Plans to Raze NIU Shooting Site Debated

[flashl]

Source: NY Times (AP)

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Kevin Smith wants to forget about the Valentine's Day shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University, but the memories are hard to shake.

The 20-year-old sophomore often walks past Cole Hall, where a gunman killed five students before committing suicide. Students still lay flowers outside and cry in front of its doors.

Smith, who was outside the building when the shootings occurred, supports a proposal to tear down Cole Hall and erect a memorial on what he considers ''hallowed ground.''

But the idea has plenty of critics. Some argue that razing the building would be like trying to bury the past. The best way to honor the dead, they say, would to be continue using Cole Hall to educate.

Others think it would be a waste of tax dollars to tear down a perfectly good building and put up a replacement.

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-NIU-Shooting.html?_r=1&oref=login

[DS1]

1. You'll graduate, kid.

Yeah, that sounds cold, but get over yourself, Kevin.

[Paladin]

2. You're right, that sounds cold.

Having said that, I don't agree with tearing down a campus building of sound structure. Why should educational resources be destroyed like that? If you want to create a monument to the dead and wounded students, erect something new, don't level something old.....

[davidinalameda]

3. you can do both

level the building and erect a new one

I doubt the school would have to use public funds to build a new one

feel-good projects like this would get a lot of support from donors

[dogman]

4. Unfortunately the proposal is to use $40 million in state emergency funds.

The plan is to use private funds to erect a memorial. If they destroyed every traumatic site in the state, Illinois would be a hole in the ground. It seems silly at a time when Illinois Veterans Hospitals are under-utilized.

[murielm99]

12. This is turning into another round of infighting

among state Democrats in Illinois.

I do think the idea of using emergency funds is a poor one. The idea was conceived too quickly and without enough discussion. There are better ways to honor the memories of those students.

Durbin has come out against tearing down the building.

A privately funded memorial is a much better idea.

[Paladin]

6. Needless Waste......

....and further publicity to spark the next psychotic with a collection of guns to do the same thing all over again.

No consideration whatsoever was given to tearing down the University of Texas tower after Charles Whitman's mass killing spree there. To this day it is a formidable, productively used building. The overwhelming majority of students on the U.T. campus were born long after Whitman's rampage there in 1966, they have no memories of it. Why the hell should any expensive, well-used, undamaged campus structure be destroyed, when the "monument" created by such an action would be unavoidably memorializing the killer as well as the killed? It's a "feel-good project" that very few people would end up feeling good about---how good do you feel about those holes in the ground in New York City, where the Twin Towers used to be?

[mac2]

13. Where will the money come from....$40 million for a new

building? It's a public university is it not? Gov. of Illinios wants our tax dollars to pay for it. He didn't ask us.

The City of Chicago just raised their sales tax to 10%. It is highest in the country. They want to pay for transportation and spy cameras. The cities and towns need those tax dollars.

Let the students finish their education. Remodel inside and honor the dead with plaques.

[barb162]

21. Maybe put up a statue in remembrance of the students.

But I can't see tearing down the building at taxpayer expense. Maybe the guv thinks the taxpayers are made of money.

[bitchkitty]

5. I don't like the idea.

A monument to the dead is also a monument to the murderer, and a reminder of the murders.

Scholarships in the dead students' names would be far more an honor to their name.

[Forrest Greene]

10. Scholarships, Absolutely. Also, Work For Gun Control

& for no-cost, no-stigma, publicly-available mental health care.

Please consider the impetus tearing down the building would give to every armed sociopath out there. "Wow, not only do I get to kill a few innocent bystanders & get my name all over national TV, but I'll force them to do this big demolition & construction project! I'm going down to the ammo store right now!"

If they tear down & rebuild the building, they might as well just name it after the shooter.

[barb162]

22. good points!

[mac2]

15. Whatever the parents of the dead students want.

The students who take courses in that building might have some suggestions also. A vote should be taken by those impacted that way they have some say and control. It's not good to be a victim.

[tanyev]

7. Why not just do some remodeling?

Freshen things up inside so it looks a little different, and set up a nice memorial plaque or alcove somewhere in the building.

[flashl]

8. Several days ago, there was an article in NY Times from a PR company that plans to

rebuild the public image of NIU. Maybe this is part of that plan?

[Paladin]

9. Why Memorialize An Act Of WantonDestruction.....

....with another act of wanton destruction?

Not much of a public image enhancement, as far as I'm concerned. I believe that cooler heads will prevail in the end, and that this tear-down won't happen.....

[mac2]

16. Public education is under attack by the press and RWers.

[Bilbo Heugan]

11. Most ridiculous idea I've read so far today.

Out of sight does not cure the underlying trauma to those student witnesses. Better to respectfully memorialize the places where students fell and fund a chair at the university whose purpose is to study the causes of violence in our population and propose humane ways to address the root causes. Or would that seem to LIBERAL.

[mac2]

17. Good idea if you can investigate and get all the information.

The government might hide some of it like other disasters lately.

[RamboLiberal]

14. When I read this the other day I thought it was a stupid idea

and a misuse of public funds.

Virgina Tech didn't tear down Norris Hall. They just changed the use.

Columbine High School wasn't torn down. Instead areas of the shooting were remodeled.

Put up a nice memorial, perhaps redesign the lecture room where this occurred, but tearing down a perfectly good building. STUPID!

[mac2]

18. There was a shooting of a security guard in front of the

Illinois Capital building. They didn't tear that down either. When I talked with the governor's office, she said the shooter was mentally ill. What can one do?

Did you notice most of those schools you mentioned were public not private? Is this not strange? Don't send your students to public schools? Actually many public schools are better than private. The private ones are expansive and may not have the best teachers. They don't do research, etc. Don't pay well (except for Yale, Harvard...Ivy League colleges for the elite few).

Virginia Tech-Public. 35 students killed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Polytechnic_Institute_and_State_University
Northern Illinois University-Public. 5 students killed and some injured. http://www.niu.edu/about/index.shtml

Other shootings in red click...oh these are all Democratic places aren't they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Illinois_University_shooting

Maybe I'm a bit suspicious after 911 and Katrina but this seems like a set up to me. Always anxiety, mental problems,...and end up dead. Dead men tell no tales.

The last shooter at NIU I heard they didn't reveal his e-mails, cell home, etc.

They keep trying to get rid of our guns another ploy. As a man mentioned on this web site...we do have gun laws to keep the mentally ill from buying a gun but it is not enforced. Mail order and gun shows are a bad idea without proper ID, etc. That would take will and effort.

The shooter of Reagan was the son of a Bush friend. He was in a mental institution but never died. Some say Reagan may have faked his shooting to get out of going to jail for Iran Contra. Also they say Reagan died and they kept his body until it was convient to show around the country. I know it went on and on not like Kennedy, Roosevelt, etc. Lincohn yes. Reagan was no Lincoh but he was a Republican. The only comparison. Nothing Would surprise me with that gang today (back in power from that era).

Don't look at anything as it seems to be. We have crazy people running this country.

[Hand]

19. Springfield? Wrong...

Somebody at NYT needs to do their homework. NIU is in DeKalb, not Springfield. :dunce:

[mac2]

20. Sorry if you misunderstood me.

There was also a shooting of a security guard in Springfield outside the Capital building (at least that's what the governor's office said) besides the NIU one. Not on the same day or time.

They didn't re-build the Capital in Springfield, IL after that shooting.

[Hand]

23. Not your mistake...

The Times bylined the NIU story in Springfield, which of course is the wrong town altogether.

Good point about the Capitol building--they didn't tear down the US Capitol after one of Tom Delay's :puke: security guards was killed there, either. Of course by the bugman and his ilk had pretty well irredeemably soiled the place already. :mad: