following the Virginia Tech Massacre. However, in this case, a kitchen knife was used as the murder weapon. Given the arsenal of everyday items that can be used to snuff out a human life, is there no way then, to ensure the safety of the students on-campus ?
"
Instead of having an emergency measure like mass-messaging upon the incident. I feel that taking precautionary measures like checking up on the student's background and a thorough interview would be more appropriate. But... I think its illegal in United States to snoop on peoples' personal info.
"3) The instigators of both the massacre and decapitation were all Asian. How will this consequently affect the perception of Americans towards Asians in general ?"
We Asians would probably be perceived negatively by stereotypical people for a while, I guess this is inevitable.
After reading the article,I had mixed feelings. I pitied the parents of the undergraduate and at the same time felt blessed to be living in Singapore.
Yes, a thorough interview (Then again, it would be intimidating from a prospective student's pov) and change of the peoples' mindset might go a long way in preventing future incidents.
Still, I hope that asians would not get discriminated since most of them there are innocent and only focused on their studies.
it takes alot of courage to stop someone in the midst of decapitating another
life is fragile. there is no way to ensure our own safety anywhere, not to mention on-campus
it is tough for asians to study overseas esp in western countries.. there would be some discrimination..
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