Ohio School Shooter TJ Lane Laughs, Gives Finger at His Sentencing

[FedUpWithIt All]

162. TJ Lane is a very sick boy who has auditory hallucinations, depression and involuntary fantasies

Last edited Wed Mar 20, 2013, 02:47 AM - Edit history (1)

Against his attorney's recommendations he pled guilty. The mental illness was mentioned several times during earlier hearings. The psychiatrist from Case Western Reserve University, who was brought in to determine competency, found Lane to be seriously mentally ill.

Tj Lane spent time, as a child, with a very violent father (Thomas M. Lane, III was indicted on three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated attempted murder, and one count of felonious assault of his wife after he assaulted and verbally threatened her for 9 hours in the presence of three children. He also has arrests on a wide range of offenses including drug abuse and possession, violation of probation, public intoxication and disorderly conduct) and a violent, alcoholic mother before being placed to live with his grandparents. His older brother died a couple of months ago at 19 after a long history of drug abuse.

There were quite a few students, at the time of the shooting, who were coming forward in local media reports and relating that one of the victims, after he began dating TJ Lane's ex girlfriend, was telling people at the school that he was going to harm TJ. Students told reporters that TJ had begun working out so he could defend himself.

So you have a very sick boy, who was steeped in violence and aggression from infancy, who was shuffled around in his early life, and who was, supposedly, feeling threatened.


His behavior at the hearing, before the judge issued the sentencing, and his insistence on a guilty plea which eliminated any possible sanity defense felt to me like a type of self sabotage.


My point in all this is not to suggest that his behavior wasn't appalling and disgusting, but to point out that this boy is FAR from a spoiled brat. He has a LOT of demons.

Edited to add this from a neighbor of TJ's father, who claims that TJ and his siblings lived with their dad for a time.

Timothy Fogarty lives across the street from the house TJ shared with his father, brother and sister. The house has been empty since they moved away about five years ago. The bedroom doors are padlocked on the outside

Fogarty said, "We never saw them playing, never saw them behaving like children. ... The house had been turned into something like looked like a jail cell."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57389221/tj-lane-knew-some-shooting-victims-well/