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Murder-Suicide at Episcopal High School

My Facebook feed has been filled with postings about the tragic shooting at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, FL.  Even though I didn't know many people or families from Episcopal, the news of this shooting cuts especially close to home.  I went to high school at the Bolles School, which is located across the street from Episcopal HS.  Even though I'm sitting at my desk in another country (Toronto, ON), a big part of me will always consider Jacksonville a "second home."  Tonight, my thoughts and prayers go out to families suffering in the wake of this tragedy.

CNN reports that Shane Schumerth, a 28-year old former employee at Episcopal HS, shot and killed Dale Regan, the school's headmistress.  Reports suggest that Schumerth was fired today.  After learning of his termination, reports say that he returned to his car, grabbed a rifle, and then killed Regan, before killing himself.

Reports are really thin at this point, but the reporting makes me think of a classic sociological lesson from Jack Katz's Seductions of Crime.  This book is brimming with insights.  (on a sidenote: I wanted to teach it in my Crime and Deviance course this year, but Basic Books reported that they did not have enough copies in print.  Maybe it's time for this book to get reprinted into a new 2nd edition?)

 Shame often precedes violence
Anyways, if the reports are correct, it seems like Schumerth killed Regan and himself when emotions were still running high.  In his chapter on "Righteous Slaughter," Katz observes that people who commit homicide experience feelings of intense shame before they become violent.  At a certain point in this process, individuals come to see extreme forms of violence as the only way for them to save face.  This general emotional pattern emerges in a variety of different slayings, and from my casual guess, may very well be part of what happened at Episcopal.

HR departments have long been invested in finding the best way to let someone go from a job.  No matter the circumstances, losing one's job is an incredibly stressful process, particularly in the current state of the economy.  I'm not sure what ideas people may have after this shooting, but I wonder if there are certain termination procedures that make a difficult situation that much worse?  What can we learn about the firing process from this and other extreme events that result in tragedy?

I also wonder if Schumerth had a history of mental health problems?  These issues are difficult to discover--particularly if someone is not forthcoming about their illness--but might also be an important area to explore for schools, organizations, and other workplaces that are in the midst of trimming their staff and payroll.

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