Submitted 1 day ago by FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Not just uncaught murderers, there are a lot of people who have killed without legally being considered murderers.
People who killed people in accidents such as driving accidents or hunting accidents
People who killed in self defense
Soldiers who killed enemy soldiers
Police officers who have killed on duty
Doctors and nurses who have made mistakes that accidentally killed patients
I’ve been a lawyer for over 20 years… So, I’ve met more than a couple.
Two people, in fact. First was a Hell’s Angel’s enforcer. Had lunch at a Chinese restaurant with him and a few other people from my former Kung Fu school. Apparently he was a former student and credibly accused of murdering a rival biker gang member, but the jury was hung and couldn’t convict.
Second was none other than Shrimp Boy, after he got released from prison for the armed robbery but before he got locked up again for the racketeering charges. Met in in Chinatown literally a few days before the feds closed in on him. Shared a cup of tea with him without knowing his identity and didn’t find out until someone present told me who he was days later.
I took a flight back from Europe with a colleague years ago, we talked for hours. A year later he was found guilty of killing his wife with cyanide.
People do a great job of hiding their demons in a professional setting.
Yup, can confirm, have a convicted offender colleague.
On the flip side, you’ve probably met someone who has saved a person’s life.
I saved my self a bunch of times by convincing my self to not kill myself.
Does that count?
Username checks out. Also, same. The biggest cheat: keep moving it back by like a week or even a day at a time, because something always comes up that you’d feel bad for not doing first.
It’s the thought that counts! I keep asking myself, is this it? Living like this. Trying to find joy in a world doing all it can to make every aspect of life miserable and boring.
Also, if you’re an empath like me, chances are you resist the urge because you know you’d only be passing your pain on to others. I hate it, but I know that self checkout won’t take my pain away; just spread it to others in my life.
Only if I have a mirror.
I’ve saved a bunch of lives. Give blood! It’s easy and makes you feel better about yourself.
When I was 18/19 in college, I met a guy through my brother’s work that was in his mid 40’s. We hung out with him and his girlfriend a lot and he was pretty good friends with my brother. He even met my mom and family, helped her with some construction projects she needed done (dad died when I was 15, so she didn’t have that extra help), and was invited to her wedding to my step dad.
Now we knew that this guy was an ex-con (the restaurant my brother worked at hired a lot of ex-cons), but we never really judged or pried into what happened. Honestly, this guy was always just chill, giving, funny, helpful, and respectful. I never got creeped out by him, and i never felt like he was inappropriate with me. We found out through a mutual friend later that this guy used to get paid to bleach the bodies of girls/women that had been raped and killed by others. To this mutual friend’s knowledge, our friend hadn’t actually done any raping/killing, but I was really struggling to feel much comfort in the fact that he “only” helped guys get away with it. Especially because I was a young, petite college girl at the time.
Anyways, I dont directly know of anybody ive met that has killed someone, but the fact that I know of somebody that did this horrible thing makes me think that you’re correct.
It is quite likely that someone I knew either killed a person, or had them killed.
Said potential murderer is dead for a few years now and tbh I don’t think anyone wants to uncover this mystery anymore. Since the whole thing was very long ago, it’s easier to just ignore it instead of ruining everyone’s memory of a person. The other person who could’ve done it has been dead for a decade or 2 too.
Ok, storytime please
Let’s just say some people I know lost their mother at a very early age and when one of them finally asked the father about it 30 years later, his explanation was “well person X was at work that night, ask him”. Person X being a business partner of his, somewhat of a low-end organized crime guy. Dead for like 10-15 years at that point.
When I say lost, I mean she hasn’t been found decades later. Not even a body.
Early 90s were a crazy ass time here in Estonia.
There’s more details I know, but honestly if I go too into detail and the story makes its way out of our tiny community here, people who know about the whole thing will instantly figure out who I am and who I’m talking about and I don’t want that. Not because I’m in any danger from anyone - just because I don’t want it to happen.
Unless you live in a civilised country where guns aren’t everywhere and not everyone is a war vet.
Yea, you know Sir Alec Guinness (the actor that played Obi-Wan) has killed a few people. He wouldnt call WW2 his “best performance” if he didnt take a few baddies out.
I don’t know why, but I read that in Matthew Berry’s voice.
Because everything sounds better in Matthew Barry’s voice.
Beat me to it
If you’re old enough you’ve definitely met someone who has done at least one murder. The question is intent as you’ve said: did you meet the drunk driver or the serial killer with 50 bodies in the basement who hasn’t been caught.
Also this applies to rape and that is far more common because it is simply less reported. One of your buddies might be a person that has straight up forced a person to have sex, maybe violently
Let’s not forget the more obvious, most veterans or military have killed people but. We usually don’t count them because they were killing “bad people” that just happened to be from a different country.
op straight up said that one bud but yes imperialism has a lot of murderers walking among us. Some of your zionist friends may have committed war crimes during their time in israel only to come back to home to 0 consequences and to be a fucking sociopath that, I dunno, goes on tinder dates without dropping the bomb that they sniped children that posed 0 threat because they’re fucking inhuman monsters
Most veterans and military have not killed anyone.
Yeah, no. Most members of most militaries haven’t directly killed anyone, even during wartime.
I killed someone. It’s a called a dead name for a reason.
I knew a guy who got imprisoned for murder, really nice guy, the way he described it was an armed robbery where the armed person got spooked and fired off a shot. They were arrested on the road while taking the victim to the hospital (they weren’t trying to hurt anyone) and ended up getting booked for murder and kidnapping.
I met him a few years after he got out on paper.
I once gave a friend of a friend a condescending chewing-out after they did something hurtful.
Some time later our mutual friend informed me that they had died, but declined to tell me the cause of death.
Much later I discovered it was self-caused.
… Were my words too much? We spend our lives trying to be more effective communicators. What if we’re too effective when it matters most?
I’ve met multimillionaires before so yes, thousands probably
This this this. It's basically impossible to get that rich without having endangered others.
billionaires, yea they have to step on other people , sue them out of existence, and exploit others.
eh, millionaire aint what it used to be (inflation is a bitch)…billionaires definitely though
I wonder how many people who have themselves unknowingly caused a death, though some thoughtless or innocuous action. E.g. a discarded banana peel causes another person to later slip and fall with a fatal result.
the number of people who fall into this category through their use of stock LED headlights is non-zero
There’s an early Robot Chicken bit where he dies and asks silly questions to a book that can give him an answer like how many times did I listen to this song, or how much of a wall could my poop make. This question sounds like an interesting one to ask that book though. Actually I’d probably prefer not to know the chaotic randomness that is our lives but guess the lives part would be redundant at that point anyways.
I frequently have this thought, but take it one step further. Like, what if something I did, intentionally or not, greatly angers or pisses off someone that they get riled up, and it leads to them having a heart attack or lashing out in a way that causes them mortal harm?
Am I wholly responsible? No. But am I somewhat indirectly involved in their demise? Debatable. Yes, it gets very convoluted quickly, but it’s something that pops up in my head whenever I’ve got some idle time.
You are not responsible. Even if you argued with someone, you couldn’t have known what the outcome would be. Heart attack or they spent a bunch of time pissed and got in a fistfight later that resulted in someone’s death. You cannot control what they choose to do as long as your actions weren’t intentionally leading the other person to make those choices.
Met a guy after he got out of prison for drunk driving and killing someone. I don’t know the details but he wouldn’t go anywhere near alcohol, so at least he’s trying to be better.
Also I have met quite a few War Veterans over the years.
I have. I used to drink with someone who later killed someone while drinking.
Carl can fuck right off.
My ex-brother-in-law killed a family of four while DUI. The cops really screwed up the investigation so he was able to get the charges down to a minor moving violation. He never saw the inside of a jail.
When I was in high school a friend of a friend that I knew and had hung out with at a couple of times was a serial killer/rapist. He was one of the last people executed by that state.
I have killed someone. My mother. It was intentional, legal and sanctioned. She was at the end of her life, suffering from Alzheimers and her entire family was present. I volunteered, as her only living child, to pull the plug. And I did. Did I kill someone? Yes. Was it the best thing to do at the time? Yes. Do you wonder if that’s a good way to go out of this world? Probably. Would you be wrong? Yes.
If you think about it, people have probably elected to be killed by their families ( and friends!) loads of times throughout history.
- old age
- mortal wounds / permanent disabilities
- evading capture by enemies
- escaping debt et cetera
- one less mouth to feed
When I was younger my grandmother died of cancer. She wanted to pass at home and we lived with her.
For months she just declined, until she was bed-bound in the living room, having carers and family members feed her, clean her after she pooped on herself, sometimes randomly screaming in pain, having nightmares, and was largely incoherent. In the last week she didn’t have the strength to eat and her doctors told us to just stop feeding her. She had a death rattle that lasted for days and echoed through the house every time she breathed, until finally something just gave out.
It was not dignified. It was not peaceful. It was deeply traumatizing. I wish we could cut her suffering short somehow – for us as much as her.
I wish we could cut her suffering short somehow – for us as much as her.
Our legislators and judges are enormous chicken shits for not addressing this issue better. In a way, I would call them demented torture masters for their lack of clear and humane definition of when assisted suicide and mercy killing are legally permissible. Not required, but when all competent parties are in agreement? Keeping people with no quality of life and no hope of recovery alive with technology can’t be called anything but torture, in my opinion.
I was told that once the plug is pulled, it’s not just some flatline and quiet sadness. The human body, regardless of its condition, does not like being deprived of oxygen and spends some time physically revolting before finally giving in. Apparently it’s horrific, but I haven’t witnessed it myself.
Depends. Saw my dad die of mesothelioma (asbestos from being a Torpedoman 3rd class, WWII). Remember Dr. Dyson dying in T2? Like that but a bit worse. Stood by as a family friend had the plug pulled, nothing but a flatline.
It’s going to depend on their condition. Someone who has lost their respiratory drive, someone who has a heart that isn’t working, and someone who is dying of organ failure all have their unique way of passing. And those are just the ones I’ve seen. There’s a saying in my field that everyone dies of shock, but there are lots of ways to get to that point.
I’ve heard that as well. In my mother’s case she actually passed quite peacefully.
Another good example of killing without it being murder
That may be true in the US.
Most of these reasons don’t apply to normal more civilized countries
Some do.
Soldiers who killed enemy soldiers
Starting to get more likely in Eastern Europe now than the US I’d say. Never know when you might run into a former Russian or Ukrainan soldier.
People who killed in self defense
Probably less likely outside of the US since no guns, but assault is still a thing and you can kill an assailant without a gun.
Doctors and nurses who have made mistakes that accidentally killed patients
This is universal.
People who killed people in accidents such as driving accidents or hunting accidents
So is this.
That is true, but I think they were just trying to take a shot (haha) at the US. Well deserved, for sure.
Yeah and several of them were my kin and were murderers. My kin were the folks who you went to when you needed someone dealt with, hell I wouldn’t be surprised if my great great aunt killed someone as a favor to the Hells Angels back in the day. Let alone some of the kin I’m less close, I know at least one of them ended up in prison for murder back in the day due to some such Berdoo nonsense. Funny enough a kinsman who I only met once was also in Prison at some point and was on the bad side of the law into old age, threatened to kill my sperm donor, glad he didn’t kill stealing is a step to far and that sombitch belongs either to my grandmother or myself.
Damn. That still going on in your extended family, or has it died down now?
Maybe. Don’t actually know, the ones I’m in contact with have pretty universally chilled out but who knows about the other ones. Though even with that I’m not stupid enough to assume I wouldn’t fall back into my ancestors ways of banditry and murder, just requires the right targets and enough leeway to get away with it. Would be pretty lucrative for example to raid those shitty little orthodox Mormon communities out in the desert especially with a crew.
But like I said, as of right now all the ones I know were killers are dead or so old that they won’t be pulling that shit again.
I met the guy who killed my best friend. At her funeral. He was her boyfriend. He got her addicted to drugs. Technically she killed herself by OD-ing, but had he never got her addicted she’d still be alive today. I couldn’t face him. He tried to talk to be and just walked away.
I know a train operator. They are sometimes involuntary involved in other peoples suicide.
That has to be one of the worst choices if you must go. I get that we don’t think straight in those moments of our life, but it’s such a horrible thing to force on someone and their conscience…
Not just trains, but all the instances where someone entirely unrelated will be dragged into something so heavy, like truck drivers, too. Hard to live with, can really ruin lives.
Another thing I don’t like is when others that aren’t trained for it like the paramedics or police, have to see the outcome and fallout, such as jumping off a building into a busy street, even at night when nobody’s there just now, but will be. Or hanging yourself from your balcony in an apartment complex.
It fucks up someone to see that, and I have to believe everyone could make the responsible choice of doing it in private or in a way that affects least amount of unrelated people possible. Like going with the helium/nitrogen bag, hanging within the bounds of one’s privacy, if shooting is the way to go, do it perhaps in the woods, somewhere peaceful and remote, and call the paramedics so they’ll be there before any innocent walkers-by, etc.
It’s bad that anyone has to be involved, but at least the professionals have the training to deal with that somehow, even if it will ultimately fuck them up too at least somehow. At least it’s a conscious choice for them to put themselves in the position that they might have to see shit like that. Same for police.
I would strongly encourage messless ways to go, too, because I think the psychological impact of a peacful-seeming exit without blood or injuries has to be the least damaging. It’s never going to be clean and harmless to others, but an exit bag would do a lot of good for everyone eventually involved in the situation.
But I also get that a lot of people in that position may harbor some general hatred and bitterness towards others, which is horrible and I have to think entirely avoidable if the society did its job, so they might even choose to go as publicly and messily as possible just to make a point or something.
But the others have to live with that shit. They keep going. You don’t. The least we can do is try to minimize the trauma and impact we necessarily inflict on others when we do go. We get the peace. We get away. Those others, not so much.
I don’t know how this would be taught other than boldly and empathetically talking about it in school, to make the point repeatedly, like we do with sex education for example. And health education too. We really should talk about these things, so when the time comes one has to leave, the spine reaction would be to do it as kindly as possible, to be considerate in the choice of manner.
Got news for you, medics and cops ain’t trained for dealing with dead people. The cops I worked around as a medic were some of the most squeamish people at messy scenes.
Nor are you trained to climb up out of a drainage ditch and explain to a Mother that her 13 year old son is dead down there, pinned under a 4-wheeler, and not me or god can fix it. (A tee shirt I got) Or a family about why their son and brother is hanging 30 feet up in the air by a rope. (Another tee shirt I got)
I got a closet with maybe a tiny bit more of my share of tee shirts. But I sure as hell wasn’t trained for any of them.
I get that we don’t think straight in those moments of our life, but it’s such a horrible thing to force on someone and their conscience…
I’m a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. When someone is actively suicidal, they indeed are not thinking straight. They are (usually) just looking for a way to escape their pain. Actively experiencing pain (be it physical or mental) reduces our capacity for empathy - that is, to consider how our actions will impact others.
I have had countless patients tell me their method/plan for suicide was to jump in front of traffic, jump from an overpass, lay on a road, lay on train tracks, etc… and none of them are ever, in those moments, thinking about how it will effect other people. Not because they wouldn’t care, but because they are simply unable to while in that state of mind.
I’ve had some who, once they were feeling better, shared about how they eventually realized how it would have impacted the driver of the vehicle (or the person who would find their body if it was by another method). But that usually only happens once they’re no longer actively wanting to die.
I’ve also had several patients who were the person to find a loved one post-suicide. It messed them up.
but at least the professionals have the training to deal with that somehow
Ha. You want to know the training you get for dealing with death? It’s a couple of sentences uttered by an instructor when some bozo in the class has more curiosity than thought and asks about the ‘yep, he’s dead’ policy. Most of the time you’ll have one of a pair who has done it before, and they just tell the other one what to do (like putting on the electrodes or looking around the room to see what else has been done). That’s the whole of it, adding in the jokes that will be told and the mild amusement of watching the other’s reaction when you grab a coke out of the dead dude’s fridge (I didn’t, but the more experienced one had when he was stuck at a house for six hours).
Once you get into the deep despair, the rationality disappears. It’s easy to logic “just do it without bothering others”, but the reality is that once you’re killing yourself, things like that don’t matter much anymore. Then the logic can warp to “it’s still better for everyone if I’m dead” or just “I have to die”, or something like that. I don’t really want to say the edgy thing, but I guess it is one of those things you can’t fully understand unless you’ve been there.
Also it’s really difficult to kill yourself effectively in a non-messy way, unless you have access to some proper drugs. My personal choice is hanging by cutting off your blood circulation, since it is very effective and you can do it without others seeing. Someone is always going to find the corpse (unless you manage to disappear in the wilderness for long enough, but then just disappearing is super traumatizing as well for the people looking for you), but in the best case scenario they’ll just find you calmly in a sitting position and even though that’s traumatizing as well, it’s not brains splattered on the wall.
Killing yourself is always horrifying to others, there’s just no helping it. I went so far I took selfies smiling seconds before just to make sure people left behind knew I was happy doing it, because that was the only solace I could give others in that moment
You have definitely met someone who will kill themselves in the end. The rate is about 1/70 people in the US, and for every successful suicide there are 32 attempts of varying seriousness.
Had a buddy that couldn’t take the pain anymore and he had enough drink and anxiety meds one night and he just never woke up.
He made sure to turn on his music extra loud so it’d bother his neighbors so his cat would be okay and would be rehomed.
He was a good guy.
I’ve met two people who took their own lives.
My mom shot herself with her husbands gun.
My moms father shot himself with his rifle.
Oh man, buddy, I’m so sorry for your loss. Those must have been hugely impactful to grieve. How are you doing?
I’m four friends (three best friends at various points in life) and five or six acquaintances down, and I’m not 40 yet. I’ll have to agree with you.
Back in 2000 I had a close skydiving buddy. He was an excellent competitive pool player and taught me how to play and I even went on to win a few tournaments.
Our friendship came to an end when my girlfriend broke up with me and he was in bed with her the very next day.
Out of curiosity I tried looking up his name about a year ago. Turns out he was living with a woman down in Tampa, Fl. She had lost a child previously and was dealing with major psychological issues… He came home to find she had committed suicide… And he killed himself because of it. This all happened way back in 2013. So he’s been dead a long time.
If you’re an engineer you’ve almost certainly contributed meaningfully to the death of someone.
I would think not if you’re a good engineer.
Well something tells me Hammurabi wasn’t aware of patriot missiles, so forgive me if I skip over that asshole’s opinion on things.
There’s a lot of industries out there, most of them are bad. Whether it’s oil&gas, aerospace, automotive, even basic scientific research…pretty much always ends up doing harm. Pure software engineering isn’t any better off – I mean every engineer who worked at Facebook in the 2010s has their hands bloodied with a genocide they facilitated.
I had a co-worker at one of my first big boy jobs working for a hospital, and this guy was weird as weird could be.
He was an older man, probably in his late fifties at the earliest, and we worked in the IT department, and he would blast Avril Lavigne music non-stop.
To make this worse, he wouldn’t stop even if you asked him to, and he didn’t talk to people, he was rough, he was mean, he was grouchy, he was unapproachable.
About a year after I started, he disappeared one day.
I asked my co-workers about him, and the truth finally came out.
Apparently, about six months before I started, he had gotten into a car accident and killed two people in the car accident, and he was found at fault for drinking and driving.
The reason he was not in jail at the time was his trial was still going through, and the weekend before he disappeared, his trial commenced, he was found guilty and he was sentenced.
And, yeah, as far as I am aware, he is still in jail today if he’s still alive.
About a year later, one of my other co-workers was murdered by his wife and their pastor, and it became nationwide news.
I work in healthcare, I’ve removed… so many people from life support. I often wonder if that’s, not the same, but…
Significantly more likely if you live in the USA. Not so much in the rest of the world.
Yeah. I was thinking for the UK it’s highly unlikely a cop has killed someone here. We do follow America into war and I’ve got a few soldier friends who likely killed people, but our soldiers seem to talk about it less than American ones.
Same with America. Despite TV/Movie Copaganda, most cops go their entire careers without pulling their weapons, and certainly without firing it.
The most likely American citizen to have killed is a military member.
smh, your soldiers don’t want to write books about how terrible warmongering made them feel so they can get that kovie deal?
wack
The US isn’t even in the top 20 for murders per capita.
at the city-level some are comparable though
nashville/st.louis/new orleans last i bothered looking up the statistics
And the Untied States is the only country in the western world that still has executions
wrong, Europe still has executions because there are armed police killing drowning refugees in the Mediterranean or cops shooting Roma people
Yep, I’ve worked with a LOT of war veterans. (American sheet metal factory)
As far as i know, i have met only one person like this.
A guy i knew in “highschool” (kinda equilevant) killed his friend a few years later while both were drunk and had just come out of sauna. He thought that his girlfriend had cheated on him with the other guy and woops, axe to the back.
I have no knowledge of encountering such person, also i never met anyone who owns a gun
ikidd@lemmy.world 46 minutes ago
I drive now! Good luck everyone else!