The Trigger Effect: A Tragedy at Georgia Tech

September 3, 2018 8:51 PM

What follows is a story of aftermath —of a community forced to navigate the emotional wreckage wrought by a wave of shock, anger, and confusion. Within a few weeks of Scout’s death, several of their friends were arrested. Within three months, two were dead. Now, almost a year after the shooting, the official narrative of the event is still being written. But by whom?

Content warnings for transphobia, police violence and suicide.

posted by storytam (31 comments total)

Thanks for this post.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:34 PM on September 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

That may be the best article I've ever read. I mean it. Storytam, I can't thank you enough for posting this.
posted by Krazor at 10:01 PM on September 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Such a sad, infuriating (as in "makes me furious") story. I'm rooting for the rest of the survivors. Thanks for sharing this, storytam.
posted by col_pogo at 12:36 AM on September 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Wow. Heartbreaking. And on top of it all, this gutpunch:

Among the items in the DA’s possession are Scout’s suicide notes. The Schultzes said that they haven’t had a chance to read them and won’t be able to until the DA is done with them.

Thank you for sharing this.
posted by Gordafarin at 5:34 AM on September 4, 2018

I'm curious as to the necessity to deadname Cassandra Monden. It could have read simply that she "was booked into the Fulton County Jail under her birth name".
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 5:53 AM on September 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Fuck Georgia Tech. Wow.
posted by Dysk at 6:11 AM on September 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

And the Georgia legislature, and police. Fuck every institution and office of power related to this story.
posted by Dysk at 6:15 AM on September 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

This is such a heartbreaking story. I haven't thought about my time at Georgia Tech for a while, and it was grad school so I was not really connected to the student community beyond those in my research group, but damn, I'm more than half tempted to send them my diploma back over the way they handled this.
posted by solotoro at 6:16 AM on September 4, 2018

I work at a college and I am sitting on campus now; I have nieces & a nephew in college now; my daughter is in college now. Reading this story (I only got partway through this morning before work) just....hollowed me out.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:22 AM on September 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thank you for sharing this.

. . .

<3 for Monden; I hope she comes through this all right.
posted by fraula at 6:24 AM on September 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

I kept highlighting things to copy and paste them here, and then losing it when I highlighted the next passage. It was all too much.

There’s a lot of evil in this article. There’s a lot of evil at Georgia Tech.

ETA: meaning the article describes, dispassionately but with sadness, a lot of evil in the part of administrators, police, and even some students. It’s heartbreaking.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:44 AM on September 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

I go to Georgia Tech. I was friends with all of these people. It made my heart stop to see this posted on the blue - it's both validating and deeply saddening to see this news being spread and condemned.

The opening of the new LGBT resource center was two weeks ago. All the Institute people stood and spoke and masturbated all over themselves about this new opening and threw in an "and we should honor Scout's memory" at the end. They didnt even mention Kirby (who I was very close to) or Dallas.

I haven't cried like I did then for months. I had to go away and sob. If it took my friends dying to get more resources, I'd rather have them still alive.

It was much worse in my first few years, before we had a resource center at all. Then, the student org handled everything on our own. Students who were questioning their sexuality, trans students trying to get resources (and if its shitty now, it was 1000 times worse back then, and it wasnt even that long ago), and mentally ill students who didnt know where to turn. My friends (including Kirby) and I got sucked into the vortex of codependency masquerading as "chosen family" that resulted from the lack of resources and support. I knew four people my freshman year alone who dropped out due to academic stress (a monster in itself) or issues related to being trans.

Kirby died on December 5th. Most people didn't know because she hadn't been a student for a little bit previous to her death, and it happened so close to the end of the semester. I feel like her death hasn't brought the institution under fire the same way, and it absolutely should, but for different reasons that are far too complicated to get into here.

Anyway, this got a little long. I'm back as a student again (unsurprisingly, all of these happenings did not lend themselves well to academics) and campus is a minefield of triggers. From my roommate's friends who called a trans woman "a drag" and made fun of her to the new LGBT center's inauguration, it haunts our whole little community. All I can hope for is the same codependency-vortex situation not happening again. We're rebuilding, I just hope it's enough.
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 9:10 AM on September 4, 2018 [76 favorites]

Sorry to double comment, but God it's bizarre to see something so personal and on my mind shared publicly. This is one hell of a traumaversary week, and I'm preparing to talk to my professors about setting up accommodations in case things get bad. Thankfully they all seem OK this semester.
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 9:25 AM on September 4, 2018 [21 favorites]

The prime thing I was struck with reading this (beyond the sadness and fury at it all) is how much of the evil in this story is the build up of institutional apathy and protectiveness. These kids are crying out for help and the best they get is platitudes and a cold indifference except for when it comes to protecting the institution at all cost.

The large body self-protective instinct is a real nasty piece of business humanity's going to have to solve if we're ever going to get better.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:32 AM on September 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Scruffy, I am so sorry. Hugs to you and your friends. You deserved better.

I think what struck me here, and often strikes me, is that police are so reliably lethal to interact with that "suicide by cop" is a thing you can plan on. That all you have to do to get a cop to kill you is refuse to obey an order (especially if you are not white).

And that this is so accepted. We accept that cops are trigger-happy, barely-contained, lethal killers that have no compunction about murdering someone even if (or especially if) they are clearly not in their right minds. We don't expect them to try and help people in distress or people acting oddly. Even though they, too, are people, and are ostensibly sworn to protect everyone, including the distressed and ill.

Scout needed help. It would have taken very little on the cop's part to help them. Instead the cops did as Scout asked, and killed them. And too many people, including cops, sleep easy at night about that.
posted by emjaybee at 9:41 AM on September 4, 2018 [36 favorites]

It's a known thing that suicide can be "catching." It's also a known thing that trans youth are at exceptionally high risk in any case. I wish the school had realized that, and gone into emergency mode to protect other students in Scout's circle of friends, and who were part of the same organizations. Perhaps other institutions will learn from this and formulate plans.
posted by Orlop at 10:06 AM on September 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

scruffy-looking nerfherder, thanks for sharing. Please do look into those accommodations. I know that if any student came to me with a similar situation I'd do everything I could to help. As it is, I'm thinking of you and your friends and wishing you all the best.

That said, Georgia Tech behaved so dreadfully, with the exception of a couple of allies mentioned among faculty and staff, that it must be difficult to reach out.

I also wonder how much the author of the linked piece, Hallie Lieberman, is risking by writing this. She's a non-tenure-track instructor, from what I can tell, which means she has next to no job security. I'm glad she took the risk, though, and I hope that the article helps shine some light on the university's (and many of its students') behavior in this story--and that any additional attention it brings doesn't retraumatize survivors.
posted by col_pogo at 10:52 AM on September 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

I am simply assuming that Lieberman is actively seeking employment elsewhere.
posted by zenon at 11:06 AM on September 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

It is troubling to me that "suicide by cop" deescalation training is not something covered in the academy. It is traumatizing to be used in this manner, and it is a horrifying thing for the community and your fellow cops to allow yourself to be used in this manner. It is a choice.
posted by domo at 11:57 AM on September 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

As a professor at a university, I’m full of horror and anger. I have plenty of angry hot takes, which I’m going to keep to myself out of respect for scruffy-looking nerfherder. I’d rather not risk dumping more on them. I see students I interact with every semester reflected here, and i can’t shake the feeling that it’s only by luck (and a shade better resources and policies, maybe) that these awful events were at Georgia Tech and not on my campus.

I’m so sorry, scruffy-looking nerfherder (and trans, non-binary, genderqueer, and queer students everywhere). As faculty and administrators, we have to do nearly infinitely better.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:12 PM on September 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

I'll echo other posters here in that these events and losses are heartbreaking.
posted by Squeak Attack at 12:14 PM on September 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm curious as to the necessity to deadname Cassandra Monden.

Probably because cis journalists consistently kind of suck at writing about trans people and are too insensitive or ignorant to realise why they shouldn't do things like that?
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:09 PM on September 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

GenjiAndProust, no, please rant. I don't feel like we get much perspective from employees of other institutions, and hearing everyone's thoughts here has been really eye-opening to me. Plus, the rage is totally real - rant away.
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 6:57 PM on September 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I graduated from UC Davis juuuuust before the infamous pepper spray incident, in which a cop liberally applied a fire-extinguisher-sized can of pepper spray to a line of sitting, peaceful protestors. Many of the protestors came from the Davis co-op community, and were people I knew well. And many of us had been involved the previous year in protests over massive tuition increases, and in a long, arduous effort to save the most iconic of our on-campus cooperative housing. That effort included a sit-in at the admin building, in which police helicopters landed a swat team in the upper levels... you know, just in case? One girl was pushed by a police officer at a rally, and put out her hands to steady herself, which happened to fall on a cop. She was then beaten and arrested.

It was a scene with a lot of parallels to what I see in this story: A weirdly corporatized university, all too happy to lean on a pointlessly militarized campus police force and surveillance. In the UC Davis case, the university spent millions of dollars on PR and online 'reputation management' services specifically to cover up the pepper spray thing. The chancellor was forced to step down, after taking a lucrative side gig with DeVry (a for-profit university, which was under investigation at the time for shady practices... and gave us betsy devos, current education cabinet member!), and all of the rep-management spending became public.

Universities are a place where extremely-careerist people come into constant contact with adults who have not yet had their ideals ground away. Most grown-up work places probably have a few idealists; universities, by their nature, have lots. The admins act like they're the 'adults' in the situation, refusing to acknowledge that everyone involved is an adult. They don't recognize that sending the police against students is assault, and a failure to solve their fucking problems.

grar.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:27 PM on September 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

I have a friend who teaches children with special needs. He has to restrain people, and do it without hurting them. He's been doing it for years. Somehow, in some miraculous fashion, he hasn't needed to shoot even one of his students.

I know a guy who is a prison guard. He works inside the prison, he walks daily through this remarkably violent population, and he has to do so without carrying a gun. So he has learned how to use his body, and your body.
-- He can get control of you if he gets his hand on one finger, or one thumb.
-- He can get control of you if he gets his hand on your hand, your wrist, your elbow.
-- He can get control of you if he gets his hand on your foot, your ankle, your knee.

He isn't some huge wrestler. It's all about knowing how to get control of a person if they leave you an opening. It isn't rocket science. Both the teacher and the prison guard have had a lot of training.

~~~~~

Cops have many tools they can use before escalating to a pistol in their hand, finger on the trigger. A tazer would have dropped Scout instantly. Pepper spray shoots a painful, disabling stream at least 10 feet; that would not have been fun for Scout, but Scout could be here to tell us how much fun it wasn't. Cops carry batons; I'd sure hate if Scout got a shattered knee from being hit with a baton, but Scout could be here to tell us about it. All of these tools -- tazer, pepper spray, a baton -- all of these tools are highly effective, any of them would have put Scout down, and then taken to a 72 hour psych lockdown, so the situation can be assessed..

But it seems to me that cops don't want to use those tools, any of which would have put Scout down. It seems to me that cops don't want to bring a person under control. It seems to me that cops want to kill people.

~~~~~

If cops were not ashamed of what they do, they would welcome you or I using our phones to document their actions. If cops didn't know that they are psychopathic murderers it would not bother them at all to be caught in action, they would smile for the camera, and wave at you.

It appears to me that cops are shooting people because they are trained to shoot people. It appears to me that shooting must be number 1 in their curriculum. I just can't see it any other way. It appears to me that cops are shooting people because they want to shoot people. Much as I hate to say that, I just can't see it any other way. And no police department will hold a cop to account for murder, or even manslaughter, though cops in the US murder people every day.

.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:33 AM on September 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

I just want to note this mefi post regarding tasers that seems relevant, given all the calls for using tasers on mentally disturbed people to force compliance.
posted by gryftir at 6:06 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm curious as to the necessity to deadname Cassandra Monden

I found myself similarly curious about the author's decision to include a paragraph about Scout's genitalia.

Overall though I'm glad this article was written, that people are talking about what these young people are being subjected to. And my god, how is it so easy for people to get their hands on a gun? Punja was able to purchase a gun despite 3 involuntary mental health hospitalizations. The article doesn't even mention how Jackson got the gun she used.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 8:37 AM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Secret Sparrow, she bought it too. The gun show loophole gave both of these people easy, lethal means to go through with their suicides.
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 8:49 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Cat Monden's deadname was highlighted in gray in the article; I clicked on the link and saw the following note:

"Cat Monden granted The Atavist Magazine permission to use this name in the story."

That note should be visible within the story, rather than hyperlinked.

At least someone involved with this story – whether it was the writer, the editor, the copy editor, and/or the fact checker – knew a) that the use of a trans person's deadname is something that demands an explanation, and b) that using the deadname without that person's permission is confusing, inaccurate, and disrespectful.

And like other commenters on this post, I still wonder why Cat Monden's deadname was mentioned in the first place.

The wording that Strutter Cane suggests – "I'm curious as to the necessity to deadname Cassandra Monden. It could have read simply that she 'was booked into the Fulton County Jail under her birth name' " – is exactly right. It states the facts without erasing who Cat Monden is.
posted by virago at 10:51 AM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

GenjiAndProust, no, please rant.

I’m a bit less ranty this morning, so:

Undergraduates are a unique population. They are adults, but they are also still developing critical neurological functions, especially around impulse control and long-term planning. They are generally under a good deal of stress, both constant and cyclical. They are being exposed to new ideas and finding new ways of being and relating to the world.

As a result, a lot of undergraduates struggle with mental illness, substance abuse, and poor life decisions, LBGTQ students more than most. Most undergraduates find new equilibria and build stronger lives, but some end up confronting the campus police for whatever reason. And those police should absolutely be trained in deescilation and minimum-violence responses. Drawing a gun should be the last thing on a campus police officer’s list of responses.

That it was the first (even though they tried to deter Scout), it shows that the officers had no investment in the lives of students and the inadequate (and actively harmful) responses from the administration tells the same story. It’s appalling. No one who is this hostile to undergraduates has any business being on a university campus.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:18 AM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

I just want to note this mefi post regarding tasers that seems relevant, given all the calls for using tasers on mentally disturbed people to force compliance.
posted by gryftir at 8:06 AM on September 5
I'm aware that tazer isn't some fun trip. I have a better than average chance of dying if I get tazed -- I sortof messed up the electrical system in my heart because of some neato heart attacks. And that chance might be getting increased -- I saw my cardiologist last week, he talked about my about possibly getting a pacemaker.

So it's not like I think tazers are a fun thing. But probably it wouldn't have killed Scout, which would have been better than getting shot. Upon reflection, I can see that I tossed that comment off way too easily -- thx for waking me up.
posted by dancestoblue at 4:12 PM on September 5, 2018