Anyone like to reconsider what they posted about the train attack on Saturday night?

[margegunderson]

There were (to my mind) some horrific posts claiming that it MUST be a terrorist attack, demanding information on the attacker’s race and motivations NOW, shouting about Starmer censorship and picking fights with anyone suggesting it might not be cut and dried and to wait for more information. Hideously racist as well.
If that was you - any reflections today? What will you do if there’s a next time?

Well I'm kind of relieved it wasn't a bloody asylum seeker or there would've been riots on the streets. Really terrible situation that could clearly have been avoided if he was nicked when he accosted someone in Pontoon Dock and at a barbers earlier in the day/ few days earlier.

links between drug offences, knife crime and ethnicity - out of interest? Not sure. I'd change ethnicity to generational trauma.
Drug offences, knife crime, poverty, and generational trauma are responsible, regardless of ethnicity.
So many young men out there have never felt loved and supported, grew up with nothing.

No, not in NI.
NI is the most racist place in Europe.
The black/brown people up there are at risk.

I read that statement also from the father saying he knew his child’s behaviour was extreme but didn’t want to get authorities involved for fear of his child’s ending up in care. Very similar with Nicholas Prosper. The family were concerned, particularly the siblings, but from the documentary it seemed that it was being tolerated within the household and the young adult didn’t receive any diagnosis until they were evaluated pre trial.

Perhaps the moral of this story is everyone has a role to play. Individual responsibility, familial responsibility, community responsibility and organisational responsibility.

Break down of families are also contraindicated with poor mental health. There’s some alarming stats out there in regard to children from divorced households.

It's a shame thing in some cultures, my DS's friend has autism, flaps, spins, monotone voice, lovely boy, but his parents won't accept the schools advice or have an assessment.

It’s not that I don’t understand it, it’s that unfortunately burying your head in the sand can be detrimental for the individual as well as community as a whole.

I also don’t think the passive parenting that goes on now helps either. Teaching children that post 10 they are legally responsible for any actions that hurt others is very important. We’re in a time where personal responsibility is low, blaming others is the standard and it’s only going to get worse with mental health declining alongside an uptick of neurodivergence diagnoses.

Yes I donated to Samir. My issue remains the same - why is the person who actually ran toward danger (which doesn't disparage the victim but elevates the hero, rather) not getting the same level of support.

It’s been explained why in the post you quoted.

That documentary actually told us vanishingly little about Prosper's family and how he was parented, supported and so on so I'd be careful of drawing conclusions. The wider family remain angry about the C4 choice to make and air those episodes.

You seem to be connecting those two cases together - I am sure you don't mean to but there are plenty of family destruction murder cases out there and the major link is not ethnicity but gender. Instead you connect Prosper (British mixed race, probably autistic) with Rudakubana (Black, British nationality but not heritage, certainly mentally unstable) who did not kill any family members.

I don’t need to be careful at all as I’m not doing any of the things you are prescribing to me.

I have mentioned two cases where neurodiversity were mentioned and YOU have linked that by ethnicity. I have also mentioned two cases where the press had mentioned family members being aware that their loved ones behaviour may have been worrying and YOU have warned me to be careful.

Out of the two of us YOU are the one being accusatory.

Well, I didn't warn, I cautioned. I did also say they you may not have been doing what it could seem you were.

I stand by my comments on the Prosper family who I have seen misrepresented, maligned and misjudged on here many times. (again, I am not accusing you). You stated that they hadn't done things that the documentary just didn't cover. The family actually refused to participate in the filming and asked C4 not to screen it so what they did or did not do is speculative.

I guess we can only discuss what we are allowed to know publicly about any news stories. I’m sure we’ll find out more about Anthony Williams as the case progresses and I’m sure there will be aspects of his life reported on, that family members won’t agree with the detail of, but I guess that will be between them and the IPCC or them and the news outlets.

Jolly good.

Pitting races against each other, as some have done, to try to suggest all aggressors are from ethnic minorities (when disappointingly not brown and Muslim then black and Jamaican will do as probably a Yardie) and all victims as white British is never wise

Except that, funnily enough, no one has done that. It would help the conversation enormously if PPs could read posts a bit more carefully without having already made up their minds about what has been said.