What are the odds of this being another William Freund?

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I hate to tell you this but there does seem to be a small percentage of Aspies and Autistics who do have severe problems with rage and aggression (controlling their anger). This includes rages and self-aggression (violence isn't just against others). It is only a small percentage but it exists none the less. (Read some of Digby Tantam's work on this)

In addition, violent behaviour is potentially associated with being human, too. Does not mean that your average person is likely to act on it though.

Last edited by Noetic on 01 Nov 2005, 3:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've dealt with a similiar situation in the past(without the murder part), and it seems that people are reacting in a similiar way. Nobody can have an answer as to why, so they look for someone to blame and often that person is sitting in front of them. This causes arguements much like this one where people blame and defend eachother. In the end, the real answer is that only willfruend himself knows why he did it and sitting around arguing about it will solve nothing.

Not aspies as individuals, but Asperger's as a condition..

Come to think of it, I expect the way most people will read that article is "that guy had Asperger's and he was a psycho, therefore all people with Asperger's are psychos". Just wait till other media outlets get that story and re-word it!

Noetic,
You are right, it is of course a possibility, but I'm just saddened to see it pointed out in such a context that regular people will make invalid assumptions about all of us.

They made such a big deal of his Asperger's, almost to say: this was it, this is what drove him to do it. Don't you think?
Truth is, we will probably never know what exactly caused him to behave like this, his Asperger's being only one part of an obviously complex personality. There will be no desire to look beyond that now to see if there was any other genuine issues that turned him into a murderer.

I'm impressed. That article painted a much fairer picture than I had expected.

If anyone's wondering where Will Freund's posts have gone, the moderators moved all of his threads to the Global Mods forum in preparation for when other media/public descends on the site. They have not been deleted as the article states, merely archived.

I thin I get it now. you're saying violence shouldn't be seen as a particular characteristic of Aspergers.

I'd like to suggest that his posts remain out of sight. Do we need tourists coming here to ogle at first him, and then us?

It's a shame the article had to mention WP by name, there's going to be some serious trolling round here for a while now, I'll bet.

I didn't see it that way - in fact it sounds more like an attempt to pre-empt people jumping to conclusions and say "Look, this act had nothing to do with his AS, people with it are normally anything but violent".

The reason why the article was emphasising his AS was presumably because it was based on Nuttdan's interview and WP's contacting the media/authorities to forward Will's messages.

I serioulsy hope the media and public don't flock here. I'm really scared.

I would also like to add that when something like this happens the police inspect the persons computer. So, there is no need to inform the authorites about what sites he has been on they most likely already know.

Don't worry too much, it probably won't be any worse than the time we were slashdotted a couple months ago. The number of visitors skyrocketed for a few days and we got a few new members, but no serious trouble.

Besides, don't you have a crack team assembled to back you up?

I'm very surprised that this story hasn't made its way around the internet already.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic? It's a shame that they didn't use your exact words "nothing to do with his AS" and just dwelled on his Asperger's and activities on WP, although yes I appreciate it was driven from Nuttdan's interview. As is typical in the media, they rarely come to conclusions, but their articles do tend to lead people towards the point they want to make.

I don't want anyone I know to come here to gape at "the site that created a killer" and see me (as tom) talking about my problems.

I would have appreciated it if they had mentioned the countless other websites where Will also posted. (Including the suicide place and one apparently about relationships with older partners etc.) They are probably just as relevant as this one.

Me too. What really freaked me out was one thread on a newsgroup that actually blamed his apparently being Jewish on the massacre!

I am pretty sure the kind of comments in that thread were illegal

Exactly. Rightly or wrongly, they've probably decided to keep out of it and hope they don't get dragged into the whole mess.