Germany :(

[nuttymango]

And now Germany - an axeman has attacked people on a train.
BBC breaking news - www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36827725

I know this train line, it's rural all the way, small stations, trains not very busy. I wouldn't expect police on any of these trains and I don't think the German police could stretch to putting an officer on each train in Germany.
One of my brothers is working for the biggest German charity (in one of the big Northern cities, not in Wuerzburg) to provide services for families and children and they found the money for three additional residential groups for unaccompanied minors and then couldn't find the qualified staff to run them. With the big intake of refugees they are so stretched that even if they have the money there aren't enough people with the right training and experience to provide proper care.

"""What an unpleasant post."
Unpleasant post for unpleasant times."
Nothing like adding to the unpleasant times, eh?"

So what do you recommend? Hugs, hashtags and pillocks playing IMAGINE on a bloody keyboard?

I'd rather be "horrid" and "unpleasant" than a useful idiot.

Ugh let's give the attacker who wanted to cause harm to masses of people some sympathy. You know what...he tried to murder people. He wanted to kill people. I am not giving him sympathy. Members of Isis actively hate us, tell others to kill us anyway they can (if no gun use anything even a rock or strangle). I don't believe for one minute this 17 year old thought what he was doing was right.

I don't believe for one minute this 17 year old thought what he was doing was right

Of course he thinks it right - He's been brainwashed to think that.

It's recognising that and tackling the source of that inspiration, which is the key to defeating this cancer.

It's an absolute tragedy for all concerned.

I'm having trouble digesting some of the comments on this thread.

I'm sure if it'd been a member of your own family who was hacked at with an axe, you'd feel differently.

I meant it as a meaning he knows deep down right against wrong. He still chose to do it, yes probably by brainwashing. But I'm fed up of other posters bleating on about mental health problems when it's not necessarily the case. People can be brainwashed without have poor mental health or special needs and that is what I think people don't want to believe because it makes it pretty scary actually. That someone could choose to do this and be completely sane. But they do.

I have a 17-year-old and perhaps illogically because of that feel some pity for this young man, whereas I didn't for the Nice terrorist. I understand young men's frontal lobes don't develop fully until they are well into their twenties and that does mean their ability to evaluate consequences of actions is not fully matured.

And incidentally I have another child of 19 who was on a train in southern Germany yesterday, so am Shuddering, too.

The thing is you can feel concern and compassion for the mentally ill, the brainwashed etc. and STILL feel compassion, at least as much compassion, for the victims.

People who say "Well I'd rather feel sympathy for the VICTIMS!" "What about the VICTIMS!!!!???"

Yes of course the victims, obviously. Can't you get your heads round the fact that feeling compassion for a perpetrator - a teenage boy who has been manipulated and now shot dead - doesn't mean you think what he did was fine and you don't give two shits about the victims? You can care about everyone, you know!

IMO a huge problem with ISIS and one of their masterstrokes is that their methods appeal especially to those who have something very wrong in their lives and feel a sense of alienation, may be mentally ill, are suffering and want a sense of power and agency and want to lash out. It gives them justification to lash out and hurt others. It's not to do with Islam, that's just a handy ideology to hang that justification on.

It reminds me of the pilot who crashed the plane into the Alps - very mentally ill, felt the world was against him, wanted to die, wanted to feel important. He happened to have a plane at his disposal so he used that. Others can get sucked into terrorism for similar reasons. I was sorry for him too - he was let down. Yes, and at least as sorry for all the victims.

And there are families of victims in these types of incidents who do show compassion to the perpetrator.

I don't feel sorry for the pilot in the Alps. I feel sorry for all the innocent men, women and children's whose lives he wiped out in an instant. I feel sorry for the victims of the train.

"I understand young men's frontal lobes don't develop fully until they are well into their twenties "

Christ almighty. We are not talking about some daft kid getting drunk and posting a picture of his penis online, or getting knocked down by a car while taking an unwise selfie. A 17yo understands that hacking people to death with an axe is wrong, for God's sake.

And I would be surprised if he turns out to be genuinely under 18, by the way.

OK yousay, but my point is it's possible to feel sorry for both the perpetrator and the victims. Feeling sorry for the perpetrator does not mean you are saying "Well fuck all those victims, only the perpetrator matters". No one said that, or thinks that.

Just Awful

Thank goodness they aimed well,

Goodness knows what he might have done afterwards.

Frightening

why are people so scared of even trying to understand the motivation of people who do hideous things? Isn't it, apart from anything else, the way to stop other people going the same way?

"I understand young men's frontal lobes don't develop fully until they are well into their twenties "

This is true and it's a very major reason why, particularly among boys, gang violence and pub brawls and massively unwise decisions (like driving a car full of your mates a 3am with no seatbelts at 80mph, or tombstoning off a cliff) cost a lot of lives every year.

Yes, a 17yo knows the likely consequences of those things if you asked him – but impulsiveness overrides logic. Quite literally, the limbic system (part of the brain that controls emotion, bravado etc) overrides the underdeveloped frontal cortex.

THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT OK , and nor does it mean the victims don't matter. But it is worth understanding if we want to help and support other teenagers who are right now at risk of radicalisation and becoming lone wolves.

And fuck knows what happened to him as a child.

We are so precious about our own children-obsessing about strangers talking to them or grandma telling them off or a teacher not picking them for the school play- but we somehow expect 17 year old Afghan refugee who had travelled to Europe alone to be undamaged.........

All of the "imagine if it happened to someone in your family" posts, imagine if a 17 year old in your family did something like this? Would you still have absolutely no empathy or wish to have understanding for whatever caused them to do something so monumentally bad?

ZansForCans - I agree completely, you articulated it far better than I could have.

Only on Mumsnet!

You really couldn't make it up.

What couldn't you make up?

I don't suppose the police wanted to kill the seventeen year old. They killed to minimise any loss of life. Frankly it's a miracle that no one had been killed other than the attacker.

A dreadful end to that kid's miserable short life, four people hospitalised with injuries that may well dog them for the rest of their lives, many more passengers in shock from witnessing that horrible scene. Awful all round.

If the police had not killed the axe man then more innocent lives would be lost. Killing a murderous 17 year old has saved lives.

Next you will be saying that the human rights of the French/ Tunisian truck driver who killed all those people in Nice was violated. Of course the rights of the 84 people (including 10 children) to life should not be considered.

The German police had to act quickly and killed the axeman. If you choose to run round with an axe attacking people you forfeit your own right to life.

Helpful - quite.