Marysville school shooter Jaylen Ray Fryberg (Facebook)
Killed two classmates; critically injured two others
MARYSVILLE, Washington––Jaylen Ray Fryberg, 14, a freshman at Pilchuck High School in Marysville, Washington, was by all accounts a popular young man who did well in school, admired pit bulls, and had become an accomplished hunter, recently bagging an elk and a deer.
A football player who on October 17, 2014 had been voted freshman homecoming king, Jaylen Fryberg was reportedly distraught over a recent break-up with a girl he had dated since the seventh grade. He allegedly got into a fight at football practice and was suspended from the team.
And then, on October 24, 2014, Jaylen Ray Fryberg opened fire on five fellow students at the lunch table they often shared, taking head shots at close range from behind. He killed two girls, critically wounding another girl and his 15-year-old cousin Andrew Fryberg.
Accosted by a female cafeteria staff member, Jaylen Fryberg then fatally shot himself in the neck.
(Facebook)
Profiles
As always after school shootings, the community struggled to find explanations. Despite Jaylen Fryberg’s recent difficulties, he did not fit the stereotype of school shooters: alienated loners, acting out video game scripts. But the stereotype has largely been discredited.
Indeed, Jaylen Fryberg closely fit the profile of school shooters advanced by Katherine S. Newman of the Princeton University Program in Law & Public Affairs, who argues that the perpetrators of school massacres are most often “joiners” whose attempts at social integration fail.
But Jaylen Fryberg also fit two other meaningful profiles: the pit bull advocate for whom fighting dogs may be surrogates for expressing hostility toward other people, and the hunter who turns to his guns when unable to resolve personal issues in a less violent manner.
(Jaylen Fryberg Facebook photo)
Hunting
Four percent or fewer of teens today have hunting background, but half or more of the perpetrators of multiple killings at schools in recent decades have either had known hunting background or have used hunting weapons.
In the six years preceding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for instance, when security at public buildings including schools was markedly increased, 16 juveniles used hunting weapons, primarily, to kill 27 people and wound 50 in 14 massacres on school premises.
“This is not the first time that violence has erupted in a Snohomish County school,” noted Everett Herald staff writers Eric Stevick, Rikki King and Kari Bray. “Friday [the day of the Marysville shootings] was the third anniversary of an attack by a troubled 15-year-old female student who stabbed two Snohomish High School classmates. Earlier this year, a jury found that the high school failed to protect the girls,” who both survived life-threatening injuries, “and ordered it to pay $1.3 million to the victims. The attacker,” whose identity has not been disclosed, “is serving a 13-year sentence.”
Not everyone who wreaks havoc at a school is a hunter. There has been no indication that the young woman who stabbed her classmates hunted. Adam Lanza, 20, who on December 14, 2012 killed 20 children, six faculty, his mother, and himself in Newtown, Connecticut, was not only not a hunter but also, by some accounts, a vegan.
Yet hunting is much more common in the backgrounds of school shooters than among teens generally, or even teens involved in violent crime. Perhaps this is chiefly because teens who hunt are more likely than others to have access to guns in their homes. Or perhaps teens who hunt are more likely to have lowered inhibitions against killing.
Meme posted on Jaylen Ray Fryberg’s Facebook page.
Dominionism
Or perhaps both hunting and committing murder in response to perceived slights, including social rejection, bullying, and relationship failures, reflect the degree to which a social characteristic called dominionism prevails in a particular family or community.
Yale University professor Stephen Kellert, in a 1980 study commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, defined dominionism as an attitude in which “primary satisfactions [are] derived from mastery or control over animals,” a definition which other investigators later extended to include the exercise of “mastery or control” over women and children.
Kellert reported that the degree of dominionism in the American public as a whole rated just 2.0 on a scale of 18. Humane society members rated only 0.9. Recreational hunters, however, rated from 3.8 to 4.1, while trappers scored 8.5.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Hunting & crimes against children
Both the Marysville school shootings and the Newtown shootings in December 2012 occurred in locations familiar to ANIMALS 24-7. Both incidents also recalled a three-year statistical research project that ANIMALS 24-7 started in 1994, after noticing unusually high rates of both hunting participation and prosecuted sexual abuse of children in the upstate New York/Vermont border region where I worked at that time.
Comparing the rates of hunting participation and crimes against children in all 232 counties of New York, Ohio, and Michigan, ANIMALS 24-7 found that in 21 of 22 New York counties of almost identical population density, the county with the most hunters also had the most prosecuted sexual abuse of children.
(Beth Clifton collage)
51% more abuse in counties with the most hunters
Ohio counties with more than the median rate of hunting license sales had 51% more reported child abuse, including 33% more sexual abuse and 82% more neglect.
Michigan children were nearly three times as likely to be neglected and twice as likely to be physically abused or sexually assaulted if they lived in a county with above average hunting participation.
Michigan as of 1994 sold twice as many hunting licenses per capita as upstate New York, but had seven times the rate of convicted child abuse, and twice as high a rate of sexual assault on children.
Further, hunting participation in all three states tracked more closely parallel to crimes against children than other factors including income levels and educational attainment.
The data, in short, supported a hypothesis that both hunting and child abuse may be symptomatic of local cultural tendencies toward dominionism.
Townspeople rush to the rescue after the 1927 Bath school bombing.
“Mastery or control”
Dominionism, in which “primary satisfactions [are] derived from mastery or control over animals,” may also be a factor in why pit bull admirers choose to acquire dogs who are more than 10 times as likely to kill or disfigure someone than the average dog––and frequently keep their pit bulls on heavy chains, while alleging that the victims of attacks are to blame for their injuries because they fail to control their attackers.
Also coming to mind after any school massacre is the case of arch-dominionist Andrew Phillip Kehoe, of Bath, Michigan. The community took no meaningful action against Kehoe after he beat a horse to death. Instead, he was in 1924 elected school board treasurer. But despite winning elected office, Kehoe failed to get his way, both in politics and at home. On May 16, 1927, after months of planning and hiding bombs in the new Bath school building, Kehoe bludgeoned his wife to death, burned his barn with all his animals tied inside it, and detonated bombs that killed 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults, and himself. He might have killed more, but not all of his hidden bombs exploded.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Violence against humans & animals are a continuum
The victims in Bath, Newtown, and Marysville, the 304 humans killed by pit bulls in the U.S. since 1982, and the more than 2,100 humans disfigured by pit bulls each reflect comparable failures of society to recognize that violence against humans and animals are a continuum.
Celebrating either the achievements of sport hunters or the capabilities of fighting dogs amounts to celebrating the attitudes––and weapons––which at times find expression in murder and quasi-accidental mayhem.
Merritt & Beth Clifton
(See also Killing the white deer & the Marysville Massacre ; New York state statistics show link: hunters & molesters; Ohio data confirms hunting/child abuse link: stronger than link to rural poverty; and Michigan stats confirm hunting/child abuse link.)
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You confirmed what I have felt all along about hunters and hunting. I have known people who had to hunt in order to feed their families and I think those are different from those hunters who hunt for ‘fun’. All in all, I avoid people who hunt, I don’t care to make friends with them. If you can kill an animal for fun, you can kill me, is the way I see it.
Totally agree with what Honesty Helps posted. Desensitized hunters will resort to the ‘extension of the fist’ when they feel thwarted. I live near a man who owns a slaughterhouse, and a thoroughly obnoxious individual he is- yet he can’t see it and thinks everyone else, who shun him, has the problem. I’ve no desire to talk or befriend him, though he made attempts to talk to me. I’ve no problem with snubbing the likes of him.
Defending pit bulls, a much-stereotyped breed, is a good thing; hunting should raise a red flag. what kind of person derives pleasure from killing an animal? We humans are animals ourselves (and not particularly nice ones) so it follows that a person who enjoys killing one kind of animal might also take the opportunity to kill a human animal.
Pit bulls exist for one reason only: because they have been inbred for centuries to produce dogs who kill and maim other animals for human enjoyment. This is no stereotype; this is historical reality. Exclusive of use in dogfighting and legal hunting, pit bulls (about 5% of the U.S. dog population) killed more than 43,000 other pets and livestock in the U.S. in 2013 alone, about 95% of the total killed by all dogs combined. This is no stereotype either; it is statistical reality. Promoting and defending the continued breeding and sale of pit bulls, as Jaylen Ray Fryberg did, is according not “a good thing”; it is symptomatic of psychopathy. Enabling and encouraging pit bull proliferation, as much of the humane community unfortunately does now, is putting every other animal and human at risk to perpetuate the continued existence of intensively inbred dogs, with no analog in nature, who exist for no purpose other than to exercise human sadism.
There are well over 5 million pitbulls in the US currently, and you have read of how many this year? Less than 1/2 of 1%. And to relate the suicide of this poor child to his defense of pitbulls, to give his parents that kind of legacy, is low.
“This poor child” killed one poor child and put three others into critical condition, wounding three others, with close range head shots from behind. It would be difficult to imagine a more pathological or cowardly act. But Jaylen Ray Fryberg’s explosive lethal rage did resemble the unprovoked mayhem for which pit bulls have become notorious. There are actually only about 3.5 million pit bulls in the U.S. at any given time, of whom only about a third will remain in a home for longer than a year, and about a third are impounded or surrendered to shelters each and every year, largely because of dangerous behavior.
It is a bit of a stretch linking one FB page that he liked to what happened. Just look at his twitter feed if its still available. Nothing about dogs, nothing about guns, most everything is about girlfriends, betrayal, out of control hormones and an inability to handle whatever torment he was going through. It’s a tragedy that might have been avoided if someone noticed, or if a gun wasn’t redly available.
Twitter comments tend to be spontaneous and of the moment; Facebook “likes” and web postings tend to show greater deliberation, and therefore may be a better indicator of longterm attitudes, as opposed to transient states of mind.
FB likes only take one click. Read through his twitter feed if its still available, you’ll see what I mean. A distressed kid who had trouble coping with whatever he was going through, fell through the cracks and no one noticed until it was too late. Tragic.
Facebook “likes” take only one click, but they remain where they are, visible, as an indicator of personal identity, until and unless removed. Twitter comments are ephemeral by design and definition.
Don’t be a judge of a dog that you only apparently “read” about. Unless you have owned own don’t be one of “those people”. If Jaylene was using pit bulls for fighting this child had more serious problems than society could help. Of course I don’t know these people but there are some serious upbringing situations with this young man. Don’t bad mouth the breed by literature. There are millions that are loved and docile animals.
As ANIMALS 24-7 columnist Barbara Kay recently pointed out (http://wp.me/p4pKmM-IB), “Following this curious strain of logic, which would preclude commentary on subjects not personally experienced by pundits, we would have no historians, medical researchers or jurists.” In view that Jaylen Ray Fryberg shot five young people who had befriended him in the back of the head at close range, he clearly “had more serious problems than society could help,” regardless of whether he had anything to do with dogfighting, but his self-identification with dogs notorious for detonating in a lethal manner without warning or provocation might have hinted at what those problems were. Finally, with about a third of the U.S. pit bull population at any given time being under one year of age, a third entering shelters or rescues, and only a third remaining in one home for more than a year, out of a total pit bull population of only about 3.5 million, it is abundantly clear that there are not “millions who are loved and docile animals.” The failure rate for adult pit bulls in homes runs at 50% plus.
Pit bulls have a ‘stereotype’ for a reason-they keep KILLING people. Not surprised a troubled individual was attracted to and advocated for this troubled breed; something seen over and over again. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/owner-baby-killing-dog-threatened-murder-4448125
I think the article says it all!!
If you broaden the study group to include all juvenile offenders implicated in gun crime, (where the majority of attacks are inner city incidents,) you’ll realize a flip in statistical result with youthful hunters under represented in assaults and homicide. By focusing on school shooters, you have surveyed less than 1% of juvenile gun crime to support a thesis contradicted otherwise. And if you expanded your survey to include all violent crime regardless of weapon or method, hunting youth are further under represented.
The correlation to violence I find plausible is the admiration or ownership of violent breeds, as well as violence against animals for the purpose of torture – an issue apart from hunting with a goal of fair pursuit and humane method. In this vein, it’s worth noting that hunters typically own the most affable and trusted breeds, Labradors and Golden retrievers being the most common.
James Younger’s initial paragraph above misses two essential points. First, when examined on a per capita basis, gun-related crimes including those by juveniles are actually more common in rural areas than in inner cities. This jumped right out in my 1994-1995 studies of the New York, Ohio, and Michigan crime data at the county level: the majority of gun-related crimes occur in high-density population areas, but the frequency of gun-related crime relative to human population is higher in low-density population areas where hunting and access to hunting weapons in homes are common. Second, rage-driven rampage killings, such as school shootings, differ significantly in motive and target from the drug-related shootings common in inner cities.
This young man was Tulalip, a culture with a long tradition of hunting for food and not for sport. The Tulalips joined the Nisqually along with most other PNW tribes and essentially saved both the wild salmon and the PNW’s fragile ecosystems.
Google Billy Frank, if you doubt me.
I don’t know if this reverence for Life has passed down to this young man, or his generation, but I just wanted to point out that the culture he was born to is different from what you might assume..
The culture that a 14-year-old Tulalip grew up in would have been shaped to a great extent by the Tulalip Casino, opened in 2004, and the shopping malls opened nearby at about the same time. Billy Frank Jr.’s major court victory on behalf of salmon conservation came in 1971; though he remained active in salmon conservation to the end of his 83-year life earlier in 2014, his influence was strongest among generations raised previous to the arrival of the malls and casino. Historically the Tulalip, like most other tribes of the Puget Sound area, were fishers and gatherers; hunting deer and other large land mammals was not common, as illustrated by the types of weapon they developed and commonly carried before the arrival of easy access to firearms.
Now you are stereotyping his culture based on what you see or assume. I livenear reservations and know many natives. Most do not frequent their casinos and are very traditional in their beliefs and family structure..
This completely misses the point. A particular individual or family may or may not frequent casinos and malls, or work in them; but even if that individual or family tries to have nothing to do with the Tulalip casino and the huge shopping malls that have grown up nearby, they are the dominant cultural and economic force around Marysville, and have been for most of the lifespan of any local teen. It is not possible to walk or drive through town without encountering their influence.
I went to a small college in a rural area. I’ll never forget the day the professor in my Psychology course asked the class for some “positive” ways people can take out the frustration and anger than can build up at work and school. Several young men from different areas of the room all shouted, “Go hunting!” The professor just gave a bemused smile and nodded as if this was perfectly acceptable.
Many animal advocates from urban areas have not experienced hunting and hunting culture firsthand, therefore, they may brush it aside as not worthy of much attention and concern. I will tell you that as a lifelong resident of a heavily-hunted state, it’s not the “chance to just enjoy the outdoors” that many recreational hunters tell the nonhunting public. You’re welcome to get a front-row seat to the uglier side that I’ve seen and heard so often.
The proliferation of snuff hunting porn on YouTube may also play a role. in some shootings It’s disgusting what’s allowed to be uploaded there. Teens are surely being influenced by “kill shot” videos showing actual deaths vs. just a video game.
There’s also a big double standard when domestic animals are shown being killed or tortured (those videos get deleted quickly). Google needs to heed its “don’t be evil” slogan by not allowing ANY death porn on YouTube. Excusing it under the category of “hunting” is a weak technicality.
“Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one.” (Edward Abbey)
Animal advocates have used these videos to show people the reality of hunting; if they’re uploading stuff like this for the world to see, just imagine what they’re NOT showing.
The obsession with kill shots on Youtube, as well as the number of hunting DVDs that proudly proclaim on the cover how many kills viewers will be able to see, directly contrast with what the nonhunting majority has been led to believe–that hunting is just about loving the outdoors, and hunted animals experience instantaneous and humane deaths. That’s why I don’t think the videos should be banned from Youtube. Let people see for themselves what recreational hunting is.
bcazz and lynnf, apparently you are unware of the terrible attacks on primariliy children on reservation land by pit bull breeders. The Indian comminity is also a victim of the fighting dog mania, and also by outsiders bringing this culture in.
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