UT Campus victim identified

Joe Fan

Joe Fan

10,000+ Posts
freshman Haruka J. Weiser, on a dance scholarship
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/...waiting-to-hear-basic-details-a/nqz82/?slkjsl
CfdCDo-WAAARywo.jpg
 
What a beautiful girl. So sad some don't understand how wonderful life is and what we've all lost here.
 
Nice to know Fenves decided to increase campus security after the Texas Relays were over.
 
Come on somebody. 6 foot tall black guy riding a hot pink bike. Someone had to see this.
Step up and come forward and identify this animal.
It burns me up when certain people whine and cry about having to have "the talk" with their sons about how to properly behave with police.

Guess what. Women have been getting a safety talk their whole lives. A talk about being aware of others, your surroundings, and when we can do things safely. I am a marathon runner/Ironman triathlete, and I can't run at night. I have to carefully plan where/when I ride or run safely when I go for distance, and would never go out by myself.
I'm not trying to be a feminist, but, when I hear others saying how sad it is that little boys have to be told, "hands up, don't shoot" when women deal with this crap on a daily basis, it really pisses me off.
This poor girl was trying to go home to her dorm. Why don't we focus on preventing some of these atrocities? We could start with longer sentences for anyone who rapes, or sexually assaults someone. These people usually escalate to murder. We could also require DNA from anyone who is ever arrested for anything to help catch these ********.

This literally makes me sick to my stomach. An innocent young woman, with all the potential in the world, doing nothing more than trying to get home, and some ******* decides she is easy pickings. As I type this, I hear more Black Lives Matter bull**** on TV. Now they are stomping on the American flag at Trump and other political rallies.
It is a world gone mad. (sorry, I got a little off topic. This group is nuts, though)
 
What a beautiful young life. So sad.
I hope they find the POS and how awful/ great would it be if he decided to shoot it out with the cops and ended up dead? The money saved from trying and appealing etc could be used to endow a schollie in her name.
 
I know I can come off as a Pollyanna liberal, but if the man who killed this girl died of slow strangulation with a plugged in curling iron stuck where the sun don't shine, it wouldn't bother me at all.
 
Hollandtx said:
Guess what. Women have been getting a safety talk their whole lives. A talk about being aware of others, your surroundings, and when we can do things safely. I am a marathon runner/Ironman triathlete, and I can't run at night. I have to carefully plan where/when I ride or run safely when I go for distance, and would never go out by myself.
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Great points.
 
The wife of an employee/friend works in the FA Dept that she was part of and was working on the play they were all there working late in the evening on. She says that every ounce of smile, delight and warmth you see in the published pictures online in various places falls short of showing her true "effervescence" and love of life. She said she was one of those people that cheered you up on days you did not even know you needed it.

That department is rocked with sadness and disbelief. The show is going to go on but I am planning on buying tickets for it, supporting the crew and cast. Wasn't there a young lady raped within a day or two of this on the UT Campus as well?

Sad facts: Austin is growing but the pains are increasing too much. Downtown is a cesspool, especially on Sixth (bost East and West of 35). Lots of people getting jumped, robbed at ATMS's, etc. Campus is not near as safe as it has been in the past as excrement moves to Austin as well.

The Admin will need to invest in lots of money to upgrade lights, quality of cameras, safe walk home programs, advertising of those programs and in police or roving security. I see a big change coming and rather than screaming that it's overdue we should embrace it and realize that if this never happens again on the 40 the money was worth it. We must learn from this and not skimp and hope for the best. This is budget be damned moment if you ask me.
 
I see they arrested a homeless man and the Chief says he is sure they have the one who did this and he has been charged with capital murder. I expect his attorneys will go for not mentally competent.
He had her back pack when he was arrested.
There is no way to understand the grief the parent must feel.
 
I wouldn't mind being on that jury.
The guy was new to Austin, staying in a homeless youth shelter. He had (likely) the victim's bike, backpack, dufflebag, and started a dumpster fire to burn some of the evidence. I believe there will be plenty of physical evidence to convict.
Maybe Acevedo should not have said he is sure they caught the perp (for trial purposes), but they are sure. He is being held on no-bond, with formal charges to be filed today.
 
It'll be interesting to see the accused's background. Even though I heard that he's only 17, I'll bet this isn't his first brush with the law.
 
Looks like the guy was in and out of foster care, in Texarkana and more recently in Killeen, attended Killeen Ellison until recently. Basically abandoned by family, history of abuse...one of many with the same sad story. Most of them don't do what he did, though.
Now the TV station is trying to blame UT for not doing enough to prevent this crime.
Should there be a wall and security guards before entering the campus area?
I read this was the first murder investigation on campus since 1966, Charles Whitman.
 
accuratehorn said:
Now the TV station is trying to blame UT for not doing enough to prevent this crime.
Should there be a wall and security guards before entering the campus area?
I read this was the first murder investigation on campus since 1966, Charles Whitman.
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Sadly enough the only perfect safety we can enjoy is complete faith in the afterlife.
 
I have not seen anyone blaming UT, but I think there could be some policy changes.

UT received a missing person report on Monday at 11 am. She went missing Sunday night from a 5 minute walk from the arts building to her dorm. UTPD did not do anything but a "cursory" (hasty and therefore not thorough or detailed) search for her until the Tuesday after 9 am. Since she was walking a very short distance, it was a sunday night so it's unlikely she should have gone somewhere but home, she called and told her roommate she was on the way, it seems like UT could have searched that area Monday. The facts did not support a "wait 24 hours to conduct a proper search" situation. Whoever is making the decision to look for students needs to be able to think critically and evaluate the situation before deciding to wait 24 hours. If its highly unlikely if the girl was going anywhere but the 5 min walk to her dorm since its Sunday night at 10 pm (and she is walking in a dark, unlit area next to a creek), UTPD could have looked a little harder Monday.



Next, the guy was on Campus for at least two hours. It's obvious from the video he is not a student and he is not acting like a student. He is loitering by himself, does not seem to be going anywhere, and in the second video is slowing walking his bike and stopping. If only to make it more obvious, two african american students walk by in one of the videos and they clearly are acting like students. They are walking somewhere with a purpose and one student appears to be looking at this phone. Maybe people who have not been on campus recently cannot tell, but it is obvious to me, a recent student, that the murderer was not a student. I have seen both young white and african american homeless near campus and they are easy to spot compared to students. I feel like UTPD officers should be able to tell. Did no one patrol that area for 2 hours?

Maybe they did, maybe they did not, but in my experience, someone is always in that exact area giving parking tickets. Maybe he is not a UT police officer and its parking and transportation, but there is usually someone there. On other boards with younger posters, I have seen quite a lot of current or recent students point out the same thing that UT is very good at giving parking tickets at night in this particular area. I remember friends leaving their car there for 5 minutes to run something to a dorm and getting a ticket. So would it be that difficult to have someone patrol this area for crime not related to parking and ask people who do not appear to be students why they are loitering on a Sunday night or acting suspiciously? They should be able to patrol this area as much as the really successful parking ticket givers do.

UT is not to blame for his actions. He is to blame for his actions. You can certainly never 100% prevent these crimes, and maybe UT would not have prevented this crime. However, some policy changes can be made because there were some failures:

A. If someone goes missing on a short walk from a campus building to a dorm on a Sunday night, a better search should happen more quickly. It should not take 36 hours from when the person went messing and 22 from being reported before a proper search is done.

B. UTPD can patrol for crime at least as much as they and the parking people patrol for parking tickets, especially in that area. If I can tell the difference between a student and a non-UT subject, I believe UTPD can to and they should at least stop and talk to anyone acting suspiciously. Hint: No UT student is going to be loitering by himself on a Sunday night at 10 pm around the alumni center. They are almost certainly going to be walking somewhere, probably home from the library, a friend's place or a campus building like the victim. The UT student will also probably be looking at their phone or ahead and not around at all the sights they see everyday.

I am hopeful that the review of safety procedures on campus that is currently underway will lead to the above changes and other positive changes as well. We cannot 100% prevent these crimes, but hopefully we can take reasonable steps to make the campus safer, especially for young women on a 5 minute walk home at night from a nearby building.
 
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Here is how one liberal POS media reported it
from AP
'
Police: Lives of campus victim, suspect violently intersect
By EMILY SCHMALL
Apr. 9, 2016 10:00 PM EDT
Authorities say Weiser and Criner's lives intersected violently on UT's Austin campus, leaving Weiser dead in a creek on school grounds Tuesday and Criner jailed two days later in Travis County on a $1 million bond."
more at
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5bfc...xas-campus-victim-suspect-violently-intersect


Just an accident? It was suggested AP was trying to say if she hadn't been walking on her own campus this poor misguided youth would not have violently intersected with her. He was just out for a casual stroll.
 
I read the article and saw no victim-shaming, 6721. I think it worthy of note that lives in vastly different trajectories found themselves in geographic proximity.

Texas politically doesn't want to marshal resources to do mental health or child protective services very well. We keep state taxes low, but pay with an occasional bad outcome.
 
Seems a bit cold to me Crock. This is a case that really got to me. Maybe because I have daughters but also because of the senselessness.
 
I'm a father and though I never met the girl I find her loss painful and upsetting, especially on a campus where I always felt safe. The loss was tremendous. The perp did something horrible and I'm not advocating mercy.

But what's the next step? Do we learn some lessons and try to do a better job with Child Protective Services and mental health care?

Should the state do better when a youth in its charge is mentally unstable, immature and unready to live on his own than turn them out on the street so they end up in a homeless shelter? As violent and horrible as the crime is, prevention is more than just law enforcement.
 
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^ I focussed on policy changes UT could make, but Crockett makes a good point on statewide policy changes that could be made in regards to mental health and societal welfare.

I do not think anyone is making an excuse for this guy. Most people that come from abusive families do not choose to murder random strangers. I believe we can mete our justice to the individual responsible, improve campus safety, and improve mental health/child welfare policy at the same time. We can take all of these approaches, not just one, in order to hopefully lessen the likelihood of another horrendus murder like this.
 
The document, seen by Daily Mail Online, includes a description of the 6ft teenager – and a list of his medical conditions, among them schizophrenia, autism and depression.

He is also described as wearing prescription glasses and has his occupation listed as a student at Texas High School.

More disturbing, however, are a list of incidents connected with his name – in nearly all of which, he was the victim.

One, in May 2009, saw his grandmother, 62-year-old Mary Wadley, arrested and charged with injuring a child, after a neighbor spotted her beating him with a belt outside their home.

When police arrived, they found Criner, then aged ten, with two black eyes – Wadley claimed he had turned unexpectedly, causing her to hit him in the face with the garment.

According to the case report filed by Texarkana police department, the child's eyes were left so swollen, he was unable to open them without using his fingers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ression-beaten-grandmother.html#ixzz45XvkZNPW

As much as I would love for this to be a thread about sadistic ways to kill this guy, we need to take a look in the mirror. We have some kids with severe issues, often identified in school at an early age, that just get passed through the system. The will be in trouble at school, then with the police, then something really bad happens and they end up in jail for a long time or forever. Many times their parents are just as BSC as the kid (apples and trees, people).

The foster system is an absolute mess but realistic solutions are hard to come by. Anybody that has ever worked with even a few foster kids knows that it can be terribly difficult. If they enter the system after years of abuse, their brain chemistry has changed and you cant just fix that with a good home.

As long as we keep breaking people, they will keep doing terrible things such as this.
 
I appreciate the message of how horrible was the boys life and do wish my earlier response had less vindictiveness but I cannot get out of my mind that poor girls parents and the fact that she was on a five minute walk home. No doubt fearless at the time. Just breaks me heart.
 
nashhorn said:
I appreciate the message of how horrible was the boys life and do wish my earlier response had less vindictiveness but I cannot get out of my mind that poor girls parents and the fact that she was on a five minute walk home. No doubt fearless at the time. Just breaks me heart.
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The guy is an absolute monster, no doubt. There is no shame in vindictiveness IMO. But, this one is over. She is gone, her family ruined, his life ruined. To me, its more about preventing the next one. There are no easy solutions from a government standpoint. Do you institutionalize a kid like this from a young age for life? If so, who pays for this? What liberty issues come into play?
 
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