Let's not forget the large number of adolescent males who are kind and respectful. A few misguided apples don't ruin the bunch, and surely don't deserve to be shot.

  Thanks Jenita--I am not suggesting that any one deserves/or deserved to be shot.  This was a horrible, horrible tragedy and I feel for the parents of the children who died as well as for the children who will grow up with no father.  We need to ask questions of ourselves.  How could this have been avoided?  Problems grow with the child and manifest in the adult.  Children (unfortunately, this includes our current generation of adults)  need to learn kindness and consideration. 
For the troubled boys I watch every day, some will be fine. And their behaviors are natural.  We don't want to acknowledge it (We will always be Puritans), but teens--boys and girls-- want an outlet for their sexual energy.  I was bad and I outgrew it.  And, I was fortunate to have parents and a larger community of relatives and friends to bring me up.

We also need to talk to our kids and engage them in outlets for their energy.  This disconnect is happening in every socio-economic group in the country.  It is not a "city factor," and it is not a problem that will go away by locking up one man and it will never go away while guns are in the hands of people (and children) who don't really know what a gun can do to other people.

  And I know that this doesn't justify behavior either, but lack of sleep will destroy anyone's sense of reality.  And, another factor, probably not well-analyzed in this case involving a member of the safety force would be the effect of the day-to-day trauma and stress we have allowed our safety forces to endure as a result of our parentless society.  To a lesser extent, public service employees, teachers and social workers (and library workers) know the effect of this cumulative stress.

I too feel some sympathyfor Terrence Hough. I doubt that he wanted to end up a murderer and it must have been horrible to live a life so filled with rage. There are so many reasons that people in American society become violent - lead poisoning should be added to the list. Men/boys often are unable to  seek help -- if any is available.  Perhaps he could have had better parents, recieved mental health care, had a more supportive family, a less stressful job,  or more respectful neighbors, but the one thing that would have made a diffence that day  was if he had not had a gun. I'm not saying we should not have gun rights. I grew up with guns in the house. I don't have a gun now because I don't want to live with the consequences if I use it.

You raise the other social stigma and underlying story behind this tragedy.  Feelings, mental health, physical health--we teach our boys not to discuss these things and, of course, we teach them that the only way to solve problems is through violence.

  Thank you Evelyn for reminding us of the innocent victims.  Growing up in Cleveland, my uncle was a fire chief.  Ironically, he and his friends would treat us to a fireworks display each year with confiscated fireworks.  He also kept guns.  Lots of guns, because he was also a hunter.  And, because his wife, at the time, was my aunt and father's sister--and without children--our parents would periodically unload us on them.  And, we would explore.  I can vividly remember finding my uncle's service revolver in their bedroom bureau. I can still feel the weight of that gun in my hand and I can remember my younger sister coming into the room to find me and I can remember pointing that gun at her and pulling the trigger.  I was eight or nine and she was five or six. It was not loaded.

  Someone I know, not well, but I know him--he is in custody now.  What happened?

Each of us is born with a history already in place.  So begins Walter Dean Myers' Bad Boy: A Memoir.