WebProNews » Suicide http://www.webpronews.com Breaking News in Tech, Search, Social, & Business Thu, 23 May 2013 04:51:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Houston Airport Shooting Ends in Suicide, Note and Facebook Posts Left Behind http://www.webpronews.com/houston-airport-shooting-ends-in-suicide-note-left-behind-2013-05 http://www.webpronews.com/houston-airport-shooting-ends-in-suicide-note-left-behind-2013-05#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 13:39:31 +0000 Sean Patterson http://www.webpronews.com/?p=228149 A man fired multiple shots from a handgun in Bush Intercontinental Airport on Thursday before committing suicide. No one but the shooter was injured.

Houston’s KHOU news is reporting that the man was 29-year-old Carnell Moore from Beaumont, Texas. The TV news station also reported that Moore left behind a suicide note stating he had a “monster within” and coloring the shooting as a suicide-by-cop situation.

Over the course of the week, Moore had posted cryptic messages to his Facebook account about “staring death in the face” and stating, “This Life Will Crash Tomorrow!”

Houston airport shooter's Facebook posts

Witnesses to the shooting told KHOU that Moore simply walked into terminal B at the airport and began firing his weapon. A U.S. Homeland Security agent is reported to have fired on Moore as the shooter fired a gun at himself. An autopsy will be performed to determine which bullet ended Moore’s life.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/houston-airport-shooting-ends-in-suicide-note-left-behind-2013-05/feed 0 School Shooting In Cincinnati: Student Shoots Self At La Salle High School http://www.webpronews.com/school-shooting-in-cincinnati-student-shoots-self-at-la-salle-high-school-2013-04 http://www.webpronews.com/school-shooting-in-cincinnati-student-shoots-self-at-la-salle-high-school-2013-04#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:01:20 +0000 Chris Crum http://www.webpronews.com/?p=227211 Update: In a press conference, it was said that the student is “fighting for his life”.

According to reports, a high school student at La Salle High School in Cincinnati shot himself this morning.

The story is still developing, but according to Ohio’s 10TV.com, police are on the scene after being called around 9AM:

Officers were called to the school on North Bend Road around 9 a.m. Monday. Authorities say a student shot himself in the school.

It reportedly happened during the first class of the day, and multiple students called 911 to report the incident.

The school is reportedly on lockdown, and the student was taken to the hospital. The Hamilton County sheriff’s office told the AP that there was no apparent threat to other students.

The student’s condition is unknown at this time. Reporters are waiting to talk to hospital officials.

The student has not been identified, but is apparently male, as La Salle is a Catholic all-male school. It’s on North Bend Road, and reportedly has about 800 students enrolled.

Local12 (CBS) has a live feed.

Update: From Fox19:

The student was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center…The school was placed on lockdown after the shooting, but parents are now being allowed in the school to meet with their sons. Classes have not been cancelled, but parents are permitted to take their student home.


Update: The school has issued a statement:

ALL LA SALLE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE SAFE AND BEING DISMISSED INTO THE CUSTODY OF THEIR PARENTS DUE TO AN ATTEMPTED SUICIDE INVOLVING ONE STUDENT.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/school-shooting-in-cincinnati-student-shoots-self-at-la-salle-high-school-2013-04/feed 1 Father Kills Son, Self in Pennsylvania Murder-Suicide http://www.webpronews.com/father-kills-son-self-in-pennsylvania-murder-suicide-2013-03 http://www.webpronews.com/father-kills-son-self-in-pennsylvania-murder-suicide-2013-03#comments Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:00:27 +0000 Sean Patterson http://www.webpronews.com/?p=222176 As Lamar Odom can attest, child custody arrangements are often contentious and exhausting. The stress involved is enough to engender harsh feelings, but one Pennsylvania man has taken his hatred much further.

The Altoona Mirror is reporting that Kenneth Ayers of Petersburg, Pennsylvania shot and killed his two-year-old son before killing himself on Saturday, March 23. The shooting took place during a child custody visit and the boy’s mother, Hollie Ayers, was shot as well, but is expected to survive.

Kenneth arrived at his mother’s house on Saturday, where his supervised visit with his son was to have taken place. He allegedly shot Hollie in her leg and arm, then shot his son, Michael, before taking the boy’s body to his car. Hollie is reported by the Mirror to have followed and attempted to retrieve Michael before being shot once more in the face.

Kenneth drove off, switched vehicles, and was later found in the cab of his truck, dead from apparent suicide. The newspaper reported that the man was under a protection from abuse order, a type of domestic violence protection issued in Pennsylvania. Police stated that Kenneth may have planned the shooting.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/father-kills-son-self-in-pennsylvania-murder-suicide-2013-03/feed 0 Hospice Murder-Suicide Rocks Pennsylvania Community http://www.webpronews.com/hospice-murder-suicide-rocks-pennsylvania-community-2013-03 http://www.webpronews.com/hospice-murder-suicide-rocks-pennsylvania-community-2013-03#comments Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:14:10 +0000 Sean Patterson http://www.webpronews.com/?p=221677 An elderly man and woman in Allentown, Pennsylvania are dead, following a murder-suicide.

CBS is reporting that 86-year-old Elwood Osman shot his 83-year-old wife while she was lying in bed in the hospice wing of Lehigh Valley Hospital on Tuesday, March 19. He then took his own life in the same room. The wife, Mildred Osman, had only been in the hospital’s care since March 7.

Hospital and Lehigh County authorities have stated that no other patients or staff witnessed the event and that no danger was posed to other patients. Security at the hospital is being reassessed.

“It’s a love story,” said Jim Geiger, SVP of operations at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/hospice-murder-suicide-rocks-pennsylvania-community-2013-03/feed 1 Kurt Cobain’s Birthday Widely Celebrated In The Twitterverse http://www.webpronews.com/kurt-cobains-birthday-widely-celebrated-in-the-twitterverse-2013-02 http://www.webpronews.com/kurt-cobains-birthday-widely-celebrated-in-the-twitterverse-2013-02#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:05:06 +0000 Chris Crum http://www.webpronews.com/?p=217774 ]]> Today is Kurt Cobain’s birthday. The Nirvana frontman was born on this day in 1967, which would would make him 46 years old, had he not committed suicide. He died on April 5, 1994, at the height of his career, and fans have not forgotten the mark he made on music when he was here.

He has managed to make his way into the Twitter Trends today, and even Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has tweeted out a quote:


Here’s what some other Twitter users are sharing:






















Now go read the lyrics to Floyd the Barber and Hairspray Queen.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/kurt-cobains-birthday-widely-celebrated-in-the-twitterverse-2013-02/feed 1 Aaron Swartz’ Charges Officially Dropped By Justice Department [Report] http://www.webpronews.com/aaron-swartz-charges-officially-dropped-by-justice-department-report-2013-01 http://www.webpronews.com/aaron-swartz-charges-officially-dropped-by-justice-department-report-2013-01#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:54:06 +0000 Chris Crum http://www.webpronews.com/?p=211161 Programmer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz was found dead in a Brooklyn apartment on Friday after hanging himself. It’s been the talk of the Internet all weekend and into Monday.

Today, The Hill is reporting that the Justice Department has dropped its charges against Swartz, as is reportedly standard in cases in which the defendant dies.

Swartz had been indicted in 2011 for allegedly downloading millions of documents from JSTOR using an MIT network, with intent to distribute. He was looking at three decades in prison, and after his lawyer was unable to get federal prosecutors to budge with regards to a plea bargain, Swartz took his own life.

Swartz’s family put out a statement blaming the justice system for his suicide.

MIT, meanwhile, put out a statement of its own saying it will be investigating its role in the case.

Swartz was 26 years old.

More on the story here.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/aaron-swartz-charges-officially-dropped-by-justice-department-report-2013-01/feed 0 Aaron Swartz’ Loved Ones: Suicide Product Of Justice System http://www.webpronews.com/aaron-swartz-loved-ones-suicide-product-of-justice-system-2013-01 http://www.webpronews.com/aaron-swartz-loved-ones-suicide-product-of-justice-system-2013-01#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:30:14 +0000 Chris Crum http://www.webpronews.com/?p=211036 As you may know, Aaron Swartz, who developed RSS 1.0 and founded Infogami, which merged with reddit in the popular social news site’s early days, was found dead after hanging himself at 26 years old.

Swartz had been in some legal trouble, after being arrested in 2011 for allegedly downloading millions of documents from JSTOR with intent to distribute them. It’s looking more and more likely that this incident ultimately led to his suicide, with Swartz losing hope just days before killing himself. The Wall Street Journal reports that his hopes for a deal with federal prosecutors, who threatened to put him in prison for 30 years, fell apart before his suicide.

According to the report, Swartz’s lawyer had initially discussed a plea bargain with Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann back in the fall, but was told that Swartz would have to plead guilty on every count, and that the government would insist on prison time. When the two lawyers spoke just this past Wednesday, the situation remained unchanged. The Journal also spoke with Swartz’s girlfriend:

With the government’s position hardening, Mr. Swartz realized that he would have to face a costly, painful and public trial, his girlfriend, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, said in an interview Sunday. The case was draining his money, and he would need to ask for help financing his defense; two of his friends had recently been subpoenaed in the case. Both situations distressed him, she said.

A Tumblr has been set up to honor Swartz’s memory, and provide a way for his family and friends to share their memories. On that, an official statement from his family and partner was released. That says:

Our beloved brother, son, friend, and partner Aaron Swartz hanged himself on Friday in his Brooklyn apartment. We are in shock, and have not yet come to terms with his passing.

Aaron’s insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable—these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter. We’re grateful for our time with him, to those who loved him and stood with him, and to all of those who continue his work for a better world.

Aaron’s commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life. He was instrumental to the defeat of an Internet censorship bill; he fought for a more democratic, open, and accountable political system; and he helped to create, build, and preserve a dizzying range of scholarly projects that extended the scope and accessibility of human knowledge. He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place. His deeply humane writing touched minds and hearts across generations and continents. He earned the friendship of thousands and the respect and support of millions more.

Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.

Today, we grieve for the extraordinary and irreplaceable man that we have lost.

Swartz had been using an MIT network for his alleged downloading of JSTOR articles, and MIT put out a letter to its community on Sunday about its role in the ordeal. In that, L. Rafael Reif writes:

Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

Aaron Swartz was known for a lot of things, and among them were his contributions to the anti-SOPA/PIPA movement, a cause for which he founded DemandProgress.org. Here’s a keynote from Swartz at F2C2012, called “How We Stopped SOPA” (via BusinessInsider on YouTube):

DemandProgress.org is calling on those seeking to make donations in his name to consider doing so by giving to GiveWell, which the organization says Swartz had a “deep respect” for.

Related: Anonymous Hacks MIT In Honor Of Aaron Swartz, Academics Protest With #PDFTribute

Lead image: DemandProgress.org

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/aaron-swartz-loved-ones-suicide-product-of-justice-system-2013-01/feed 3 Freddy E, Rapper and YouTube Star, Live-Tweets His Suicide http://www.webpronews.com/freddy-e-rapper-and-youtube-star-live-tweets-his-suicide-2013-01 http://www.webpronews.com/freddy-e-rapper-and-youtube-star-live-tweets-his-suicide-2013-01#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:16:43 +0000 Josh Wolford http://www.webpronews.com/?p=210108 There’s not a whole lot you can say about this, except that it’s incredibly sad.

Seattle-based rapper and YouTube star (JERKTV) Frederick Eugene Buhl, better known as Freddy E, has taken his own life. Not only that, but he broadcast the moments leading up to the suicide on Twitter.

What follows is the series of tweets sent out to his 122,000+ followers. It seems to all begin with an unknown event, to which Freddy E said “my day is ruined.” He ended with a series of tweets that read “I love you mom; I love you dad; I love you Katherine; God, please forgive me; I’m sorry.” As a word of warning, what follows is raw and pretty disturbing:

His suicide has been confirmed by his father, who said that Freddy E ended his life with a rifle shot to the head. Here’s what he had to say in a Facebook post:

Today, our son, Frederick Eugene Buhl (@freddy_E), age 22 years old, took his own life with a rifle shot to the head. Our family is saddened beyond words; our loss is great; this tragedy is enormous and unforseen. Not only our family, but the world has lost a talented, sensitive, brilliant young man who lit up our existence with his. We love him a great deal, and he will be sorely missed. We pray that God will now watch over him, and we ask all of you to include Frederick and our entire family in your thoughts and prayers. Tomorrow, Sunday, January 5th, 2013, we will be attending Fred’s Church, First AME, at 12:00 PM in Seattle, WA. You are invited to join us or send your prayers. Fred would appreciate that a great deal.

Just heartbreaking. But we can’t say that we’re surprised that Twitter serves as the last broadcast for a suicide.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/freddy-e-rapper-and-youtube-star-live-tweets-his-suicide-2013-01/feed 2 Bing Beats Google, If You’re Looking to Kill Yourself [UPDATED] http://www.webpronews.com/bing-beats-google-if-youre-looking-to-kill-yourself-2012-09 http://www.webpronews.com/bing-beats-google-if-youre-looking-to-kill-yourself-2012-09#comments Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:26:52 +0000 Josh Wolford http://www.webpronews.com/?p=193448 UPDATE: I’ve received the following statement from Bing:

“In some cases we do prioritize the hotline and we’re reviewing the guidelines for instant answers related to this type of query,” says Stefan Weitz, Senior Director, Bing.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Earlier this month, Bing launched their “Bing It On” challenge – a blind comparison test designed to see if users preferred the search results from Bing as opposed to those of Google, if they weren’t biased. Bing said that in these blind tests, internet users chose Bing over Google by a 2 to 1 margin. The campaign has some detractors, as some pointed out that Bing was excluding features like Google’s knowledge graph from the challenge results. It could be argued that Knowledge graph is one of the things that people really love about Google nowadays, so that wasn’t exactly fair. And Google’s Matt Cutts pointed out a pretty big fail within Bing’s search results.

Oh well, all of that is beside the point, except to frame the background for this: Bing totally bests Google’s search results, if your search queries involve suicide.

Check out this comparison of Google and Bing results for the search “how to commit suicide,” courtesy of redditor naidlm:

As you can see, Google inserts the contact information for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at the top, before any search results. Also, Google’s autocomplete will not suggest the full phrase as any point in typing the query. Bing, on the other hand, autocompletes it for you and lists a bunch of related searches on the right.

Additionally, “how to commit suicide” searches on both Yahoo and Ask.com display the number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline above all results. Neither Yahoo or Ask.com will suggest the complete phrase at any point.

Then, there is the response to other phrases like “how to kill…” Bing autocompletes it with “yourself” and “yourself painlessly” while Google simply suggests bugs.

To be fair, neither Google or Bing can imagine all possible suicide-related queries and plan for them. Searches for “how to slit my wrists” appear similar on both sites. And both sites freely autocomplete phrases about committing various acts of homicide. No “get help before you kill mama” warning from Google.

But searches for the phrases “I want to kill myself,” “I want to die,” “how to die,” “suicide” and “how to commit suicide” bring up the number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline as a feature in Google search. No such luck with Bing.

We’re not suggesting that Bing should nerf their autocomplete results. Plenty of people take issue with just how many words appear on that Google autocomplete blacklist. But it wouldn’t be too hard to throw a phone number for a hotline at the top of the results when someone searches one of these loaded phrases. Google did it out of a partnership with Samaritans back in 2010. Maybe they have yet to push Bing to include the feature?

But it’s hard to argue that Bing wins this round of the search battle by giving the user exactly what they want – even if what they want is information on how to end their own life.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/bing-beats-google-if-youre-looking-to-kill-yourself-2012-09/feed 14 Termites Workers Become Suicide Bombers In Old Age http://www.webpronews.com/termites-workers-become-suicide-bombers-in-old-age-2012-07 http://www.webpronews.com/termites-workers-become-suicide-bombers-in-old-age-2012-07#comments Fri, 27 Jul 2012 20:32:43 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=184403 I hope you never have the unfortunate experience of owning a house that’s infested with termites. The little buggers are hard to kill and they can eat through wood like nothing else. Need I mention that they are also pretty high on the “Kill it with fire” scale of terrifying insects. Well, it seems that scientists have found one more reason to be scared of the wood eaters.

Science Magazine is reporting that biologists in French Guiana have found that termites can explode. It’s a purely defensive measure, but holy crap, termites will totally become suicide bombers if their nest is threatened. Thankfully, not all termits are lit up and ready to go. The termite must be old and must feature blue dots behind their head to initiate the explosion.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about termits blowing up your house anytime soon. The explosion is actually pretty small and only serves to kill or knock out competing termite colonies or predators.

While the explosion is pretty awesome (and terrifying), it’s the chemical reaction that takes place that has scientists intrigued. As it turns outs, the blue dots in the termite’s head is a copper protein that reacts to salivary gland secretions to create a toxic substance. Not only are these termites exploding, but they also become a biological weapon in their own right.

The biologists note that warrior termites often do explode in defense of their nest, but the resulting explosion only creates a smelly fluid. This is the first time that they have observed worker termites exploding and creating toxins that kill potential threats.

Lucky for you, one of the biologists has uploaded video of the termite workers as they explode. It’s really impressive, if somewhat gross. If you have any problems with watching icky bugs, you should probably avoid the video:

[Image Credit: ScienceMag]

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