Elder Rage

[ramonmercado]

Two mass shootings in California this month have been carried out by men in their 70s and late 60s, now we have a 74 year old Spanish man who is accused of being responsible for a mail bomb campaign. Is it just old men who are getting very angry or are there examples of old women turning to extreme crime/terrorism?

Spain letter bombs: Elderly man arrested over high-profile attacks​

• • Published 13 hours ago By Kathryn Armstrong BBC News
  
  Spanish police have arrested a 74-year-old man on suspicion of sending letter bombs to high-profile targets, including the country's prime minister.
  The man was reportedly taken into custody in the north of Spain and is due to appear in court later this week. In total six bombs were sent to addresses across Spain including PM Pedro Sánchez's official residence and the US and Ukrainian embassies. Most were defused but an Ukrainian embassy worker was slightly injured.
  
  Letter bombs were also sent to the ministry of defence, an air force base and a weapons manufacturer - all linked to Spain's support for Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression. The country's National Court opened a terrorism investigation following the attacks.
  
  The man, who was arrested in the town of Miranda de Ebro in the northern province of Castile and León, is described as having some expertise with computers and was found to be active on social networks. Local media report that the man worked for the town hall at Vitoria-Gasteiz, the nearby Basque capital, before retirement. The authorities have said that while they believe he acted alone, they have not ruled out the possibility others were involved. ...
  
  
  
  The New York Times reported on Sunday that investigators have been looking into the Russian Imperial Movement, a group with ties to Spanish far-right organisations that is also believed to be linked to Russian intelligence. The US has declared it a global terrorist organisation.
  Spanish officials are said to have declined to comment on the report. ...
  
  
  
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64402932
  
  
  

 

[ramonmercado]

Some data on older criminals.

Why older mass shooters like the California gunmen are so rare​

The gunmen in both of the recent shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, California, had an unusual profile compared to most perpetrators of violent crime: They were both senior citizens.

The Monterey Park gunman, who killed 11 and injured nine before fatally shooting himself, was 72. The Half Moon Bay gunman, who killed seven people before he was arrested in what police have characterized as an act of workplace violence, is 66.

Mass shooters of that age are rare, especially those with no prior criminal record, as was the case with the Half Moon Bay gunman. (The Monterey Park gunman had one arrest in 1990 for illegal possession of a firearm.) According to data from the National Institute of Justice, mass shooters between 1966 and 2021 were on average 34 years old, and those over the age of 60 accounted for a little over 3 percent of all mass shootings, which are defined as shootings in which four or more people are killed.

The notion that people “age out of crime” is one of the most well-documented phenomena in the field of criminology. The California shootings should be seen as exceptions to that principle, not as nullifying examples, according to Ashley Nellis, co-director of research for the Sentencing Project, which advocates for criminal justice reform.

“The predictability of age is probably the most reliable point of data that we have about people who commit violent crime. Young people are just substantially more likely, and by extension, older people are substantially unlikely, to commit crime,” Nellis said. “It’s certainly a cautionary note to anybody who would be jumping to make policy based on these two events.” ...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...erey-park-half-moon-bay-shooter-old-age-crime

 

[Tunn11]

Are many women of whatever age involved in mass killings like this anyway?

Not that it does or should lead to violence but there is the issue of becoming less tolerant with age. Some of the frustrations of dealing with ever more complex and sometimes more ridiculous situations may push some older people over the edge.

Nothing like the same as a violent shooting, but I know a ninety four year old lady who told me that she doesn't give a damn what anybody thinks of her now. She's never be violent or abusive but when she went to the GPs for a repeat prescription for painful gout she got the usual we'll set up a telephone triage appointment. She just sat in a chair and told them "I'm ninety four, I'm in pain, the doctor's in there, there's no one else waiting, all he has to do is write a prescription." She stayed put until got it! She told me that she wouldn't have had the nerve to do that even ten years ago.

A combination of frustration, injustice and the life experience to know that whatever is causing that frustration and injustice can be done a better way, perhaps even used to be done a better way may be what causes some older people to snap. Perhaps the experience of knowing what the consequences could be, means there aren't as many as there are younger people who snap.

IIRC someone said that in the West someone frustrated may take a rifle to a rooftop but in the East they were more likely to quietly kill themselves, so there may be cultural imperatives here as well. Are older people less frustrated with life in societies that value age than they are in the generally youth culture of the West?

But I'm getting old - so this may be a very one sided view.

 

[Min Bannister]

Not that it does or should lead to violence but there is the issue of becoming less tolerant with age. Some of the frustrations of dealing with ever more complex and sometimes more ridiculous situations may push some older people over the edge.

Maybe too much time on the internet combined with encroaching dementia?

 

[brownmane]

Younger men tend to be more violent in part due to their impulsivity. Older? Don't know. I have the same thought as @Min Bannister - possible dementia.

Though the isolation and fear brought on by the pandemic has not helped people's mental health.

Here, we have had 8 girls aged 13-17 who swarmed a person and killed him, allegedly. No court yet.

 

[ramonmercado]

Exploitation of immigrant workers may have been the root cause of the killings but Zhao took his anger out on other such workers.

A California prosecutor has said the Half Moon Bay gunman was angered by a $100 (£80) repair bill he had to pay following a collision between his forklift and a co-worker's bulldozer.

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe confirmed local news reports that the suspect was involved in a workplace dispute over the bill.
Chunli Zhao, 66, faces seven counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
The suspect was employed at a local mushroom farm.

In separate interviews, Mr Wagstaff told station KTVU and CNN that the suspect told law enforcement that the repair bill might have "lit the candle" that led to the shooting.

In a jailhouse interview last week, the suspect told a local San Francisco station, KNTV-TV that he was bullied and worked long hours on the farm and that his complaints went ignored.

Speaking in Mandarin, Mr Zhao, a Chinese national, told the station he has a green card and has been in the US for 11 years.

All of the victims in last week's shooting were agricultural workers. Four of those killed were shot at California Terra Garden - the farm where the suspect lived and worked. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64460675