<p>Two students at Robert Morris University in western PA were killed and one gravely injured yesterday, apparently shot by a jealous boyfriend. My two high school seniors attend this college part-time and when I dropped them off this morning, the entire campus was engulfed in grief. Here's a link from the local newspaper:</p>
<p>Two</a> Robert Morris students slain, one wounded in North Fayette</p>
<p>I'm finding it hard to daily read of more and more tragedies. The worst are ones that are due to someone else inflicting the tragedy upon another AND particularly young people in their prime. No parent should ever have to live through this horror. Very sad to hear this.</p>
<p>Son just called - one of the young men murdered was in one of his classes last spring. So horrible.</p>
<p>Here is the univeristy president's message:</p>
<p>This incident did not, thankfully, take place on campus, but its ramifications will be felt at this university for a very long time. It seems so close to home for us since the Duquesne shootings a year ago in September (where 5 members of the basketball team were shot).</p>
<p>The murder that occurred at Robert Morris reflects the overall murder rate American society, which is far higher than that that exists in most developed countries.</p>
<p>I live in a city that's a college town. It is a city that is not known for violence, and people don't walk the streets in fear here.</p>
<p>However, during the last year and a half, at least 4 people -- including students and a professor -- from local colleges have been killed. One was a star student whom my husband had taught.</p>
<p>They included a student accidentally shot by a friend, women killed by men who were their partners or who wanted to be romantically involved with them, and a person who was killed in something that may have been drug related.</p>
<p>From today's NY Times:</p>
<p>" The homicide rate among young men in the United States is 4 to 73 times the rate in other industrialized nations, Federal researchers have reported. They said firearms were used in three-fourths of the killings in this country and in only one-fourth of those overseas.</p>
<p>The homicide rate among young men in the United States is 4 to 73 times the rate in other industrialized nations, Federal researchers have reported. They said firearms were used in three-fourths of the killings in this country and in only one-fourth of those overseas.</p>
<p>The researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics said 4,223 American men from 15 to 24 years old were killed in 1987, a rate of 21.9 per 100,000. They said the rate for black men in that age group was 85.6 per 100,000, an increase of 40 percent since 1984.</p>
<p>In contrast, the rates in 21 other countries for men in the same age group ranged from a high of 5 per 100,000 in Scotland, to a low of 0.3 per 100,000 in Austria....</p>
<p>Dr. James Mercy, chief of epidemiology at the Division of Injury Control of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said: ''It's a very important paper because it puts in perspective how large and important homicide is as a health problem in the United States. We're so immersed in violence here that it's easy to miss that...."
<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3DC163DF934A15755C0A966958260%5B/url%5D">http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3DC163DF934A15755C0A966958260</a></p>
<p>So sorry to hear this, fencersmother. I hope your kids are handling this o.k. I didn't know about the Duquesne incident. A year ago, Duquesne wasn't even on the radar. Do you consider these events "random" or do you think the crime rate in Pittsburgh is increasing?</p>
<p>Northstarmom, why is the NY Times quoting 20-year-old statistics? The murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate has dropped from 8.3 per hundred thousand in 1987 to 5.7 per hundred thousand in 2006, according to the FBI. That's a 31% drop in 20 years. Still high by first-world standards, but not what it was in 1987. </p>
<p>Sorry for the slightly-off-topic digression.</p>
<p>WashDad: Thank you for pointing that out. I thought I was posting an article published today, but it actually was published in 1990.</p>
<p>Still, the homicide rate in this country still is far beyond what exists in all or virtually all industrialized nations. Homicide is a major health issue that few people talk because I think most people think it won't happen to them or their loved ones. The people whose family/friends were killed tend not to talk about it out of shame or because the experience was so horrible.</p>
<p>In addition to the homicides I listed in my previous post, these are college/grduate student-related ones that I was personally familiar with:</p>
<p>When I was in grad school at GWU, one of my professors was carjacked and killed; a few months later, a student in the 12-member class that entered a year ahead of me -- was killed while driving a cab to support his kids and his wife, who had a brain tumor.</p>
<p>When I taught college in the small college city where I still live, one of my students opened the door to her dorm apartment to find the girl across the hall bleeding to death after being stabbed by a classmate.</p>
<p>One of my former mentees from another city where I used to live ended up serving time for manslaughter for a murder he helped commit when he was a college freshman. A friend of his had been dissed at a party, so he and the friend drove 26 miles roundtrip to get a gun so they could stand outside and shoot up the house. A 16-year-old playing video games inside was killed.</p>
<p>And those are just some of the homicides related to faculty or college and grad students whom I had some connection with. I have a friend whose 4-year-old brother was killed when my friend was a toddler. A journalist whom I used to know was shot to death last year. The mother of a high school student whom I mentored was stabbed to death by her husband in front of my mentee.</p>
<p>I could go on and on, but it's just too depressing.</p>
<p>By the way, I don't hang out with a rough group of people. I just know a lot of people, and people also tend to tell me painful things that they often won't tell other people.</p>
<p>I don't think the homicide rate in the Pittsburgh area is increasing. The Duquesne shootings were due to some rivalries within the African-American community there. As I recall, all of the players made full recoveries except one young man, who was shot in the head. He lived, but will have medical, neurological, and physical issues for his life.</p>
<p>As it turns out, my other son sits RIGHT NEXT TO the young lady who was shot in Advanced Calculus! He was completely "wigged out." (His words) They had counselors all over the campus, to the University's credit. </p>
<p>Update: the young lady is expected to survive, though she is in critical condition with 7 gunshot wounds. Apparently, she had invited the RMU students over to the apartment she shared off campus with the murderer. When he realized there were men in his home while he wasn't there, he went berzerk. </p>
<p>As far as I know, this is the first incident of violence related to the University. By the way, the killer is not nor has he ever been an RMU student. Also, the U is located in an outlying suburban neighborhood with very little crime.</p>