Loose cannon at boalt high

I haven't posted anything about the Virginia massacre because the more I think about it, the more moments of visceral empathy I experience, the more convinced I become that nothing I could write in a few sentences could do the situation justice. It's truly an unimaginable catastrophe and I don't want to trivialize it by posting a few pictures or a link. I think everyone has been pretty well appraised of the events as they've unfolded by the media and I mention it now only because it's been made into a backdrop for the drama that's unfolded over the last 48 hours on our own turf at Boalt.

I've visited law-related threads on AutoAdmit (self-billed, somewhat ironically, as "the most prestigious college admissions discussion board in the world") before and have been unpleasantly surprised to find that the maturity level of the discussions often bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the the yahoo chat rooms I remember from high school. Wednesday, someone on the message board spouted off some empty threats, meant as a joke, about a copycat VA attack on Hastings Law School. Turns out, it was one of our own.

The person whose threats of violence shuttered Hastings College of the Law on Wednesday was a student at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, according to officials at both schools.

The message was headed, "Just decided not to do a murder-suicide copycat at Hastings Law" and was authored by a user called "Trustafarian," who went on to write, "I went to bed all set for 'Bloody Wednesday,' but when I woke -- to sun, to flowers in bloom -- I just couldn't bring myself to suit up. Maybe tomorrow; I hear rain's in the forecast."

Hastings officials closed the law school Wednesday after being made aware of the threat and increased security in the wake of the incident, according to [Hastings Dean} Newton. The heightened security will remain in effect through the end of the school year, she wrote in the e-mail to students.

In Edley's [Dean of Boalt Hall] e-mail to Newton, he expressed his "deep regret and sympathy," to the Hastings community for "the anxiety and upset," created by the posting.

The FBI and San Francisco Police Department determined that the suspect "does not pose a risk to others," Edley wrote, and continue to "investigate whether criminal charges are appropriate."

Regardless of the criminal investigation, Edley said, the school will consider disciplinary proceedings against the student.

While this 'joke' was an unbelievable and costly display of bad judgment, insensitivity, and recklessness, there are mitigating circumstances. The post came down within 10 minutes and the student made an immediate confession permitting the assurance of the comment being a joke almost before news of the threat got out. I, for one, didn't hear about the threat until I received Dean Edley's email reassuring the Boalt community that the suspect and circumstances had been investigated by the FBI, no less, and were not considered a legitimate threat. I don't have any sympathy for whoever this is and the massive trouble they've gotten themselves into, but I'm also not proud of some of my classmates' reactions.

Much of the Boalt community is understandably enraged, but some are responding with a maturity level similar to that of the mystery 1L and a total disregard for all things "due process." Concern about rank, reputation, convinced this person should be barred from the profession forever or at least socially ostracized during the rest of his time in law school. There are threats to post his name on a Boalt blog and make his life a living hell forever more. Also some blog commenters have made the excellent point that Boalties have publicly slammed Hastings for far more docile offenses and today, not an ill word about Boalt can be found on popular Hastings blogs and bulliten boards.

High school never ends, indeed.

I'm betting a name will come out in the next week or two. These things have a way of doing that. Note that it is widely speculated, from this guy's own writings and other similarly unconfirmable and uncorroborated evidence, that "he" is a white male.

I think anyone with such an extreme deficit of common sense, discretion, intelligence and maturity is going to learn his or her lesson soon enough. Particularly in the highly competitive and hyper-critical world of law. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of assholes in the profession, but really, unless this person is smart enough to learn a lesson now and get his attitude in check, he won't have a good time of this profession, even if he does manage to survive law school. We live in a paranoid world. And no one should know that better than a lawyer.