On Monday, Ohio State University student Abdul Razak Ali Artan plowed a car through a group of students and then attacked people with a "big-ass knife" before being shot dead by a university police officer. For one OSU employee, however, it was not okay to celebrate that an attempted killing spree had been foiled: instead, people need to have "compassion" for the person who wanted them dead.
A screenshot of Assistant Director of Office of Residence Life Stephanie Clemons Thompson's Facebook page shows a message saying that the attacker must have felt "pain" in his life to be motivated to try to kill his classmates.
Assistant Director of Office of Residence Life at #OSU encourages compassion for #terrorist attacker. pic.twitter.com/A29lYRkr1Y
— Jewels Green ? (@Jewels_Green) November 29, 2016
ISIS eventually claimed responsibility for the attack.
The kind of rhetoric espoused by this employee is troubling and disturbing. Regardless of how much pain a person may be feeling, it's not an excuse to attempt to murder a group of completely innocent people. A person is still responsible for their actions and nobody should attempt to explain away an attempted massacre. Given that Artan tried to run down a group of people and then hack them to death, it seems odd to extend him compassion and understanding when he clearly lacked it for his classmates.