Some People Believe Robert Hawkins Was A Victim
Stark differences in human opinion never fail to amaze me.
Some people think Coke and Pepsi taste pretty much the same. Other people think they couldn’t be more different and hate one or the other.
Some people think Robert A. Hawkins, the guy who killed eight people in the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska (about 5 miles from where most of the admins for PYSIH live) was an evil person who took an easy road to Hell, killing people who he knew nothing about, for no reason whatsoever.
Other people think Robert Hawkins was a nice guy, who tried real hard to make things work for himself before a cruel and uncaring society packed full of bullies backed him into a corner and forced him to kill.
Here are some interesting comments that might otherwise have been lost in the torrent.
Beth took the activism route, declaring that the problem with society is it’s lack of empathy for those with depression:
This is a horrible, horrible website. Clearly this kid had extreme depression which was never dealt with. There is no reason in the world for people to exploit him the way this website is.
Everyone should be focused on the real issue at hand that too many people face everyday: Depression. Pointing out Robert Hawkins’ case of acne or popularity status that this society drives itself on is ridiculous and only makes you look incompetent.
Dutchie thought PYSIH was speculating far too much:
This whole article is a big joke if you ask me ;) To few news and to much opinion and speculation
Brandon Norwood stepped forward and went for the psycho vote:
First of all, It kinda ticks me off people talking stuff about him. Why you might ask? He probably got messed with allot, and I’m guessing life kicked his ass like it does mine. I couldn’t ever kill someone else tho, but the way i see it, he deserves heaven cause he probably had nothing but hell here. The people that gave him hell deserve hell, and i hope they all go to hell for putting him through it. And that goes out to everyone that talks stuff. And I’m sure his girl was a slut or something too…most girls are now days. along with guys. I aint sexist or anything. Anyways, look at the reasons he was so upset. But, if I’m wrong, then i guess he would deserve hell. Oh and ive takein anti depressant pills. i have some. they aint done anything to me..good or bad..mine may just suck tho
Gabriel expressed how he felt everyone’s pain:
Although his final action was unacceptable, I really feel for this kid. Only God knows the state of mind he was in during those final moments; the lack of hope the desperation. May God have mercy on this poor soul as well as the souls of his victims.
Lerching around gave me a little hope for the future of our country:
ok people, just because cetain people are teased and have problems doesn’t mean one god damn thing. Look, I have my own problems, I am not the most attractive person either, I have family problems and I’m not the most popular guy. I’m 17 and I have a shitty job. I just look at the future in the positive way. You only have one life to live . You have to live it at the fullest. Eight people didnt get to finish there lives that way. Anyone who fuckin feels bad for this peice of shit is a complete idiot. Stating “now im gonna be famous” is just an excuse for more shits like him to carry out the same ordeal. Wake up people.
Ticked Off at Society! explained why he hates society:
To all you people who think he is a bad person and had no right to do what he did. He doesn’t care what you think! Do you get that? Neither will the next person or the next person. Your bad opinion of them will not stop them from doing what they are going to do.
Nobody is born a homicidal maniac. Nobody wakes up one day and decides that this will be their goal in life. We are people who have tried and tried as hard as we can to be part of your society, and your society has spit on us and turned its back. Yes, killing is wrong. But you people kill the spirit and the soul of your victims, and you get away with it.
Why is there even a concern about bullying today. Not because anybody likes the victims or are really sorry for them. It’s because they are afraid of what might happen. And it took some mass killings to get their attention. Anybody who thinks the killings are wrong should ask why this bullying was allowed to go on for so many years. It was allowed to go on because there were no consequences. Now there have been consequences – and now there is a move to stop bullying. Say what you want – insane violence works.
If you want to stop violence, open up the doors and let us outcasts come in. Let us be part of your society. That’s all most of us have ever wanted. But I guess it’s too much to ask of selfish hard-hearted people.
Have a nice day.
As of the time of this post, Michael Lankton of AVEnthusiast, laid it on the line with:
I am going to break something to all of you posting here about how we should all feel for the poor young man, and how we are all so cruel for passing judgement on him for his actions when we should be trying to understand what drove him to that state.
This site’s admin and I are co-workers, and at our day job we keep our community’s worst type of human garbage from going out and victimizing any more of you. Call us jaded, but you have no idea what sort of animals breathe the same air as you in your community.
It’s all well and good to sit in your safe little home in your nice neighborhood and make yourself feel noble about how liberal you are, and how the world would be a better place if everyone saw things the way you do.
The real world is nothing like that. Most people do not have the worldy comforts or opportunities that you do. Many do not want to expend the effort necessary to achieve anything in life. It’s easier to take the fruit of someone else’s labor, or make stupid amounts of cash selling drugs. People steal , hurt, kill to improve their worldly possessions and comfort. The vast majority of repeat criminals are, to one degree or another, sociopaths.
Don’t delude yourself about reaching out to people, making a difference, or any other liberal feel-good rhetoric you want to throw out there. There are people in the world that are no good, and screw fixing them, and who cares how they got there. Ultimately, all acts are a matter of DECISION, not influence.
You want to make a difference? Be a good citizen. Be a member of your community that does more good than harm. Go to work, pay your taxes, love your family, and raise your children to be like you. That is all you can do, and if we all did it, the world WOULD become a better place, in time.
So far, roughly 60 percent of our readers believe Robert Hawkins deserves Hell. 40 percent do not.
Go vote.
23 Comments »
Of course people are willing to defend him. It’s never your fault in America. Somebody shoots up a mall? A poor, misguided victim of an uncaring society. A pedophile? A misunderstood person who’s sexual hunger is perfectly normal, being scapegoated by closed minded bigots.
Fuck personal responsibility, eh?
idk, I actually thought he was pretty cute.
I was picked on as a teen, as were many many other people. I have also suffered from depression pretty badly throughout my life. Somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow I managed to never kill a single human being. Is that really so amazing? I thought it was normal up till now.
fuck robert hawkins and any one like him ! I was picked on too , you don’t see me shooting innocent people. They had nothing to do with this kid , they didn’t bully him , their kid didn’t bully him , nothing, yet there dead because poor robert had a bad life . He couldn’t even face the cops , he had to shoot himself ( what a Pussy ! )
Chelsey – Where the hell were you when we needed you?? :-)
I have a bad feeling that we’ll know Ticked Off at Society’s real name someday.
What this young man did was wrong.When I look at his picture I don’t see a monster.I see one of our children with no love or anyone to help him.Look at the world today.We let the children in schools get picked on and get no help.He was depressed and needed help and we never saw it.(WHY).I know he caused a lot of pain to others and himself.What are we doing to our children.I belive he is in a place where he can get the love he deserves and no one can hurt him.This could be your child.If this man were my child I would love him no matter what he did.God help us.
All these stupid assholes who are standing up for this kid wouldn’t be so adamant about it if THEY were the ones who got shot. So get your heads out of your asses and THINK LOGICALLY for once. Goddamn degenerates…I suffer from major depression as well, but I have never hurt a soul. That’s such a bad excuse, really, what the hell is wrong with you? Aren’t you seeing the picture here? This guy took the lives of INNOCENT PEOPLE. He decided to play god, and that’s supposed to be okay because he was depressed? WHERE IS THE SENSE IN THAT!? It scares me that people actually think like that. You would think that any normal person would say what a sick world we live in, but people are actually DEFENDING him. Ridiculous! And fucking sick.
to Irritated.I did not say what he did was ok.He needed help and we did not give it to him.I bet you would be the first one to help him.(NOT)I wish I was good enought to judge someone.That’s ok because I belive god will forgive him.He was just as important as the ones he hurt.I will pray for him and the ones he hurt.
Pepsi is better than Coke.
But with that aside, I can’t believe anyone would even dare stand up to him. You know, a lot of people have been treated worse, abused worse, and were a lot of worse off than him – and still have plenty of love and patience in their hearts.
Even if I were bullied my whole life, nothing would drive me to do such an act as to go and kill random people that I didn’t know – or to kill anyone for that matter. I think Robert needed to learn some self control and not take the easy way out.
There’s two ways to do things: If people bully you, you can use self control and maintain a good life. OR, you can be dramatic and take the easy way out because you’re too much of a pathetic wimp to deal with life.
It’s life – suck it up and get over it, and don’t kill innocent people because of YOUR idiotic problems with the world.
Some by the grace of god make it through the hells similiar to the ones this kid went through without hurting. Others don’t and take innocent people with them when they self-destruct. Not that he couldn’t have gotten a gun form someplace else but ya think this kid’s family would mention their automatic got stolen.
weapon… I gotta proofread more
Joe: lol, I doubt my thinking he was reasonably good-looking would really help. My compliments generally sound like this:
“Well I mean, you’ve got some bad acne and huge dorky glasses and are socially retarded but you know, you’re a lot less ugly than when you were 15.”
This is absolutely ridiculous!! I don’t care what was going on with this kid, nothing ever gives you the right to take the lives of 8 innocent people. And according to what I’ve read, it would have been more if he were more accurate with his gun. It’s insane to be on his side. Someone is always fighting a harder battle and everyone always thinks that their lives suck. If its that bad…then make changes. A good life for most of us, doesn’t fall into our laps. We have to work hard at it. Now those people that were probably out doing their Christmas shopping, or whatever, will never get back to their lives because of this idiot. Burn in Hell Hawkins!!
It amazes me that people can place the blame on everyone ELSE. The kid was 19 years old, he was an adult, he obviously knew he had a problem and I’m sorry but what he did was INEXCUSABLE. Richard, I doubt that you would be singing the same tune if your child was in a mall with you and some pathetic piece of human waste shot and killed your child. If that ever happened, God forbid, I can’t imagine the first thing you would say would be “where were the parents?” If it were me, I would say that sonofabitch deserved to die and rot in hell, at the very LEAST. It’s easy to say when you’re looking at people as statistics rather than someone else’s loved one. There was NO excuse for his actions. Period.
Chelsea- I get your point totally.
I guess I must be one of the few who thought the guy from Napolean Dynamite was kind of attractive. (Although way too young for me!).
But- the guy was so good in that role that it almost seemed like a documentary… and since, I have seen him in other roles where he acts/looks different, and it makes more sense why I thought he was attractive.
Looking back on the guys I’ve dated, I still think many of them were very attractive- but some of them it would be nice to say were a little ‘odd’ looking. Yet I still think they were attractive. Not everyone is attracted to the Brad Pitts of the world, or Clooney, or six-pack ab musclemen. I don’t like overly buff men, overly masculine-aggressive men, or people who have perfect teeth. I was sooooo bummed when Bowie got his teeth fixed into that Hollywood horse-toothed veneer.
I guess I never really noticed how odd-looking some of the people I dated looked, because they did not act like it. I’m sure, looking back, that the must have been teased at some point, but they never took it personally, they were confident and didn’t care what other people thought.
But- they did have good, interesting personalities. I think that’s the key here. That some people take teasing too seriously, or they already have low self-esteem, or they have such a negative personality that they turn people off, even if otherwise someone would find them attractive. I would guess that these people who randomly kill people like this aren’t really acting in rage against other people, they are mentally unbalanced and are striking out against what they personally feel about themselves.
Ted Bundy, for example- considered attractive (I don’t get it, but oh well).
Or Charle Sheen and Hugh Grant who even though were able to date beautiful women, still chose to pay prostitutes. Or Rob Lowe, who liked filming himself having sex with 15 year-olds in motels. Being attractive or popular doesn’t mean you always end up being a great person, and being what might be considered unattractive does not guarantee that you will end up mass-killing innocent people.
Billy Joel got Christie Brinkley. The conjoined ‘Siamese twins’ ended up both getting married and having children (how, I do not want to know). I find Richard Ramirez physically repulsive, and yet he supposedly scored big with the chicks both before and after all his murders.
My point is that attractiveness to a majority of a population will not ensure that the person is well-liked, or will not end up being a mass murderer. Or someone who molests teens on camera in motel rooms.
It really has to be personality. Manson was obviously quite popular with the ladies, yet he still was a nasty person. The ‘preppy’ murderer was supposedly well-liked, yet killed. I don’t buy this whole climate of blaming crime and murders on the fact that the perpetrator is perceived as being ugly by themselves or others.
I would like to see research done about why the girl in the Lori Drew case, who was called fat and ugly (when I don’t see that) only killed herself, why others who get similar treatment kill innocent strangers and then (usually) themselves, and still others who have experienced the same and yet kill nobody and don’t seem particularly scarred by the same treatment.
to Irritated.I think you are a good person.I know what you are saying and yes if he killed one of my loved ones I would be devasted.I have 6 children and they not always good. but I would love them always.Robert was not always loved.We make our children what they are today.There are many people today that are truely evil.I don’t belive Robert Hawkins is one of them.Depression is rampent.Some are stronger then others and can cope with it,some not.Depression will sometimes make you do things not right.Good luck to you and yours.Richard in MN.
that line about…we make our children what they are today…thats not always true…we can teach them the right thing from the day they are born and they will still do what they want to do
Mandy-
You are correct. The point being that it is the parent’s responsibility to do everything they can to love their child and provide them with resources to have a good life- even if they choose not to, even if their body chemistry doesn’t allow them to.
The fact that many people with horrible childhoods grow up to be very different from what they were taught is proof of that. And plenty of people grew up in very loving homes and still ended up being miscreants.
exactly…
This kid, and Lori Drew’s suicide project girl WERE actually victims, in a way.
Victims of being teenagers who aren’t capable of understanding that everything isn’t huge and important and end of the world. Of not being able to see that maybe tomorrow, next week, next month, next year… that things will be different and will not feel the same.
I remember being a teenager and not being able to see much beyond what I was feeling right THEN.
Which was my whole point in comments to pedo-Max…. that it is a very good reason to not allow adults to have relationships with children and teens.
Because most of us grow up and realize that the things we think are so devastating won’t feel the same next week.
Children don’t need the ‘right’ to be able to date or have sex with adults, as Max claimed… teenagers need to have adults with no agenda helping them get over the immediacy that everything feels like at that age, and move on to a more adult perception, which is that living in the now is not mature or realistic.
And we know, because we’ve been through it. And there’s a good chance tomorrow or next week/month/year things will be different, and hopefully much better.
Not having that hope? That’s what messes people up.
He got picked on ..poor guy….maybe he should go rob 9 families of loved ones…..feel sorry for him while children dont have parents….lost sisters, brothers, mothers and much more…..lets look at his parents for neglect of emotional problems….He wanted people to remember him for killing…how about a mom at work in a mall…who never will come home because of this poor lonely guy..u should be ashamed of ur self if ur givin him excuses…
What a pussy – killing 8 unsuspecting people with an AK-47 or whatever. With all the technology and information at one’s finger tips, have the decentcy to stalk and go after the people that actually made your life hell!
Let’s see in college, first week at a freshman mixer, I asked a girl for a dance and she rudely turned me down. Did I kill her? No. Did I plot my revenge? No. I merely asked God to give me the chance and left it at that. Five yeras later (Northeastern is a 5 year school) she needed help in the computer room and I was it. She opened her shirt enough to capture any striaght man’s attention, but I remembered the face and treated her as rudely as I was treated slo long ago.
I had a roomate who tried to make me pay for his job search. With my other roomate we figured what we really owed him and sent him the money in nickels and dimes. My other roomate and I went out and found the most disgusting porno mag we could find – fat (300+ pound) naked women who though that they were gorgious and used the pictures for packing material. Has so much fun!
My wide’s tenant trashed her house. The pigs left behind some mail – from bill collectors. I held onto the mail (never opened it) and when I got their address, I put the origional letter in a bigger envelope along with the tenants’ new address.
My X-wife had decided to use my address without my consent to do some business. Her 3rd husband would stop by my house and sort thru my mail before I got home. I put a locking mail box on the house…..
As a kid my father was famous for being one of the meanest. I got my share of beatings on the ass and a few bloody lips when I made the mistake of not accepting my punishment.
I was assaulted twice by school teachers, yet there was never a mention to my parents. I also hit two other teachers in school – not even a trip to the principal’s office…
I was picked on as a kid – I was the tall whimp. My mother would not let me take karate because it was “Satanic” and I had a bad temper (funny the first thing they teach one is how to control anger)
So have I killed anyone yet? NO. Plan to? No. Want to? Not really. Would? Yes,
1. If I am drafted in the service
2. If me or my loved ones are threatened
3. If some scumbag steps out of line and becomes a threat to someone innocent (two drug dealers killing eachother is a spectaor sport..)
4. Someone commits a crimes and tries to get away with it (I made page 2 headlines apprehending a drunk driver)
Not only have I not killed anyone with such a hard life, I’ve actually pulled one person from the side of a building (forceably), tried to bring another person to rehab, and called police when I saw someone standing at the edge of a bridge.
So I could go on about why I should be a physco path, or how great of a person I am because I am not or count the many blessings I have in my life
1. A wife that loves both me and my daughter (no easy task)
2. An old house in a city where they know how to leave the good guys alone. (Where my X livesthe building inspector will walk up and look in your windows if he suspects you are doing any work in the house withoutthe proper permits)
3. Parents who gave me a hand, but also pissed me off when they felt I was asking for a handout.
4. A job which I sould get back to!
I already commented on this story at length on Robert’s own page so I’ll only make a couple smaller points:
“Who are you to judge? You’re not God!”
-Neither is Robert, but he still deigned to judge innocents as part of some grand evil scheme and decided to take their lives from them.
“You don’t know what he’s been through! He’s had a tough life!”
-Haven’t we all? And I’m sure there are people who have tougher lives than him, such as people in 3rd world countries, but they do their damndest to try and make things better.
“If you want to stop violence, open up the door and let us outcasts in.”
-Obviously since you’re referring to things in the plural (us outcasts), you’re not really alone so why do you desparately want to be a part of a society that you feel doesn’t want you? And if you’re the type to throw a violent tantrum over some perceived slight (as you indirectly threatened in that comment), then maybe we’re better off without you anyway.
Idiots.