Yet the mother of a Reed College student who died of a drug overdose (background on Reed’s drug problem here) makes a telling complaint:

In [Barbara] Tepper’s … letter [to the Reed campus], she … urged Reed College to provide more counseling to students struggling with stress, to expel and not just suspend students who use or distribute illegal drugs and faulted college counselors for prescribing sleeping pills to her son who had trouble sleeping.

“I was very upset because that’s sending a very clear message if you don’t feel good, chemicals will solve your problem,” Tepper said in an interview Thursday. She said that when she learned her son was given sleeping pills by a campus psychiatrist, she was furious.

“I told Sam, ‘You’re 20 years old. I don’t want you taking sleeping pills. Go out and run around the block. Make yourself physically tired, and you’ll fall asleep.”

The larger point here, about America as a profoundly pill-dependent culture, and about the way easy recourse to pills can predispose people toward overuse and abuse as well as weaken their ability to solve their problems non-chemically, is a terribly important one.

“None of this went reported. We were able to confirm there were no restraining orders, no reports. But just sort of the campus buzz — just the buzz, the campus grapevine — if you’re coaching a team and a player is assaulting a sleeping teammate, wouldn’t you prod around? There were just too many episodes that were almost foreshadowing this.”

A CBS reporter pulls together the latest reports of George Huguely’s violence – toward Yeardley Love and toward others – leading up to her murder.

Having covered, on this blog, quite a lot of on-campus and off-campus violence, I’d like to speculate a little here, about this case.

Let’s start with the coach. It’s contemptible that, knowing Huguely was dangerously violent, the coach said nothing to anyone about it. But it is unsurprising. Why?

1.) Coaches go to incredible trouble, and get paid large sums of money, to recruit and retain aggressive young men. These men are rewarded for their aggression on the field, and rarely punished for that same aggression off the field. Sports heroes like Huguely have been rewarded all their lives for being rude and crude. Their coaches are part of the reward system.

2.) From the coach’s point of view, Huguely is part of a crowd. There are several pretty wild drunks on the team, and it’s going to be hard to single any of them out as not merely wild but pathological.

3.) Coaches tend to have intensely paternal relationships with their boys. They think like fathers, and fathers don’t report their sons, or call the police on them.

4.) The coach is unlikely to come from same the privileged background as his players. If he did, he’d be a lawyer, not a coach. He will perhaps, when considering action against a player, be intimidated by the money and power the player’s parents have.

5.) He will also be intimidated by thoughts of fans and alumni who expect victories and who adore Huguely as a big part of the team’s victory delivery system. A coach’s job is always very shaky — recall that Duke unloaded its lacrosse coach long before the innocence of his players was finally established.

*********************************

What about Yeardley Love herself? She was obviously being bombarded by threatening emails and by escalating physical violence from Huguely. She must have known about his jealousy-fueled attack on a male friend of hers on the team. Why did she do nothing, beyond locking her bedroom door?

1.) She might have done something. She might have talked about it. She might even have lodged a complaint — something short of a restraining order, let’s say, but maybe something. We don’t know yet.

2.) She might have thought along the same lines as the chair of Amy Bishop’s department: Yes, this is a scary person, but the school year is almost over. If I can just get to the end of the semester, she’ll have to go away, because she didn’t get tenure. Love might have thought We’re a few weeks away from graduation. If I can just wait that out, he’ll go his way and I’ll go mine.

3.) The crowd thing again. She saw him as one of the guys, part of a very close-knit team. Maybe he was crazier than most of the other guys, but they embraced him, loved him, didn’t throw him off the team. He could be seriously shitfaced, but so could they. He could also probably be charmingly apologetic about his obnoxiousness the next morning.

4.) Finally there’s pity and fear.

She wanted to help him. She understood he was a terrible drunkard about to enter an unforgiving world of work, and she wanted to help him. She pitied him, not just because he was an alcoholic, but because he loved and needed her so much. He roused her compassion.

Just as much, though, he roused her fear. He was a powerful man, and a very mean drunk. His love was sick and obsessive, and now that she’d rejected him, it was all wounded ego and vicious rage. Perhaps like his coach she deluded herself that Huguely was under it all still a little boy given to tantrums, rather than a man capable of murder.

… the Tom Buchanan passages.

The latest on Yeardley Love’s killer (UD thanks David for the link):

University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely attacked a sleeping teammate last year, leaving his face bruised in an altercation that took place after a night of partying, according to four sources with knowledge of the incident.

… [One] former player, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of respect for the grieving families, said Huguely attacked the other player after hearing that his teammate had kissed women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love, who was dating Huguely at the time…

************************************************************

From The Great Gatsby:

… Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven — a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy — even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach — but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it — I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

… He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body — he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage — a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

… Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name.

“Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai——”

Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.

From yesterday’s Daily News:

… A friend of Huguely’s who played lacrosse with him in summer leagues told the Daily News that Huguely “partied really hard and when he was drunk or f—– up, he could be violent. He would get out of control.”

Huguely was described by the summer league teammate as “obsessive,” constantly texting and calling Love, to the point that people close to her worried about the relationship.

[N]o protective order had been filed in the local magistrate’s office.

A former Virginia student who was friends with both Love and Huguely described a disturbing incident in which Huguely recently reportedly attacked Love, then had no recollection of it the next day, which precipitated their final breakup. “He was really messed up and punched a window of a car on the way over to her apartment that night,” the friend said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of consideration for Love’s family. The friend said Huguely had been seen breaking bottles at another party before Love’s death and had told people he was going to her apartment to get Love back…

Five female students, including one who’d recently completed a self-defense class, jumped to the aid of a fellow student, grabbing her knife-wielding attacker and holding him until police officers arrived at Husson University, officials said Wednesday.

Jesse Hladik put her new skills to work when she lunged for the hand holding a knife, while fellow students grabbed the man’s other limbs and wrestled him to the ground. Hladik, 21, of Buckfield, said she knew the pressure points to make him drop the knife, thanks to the class.

… Officers responding to the report of a domestic fight at 7:40 a.m. arrived to find 45-year-old Horst Wolk of Bangor subdued on the pavement. A campus officer cuffed him, and city police hauled him away.

John Michaud, professor of legal studies, heard the commotion and saw a pile of people on the pavement, while more women stood by, ready to jump in, if necessary.

… Wolk has been charged with attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault, aggravated assault and violating a protection order, said Bangor Police Sgt. Paul Edwards.

… The incident unfolded in a parking lot next to Husson’s O’Donnell Commons. Wolk, who isn’t a student, rammed the victim’s vehicle after she pulled into a parking space at 7:40 a.m., then jumped out of his vehicle with a knife in his hand, said Julie Green, Husson spokeswoman…

Horst looks pretty beat up in his mug shot.

If the linear increase in grades continues, it is estimated that in 30 years, every student at Elon University will receive a 4.0 grade point average, according to associate professor of physics Tony Crider.

… the University of Virginia lacrosse player who killed his ex-girlfriend already had a pretty long police record.

… A 2008 Palm Beach County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office report describes an incident in which an angry George Huguely V had to be rescued from the Atlantic Ocean after he jumped from a 40-foot yacht during a heated confrontation with his father.

Huguely, 22, had two previous booze-related arrests, one in Palm Beach County and one that involved a violent attack on a female police officer outside a Washington & Lee University fraternity in Lexington, Va…

Even an urban campus like mine
has leafy paths and flowering trees.
It’s not like Kenyon College, of
course, with its remarkable
Middle Path.

But in all seasons here, as at
Kenyon, there’s a sense of a
separate world, a beautiful world.

Yet the beauty of these college
worlds isn’t really about nature.
Take the two students with back-
packs out of this picture, the
students walking together along
those trees and into a mist, and
it’s any autumnal woods.

These particular worlds are beautiful
because youth is beautiful, and
thought is beautiful, and friendship
is beautiful, and potential is beautiful.

And those things – youth, thought,
friendship, potential – exist with
greater intensity in this setting than,
I think, anywhere else.

Students take the middle path and
then move into the mist at its end.

Professors watch them move off
into their futures; year after year
professors watch students step
off into their futures, and there’s
no knowing. But what professors
keep of their students – some of
their students – is a permanent
image of their perfection as they
walk along the middle path.

They walk at ease, in love, in lust,
curious, amused, charitable, fervent.
The college takes their intensity and
cools it a bit; it asks them to consider
how human beings have shaped their
energy into ideas and structures and
states. The discipline of a curriculum
cools and shapes their intensity.

Somewhat. Essentially they remain
high-spirited and unreachable and
enviably vivacious.

***********************

To follow the strange and beautiful
world of the university is to feel the
same shock and sorrow others do
when youthful intensity turns into
violence against the self or against
other people, when fervency becomes
the sort of inner turmoil that destroys.

It doesn’t just destroy a life. It
destroys a life at a kind of pinnacle
of inquiry into life. This
sky-high exuberance makes anything
possible. When it is shot down, or
when, inexplicably, it shoots itself
down, the fall is terrible.

Jack Ford, CBS News:

… “You’re not surprised,” Ford observed, “that his attorney is saying, given these facts, ‘It was an accident.’ You can have a situation where somebody dies, because of somebody else’s conduct, and it might not be criminal. Classic illustration, on the job site and two guys are working and one has a piece of lumber in his hand and he turns around and hits the other accidentally, knocks him off the roof, he hits his head and dies. Might be some civil responsibility, it’s not a criminal case.

“But here, quite candidly, it’s going to be a tougher sell, because you have a whole series of intentional conduct: intentionally kicking in the door to her bedroom. Grabbing her. This isn’t a situation where he said, ‘I went to talk to her and I just sort of grabbed her to turn her around and she tripped on something, fell and hit her head.’ What he says, according to police is, he’s shaking her and repeatedly her head is banging against the wall. That gives you intentional conduct. He might not have intended to kill her, but enough intentional conduct that I think accident, pure accident, would be a tough sell here.”

Ford added that, “In most jurisdictions, they say if you intended to harm somebody seriously and they die, even though you didn’t intend to kill them, you could be guilty of murder.” …

“We are confident that Ms. Love’s death was not intended, but an accident with a tragic outcome,” Huguely’s attorney, Fran Lawrence, said Tuesday. “It is our hope that no conclusions will be drawn or judgments made about George or his case.”

A short article about the rough sex defense here.

*************************************

Update:

Search warrants reportedly say two witnesses found Love in her bedroom face down in a pool of blood on her pillow, according to the local NBC affiliate. Police officers reported that Love had a large bruise on the right side of her face, which appeared to have been caused by blunt force trauma.

***********************************

More:

Police say a Virginia lacrosse player suspected of killing a member of the women’s team shook her and hit her head repeatedly against the wall.

An affidavit filed with a search warrant says police found 22-year-old Yeardley Love face down in her bedroom with a pool of blood on her pillow.

Police also say the suspect, 22-year-old George Huguely, told them he had an altercation with Love and had kicked in her door…

***************************************

Update: Via Kate, a reader and a wonderful ex-student of mine, more sickening details at The Hook, a local paper. (Read the comments, too. They provide updates on details of the crime scene.)

Scratch the rough sex defense.

This is a big, fast-moving story. Here’s a link. Updates on their way.

———————-

An interview Love gave last year at UVA.

Question: Who has most influenced your lacrosse career and how?

Love: My high school coach has definitely influenced my lacrosse career. She was an awesome coach that always pushed me to work harder. She not only prepared me to play at the college level, but she taught me important life lessons. She always put a strong focus on good sportsmanship and working together as a team.

Question: What made you decide to come to Virginia to play lacrosse?

Love: I had wanted to play lacrosse at Virginia since I was little, so coming here was like a dream come true.

—————————-

Nora, a reader, sends this link to Inside Lacrosse, which has links to a number of news sources.

—————————-

From the New York Times:

… “This is just an incredible story that has taken a life of its own because it’s so tragic,” [Charlottesville Police Chief Tim] Longo said. “Everyone who has children can relate to the families of what these young people are going through. These young people were literally on the threshold of their futures. That dramatically has changed.”

The top-ranked Virginia’s men’s lacrosse team is expected to be the top seed heading into this month’s N.C.A.A. tournament. The women’s team is in the top five and considered to be a strong contender to advance to the national semifinals.

The Virginia lacrosse community has endured its share of recent tragedy: the former Virginia men’s captain Will Barrow died of an apparent suicide in 2008 and the longtime assistant media relations director Michael Colley, who was the lacrosse team’s main contact, died of a heart attack in July.

Now the community is in shock again.

“Charlottesville is just a wonderful place,” Longo said. “Kids from all over the country come here, the best and brightest, and these are two of them, two successful athletes.

“It’s just an unbelievable situation. These are not the kinds of things we see in this community.” …

——————————————–

Via Crimson05er, another reader, these local Charlottesville links.

——————————————–

From the police news conference.

——————————————–

One initial comment from UD. The story is very new — one wants not to say much. But here’s one piece of speculation in response to the remarkable speed with which Huguely was arrested.

Love was a strong and pretty fearless woman, from what I can gather. My guess is that she fought hard, and as a result Huguely may have sustained injuries consistent with someone trying to ward him off. I also think it likely that he confessed.

———————————————-

A recent case that seems similar:

… Kevin R. Schaeffer, also a Gettysburg College student, choked [Emily Rachel] Silverstein, 19, a sophomore from Roosevelt, N.J., early Thursday morning and then stabbed her in the neck with a steak knife. He sat with her for 15 minutes before putting her in a bathtub, according to a police affidavit.

Mr. Schaeffer, 21, of Oley, Berks County, confessed to the crime, according to the affidavit. He told police he had been drinking that evening but was not intoxicated. He said he had recently stopped taking Zoloft, an anti-depressant, the affidavit said.

Police arrested Mr. Schaeffer that morning and charged him with homicide, aggravated assault, possessing instruments of crime and tampering with evidence.

… Preliminary autopsy results showed that Ms. Silverstein died from a combination of strangling and stabbing between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.

It was not clear why Ms. Silverstein was at his house. The two had recently ended a sporadic romantic relationship.

“They’d been on and off, and they had broken up again recently. He never hit her that we know of. But she broke up with him because, I don’t know, he had some issues,” Ms. Silverstein’s father, Robert Silverstein, said yesterday…

A much more detailed account. (Note: The earlier link wasn’t working. I found a better one.)

**************************************

It’s a weirdly local story for me. Huguely comes from an old Bethesda family; he went to school at Landon, the place where I rehearsed Handel’s Messiah last year.

… has been ruled a suicide.

Background here.

You probably already know that, in response to an Iranian cleric’s assertion that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes, Jennifer McCreight, a Purdue University student, organized tens of thousands of women yesterday to bare or semi-bare their breasts at the same exact moment to see what would happen.

The Boobquake Facebook page announces the results.

Nada.

Still…

Obviously this study had its flaws. We didn’t have a large sample size, and we didn’t have a control planet where women were only wearing burkas. We didn’t have a good way to quantify how much we increased immodesty (what’s the unit of immodesty anyway? Intensity of red on blushing nuns?). Maybe women did dress immodestly, but we didn’t lead men astray enough. [The cleric says there’s a causal connection between inflamed men and plate tectonics.] Maybe God really was pissed, but he couldn’t increase earthquakes for us because that would provide proof for his existence (or maybe it’s his existence that’s the problem).

His apartment mates found Owen Thomas unresponsive yesterday afternoon. No cause of death has been announced, though police say it wasn’t homicide.

His coach made a statement: “We want to make sure his roommates are OK. We’re going to pay particular attention to them because they stumbled upon him. It’s a delicate situation but right now our whole team is an emotional mess.”

The most likely reasons are an undetected health problem (weak heart, for instance), alcohol poisoning, or suicide.

Students at Princeton begin to think about Goldman Sachs in a new way.

My headline is a student’s comment on an article in the Princeton paper. This is how the article concludes:

The charges claim Goldman Sachs led clients to believe that a financial product was high quality while simultaneously betting that the product was low quality. Like a cliche used-car salesman, it sold its clients a lemon. When the housing market collapsed, Goldman got rich and its clients went belly-up.

… [Not] all activities that expand liquidity are good. This point might be easily missed because the people who invented and supported these trades became quite wealthy. And most people who (mis)understand economics believe that it teaches that people get rich because they do valuable work. What the recession shows is that people can earn a lot just by convincing others that their work is valuable, even if it isn’t.

[The gap] between what people think and what is actually true … allowed traders and analysts to do harm to our economy while believing that they were actually doing good.

… So, to my classmates who dream the Wall Street dream, or to those who are willing to defer their own dreams while working on Wall Street, I say only this: Mind the gap.