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Thoughts on Park Avenue Incident

Yesterday evening, a deranged individual walked into an office building on Park Avenue in New York City with a weapon and killed multiple people and injured more.  I know there will be lots of diagnosis and research into what happened and what could have or should have happened.

Here are a few preliminary thoughts from me.  

  • I think CTE is real and scary.  I suspect that we will see the end of football in our lifetime.  Or at least a significant change to the game that reduces head injuries.
  • I don't know what caused the person to do what he did.  Not sure we will ever know fully why.  But I suspect that there will have been signs of him reaching out for help.  We have to figure out how to better identify and support those asking for help.  That may be one of the most important things we need to figure out as a society.
  • As a profession, law enforcement should be viewed in the eyes of the sacrifices made by individuals - including the person that died yesterday.  A very small percentage of bad actors should not taint a noble field.  
  • CNN's quick take and need to state that the suspect was likely 'white' is troublesome.  Not only was this at least refutable (or should have raised some questions) visually, but why was there a need to immediately assign a race.  People were shot dead.  People were injured with bullets.  Individuals stockpiled furniture to create barriers of entry into their work rooms.  We didn't know and CNN's need to assign a race was completely unnecessary.
I don't know what the right answer or next steps are, but my heart goes out to all those impacted and their immediate families.  



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