But, amazingly, only acting out when away from authorities, where and when he would likely not stir up immediate trouble for himself.
A lot of mentally ill people behave and "color between the lines" in all sorts of different settings to keep from raising alarms. Face it, it's somewhat of a necessity to make others think you're okay or getting better, even if you're not. But, unlike Jordan, they are rarely violent towards others and if anything tend to be more self-destructive. So of course Jordan likely didn't act out when around authorities in TN. He'd been in trouble before in MA. He had experience in this stuff. And warrants (hence the fictitious ID). He isn't so mentally ill that he wasn't cognizant of punishment. His mind was sound enough to know to get fake ID and flee MA, knowing his past violent behavior (assault and battery, open and gross lewdness, resisting arrest and drug charges) was wrong and against the law. He also managed to behave well enough to get certain people along the trail corridor to give him money, bus tickets, food, rides and such after he was released in TN. On multiple occasions he consciously turns on the acceptable behavior required to manipulate people and circumstances, and then turns it off and goes back to scaring and hurting people once away from public scrutiny with authorities nearby. Mentally ill? Quite probably. Legally insane - unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts? I'm skeptical.
More about Mr. Sanchez: https://5newsonline.com/2019/05/14/o...lachian-trail/
https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White
During my section hike this year I was hiking with two nurses. I asked them with their medical background do they carry more or less of a first aid kit. The answer they gave was less of a kit and knowledge was their best tool. Same logic applies here. Be aware of your surroundings. I size up every single person I meet and gauge their threat level. If your gut is not feeling it hike on. What threats are you realistically going to face and what will mitigate that threat? I don't carry anything that you would recognize as a weapon on the trail.
If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.
Hi all, I am new to this forum but not new to hiking or the AT. I'm a section hiker and have section hiked the AT and other trails in North and South America.
Like many of you I care a lot about the AT and the people on it. There is nothing quite like it's community. Like many of you I've been carefully studying the news, reading the official complaint, visiting vlgs and blogs, trying to understand what happened because I think it's important. It's important to the trail, important to the memory of the victims and could be really important to preventing something like this again through the acquired knowledge of facts and by listening carefully to the survivors.
I want to have a moment of silence for Mr. Sanchez, an army veteran who suffered from PTSD and also keep the un-identified injured woman, a.k.a. "Victim #2" from the official complaint in my thoughts. I also want to keep in my thoughts "Hiker #1 and Hiker #2", a.k.a. the "It's Who We Are" vloggers. What they also experienced is harrowing to say the least. For all the survivors this will likely take a long time to heal from, physically and mentally.
My thoughts are also with Odie Norman, who has had his name unfairly dragged through the mud on this, not by journalists but by people on this and other forums. He put himself in harms way trying to do the right thing and he wasn't the only one who was of the idea to get the perpetrator off the trail.
My thoughts go out to anyone of the numerous people that the perpetrator terrorized on the trail. If you've dug deep into reports and vlogs, this touched a lot of people, caused a lot of sleepless nights and will not soon be forgotten, nor should it, by many of those on-trail or close to those on-trail. No one not on-trail can judge the actions of anyone in that situation. Full stop.
I am disheartened though a bit about what I am reading here on this forum as well as a few other places like the AT subreddit. Disheartened in two ways.
1. This thread was originally created, at face value, to broadcast valuable information about incidents on the trail so that others might be made aware and be safer for it. It quickly descended into a lot of off topic, tangential opinion or worse, mis-information and judgement. I think there is a lesson to be learned here. If someone posts something like this, something that is timely and is for the benefit of people on-trail or their supporters, the thread really needs to be kept to factual information that can help people or corroborate details. If you don't have something to say that is useful to someone on-trail or a loved one of someone on-trail, then you're likely just spreading drama.
2. Given what happened in the following weeks culminating in last Friday's attack, it seems natural that this thread shifted from it's original topic to information regarding the subsequent fatal attack and police investigation. What seems very distasteful though is the theories that continue to be posted about 'who was who' and 'who did what' and worst of all: 'who is to blame'. None of this speculation helps keep the facts straight and none of this helps the trail or the people on it. All the information that is known is available, theorizing on things for your entertainment, which is to say spreading false info, in the face of actual available facts, is not helping anyone.
Back to the intention of this thread and I think this forum, if you haven't read the official complaint but are invested in this topic, please do so here: https://www.scribd.com/document/4097...eral-affidavit
The news reporting in Outdoor and the New York Times, already linked in this thread are, combined with the official complaint, the most comprehensive and carefully cultivated information currently available.
peace.
Gecko,
That was a very well thought out first post. Hope you'll stick around WB.
Regarding your comments about "disheartening" posts from others, I think it's well for all of us to remember that there's a wide range of people who post here. Some are careful readers, knowledgeable, and restrained in their words. But others may drop in and react to a random post without reading context. They may express themselves poorly. Perhaps they're just not very smart. The result is that the offenders get hammered. It would be nice if we all had the patience to communicate and educate one another. Kinda like you've done.
I'm probably 9 or 10 years away from retirement, but it's been my plan to hike the AT when I do. It saddens me that I'm spending time, thinking about what self-defense item I am going to add to my pack to protect myself after reading about this horrible incident. Very sad.
Appreciate your post, thegecko. We can receive the news/details and provide solutions and perspective to others without throwing darts.
I have walked that trail...and I'm confused, confounded and my heart hurts.
Hell, I used to get mad at hikers that didn't acknowledge my "hello" and folks with loud Bluetooth speakers.
Hi Gecko, welcome to Whiteblaze.net. Most of what you said up until your #1 is well put. I don't think I have seen anyone on WB disparage Odie but I think perhaps some thought a solution such as his would be ineffective or not suitable. I personally believe that Odie stepped up to the plate and honestly tried to make a difference. He should be commended for doing so.
Regarding your first point, coming into a new forum and telling the WB community how threads should run is a bit forward. We do allow a lot of free speech on the site, which is tempered by our user agreement. It certainly does result in thread drift at times. Your caricature of the thread intent, while potentially accurate, isn't supported necessarily by the opening post and thread title. The first post is just a link and a title placed into the General forum. No specific instructions included. Placed into a different forum with additional wording, the moderators could have kept the thread more directed. The overall forum though is a place of conversations. It's a place for members to talk about the AT and hiking to their heart's content with other people who will listen. Some are chatty and some are terse, some are batty and speak in verse. The members add information according to their interests surrounding hiking. The moderation team is just here to keep it civil, not to dictate thread topics and posts.
Regarding #2, while you make some points I agree with, NOT all the information was released immediately. Discussion of the events and how the perpetrator was handled will be important in helping the trail community in the future. It should be conducted with more information in my opinion but some people just shoot from the hip. We don't have a keyboard delay unfortunately for folks to utilize. Maybe for a person or two talking about this tragedy is entertainment (I tend to weed those types out) however I think nearly everyone here discussing it is saddened by the events and your suggestion that people are engaging for entertainment is uncalled for. People are still processing information, not every news article includes all the information, and I have already seen some where descriptions of events are not 100% congruent (very minor in what I have seen) and some that are limited in length and details.
"Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
Sleepin by the river just like he usually done
Call for his whisky
He can call for his tea
Call all he wanta but he can't call me..."
Robert Hunter & Ron McKernan
Whiteblaze.net User Agreement.
For those going to Trail Days: https://www.wjhl.com/local/trail-day...ail/2001332975
Note that this is happening tomorrow at dark. I think Trail Days officially starts on the 17th.
Not everything is reported accurately, in depth, nor reported timely by official news sources. For example, that one of the victims was deceased was reported in a trail journal (by a respected journalist, no less, who happened to be hiking the AT in the general area) over a day before the "official" news broke. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who read it, but people who did let it out were mostly pretty careful to say that it was unconfirmed. People want, and have a right, to know about serious crimes. That people speculate about what is occurring when there is an information void, whether that void is intentional or just due to the sorry state of current journalism, is only natural.
As to your Odie Norman comment. I don't know him personally. I do know that he posts videos, mostly it seems to finance his Hiker Yearbook project. Regardless of whether or not your purpose is laudable, whenever you put yourself on stage in public, you invite everything that comes with it - both praise and criticism. I think Odie probably believed that he was "doing good", and for that I don't fault him. But when you post things like the shuttle video with Odie praising Jordan's merits and saying "he's a hiker," you can't expect glowing reviews from people who saw red flags instead.
There is only one person to blame for all this. The criminal. But most people here have been discussing what could have been done differently - what slipped through the cracks, not so much to place blame, but to understand where we as individuals and as the system failed to remove a dangerous criminal from society after identifying him before the tragedy occurred. Because maybe, by discussing and identifying where we (collectively) dropped the ball, we can prevent a similar failure in the future. It's not a discussion everyone wants to be involved in, but that's okay. They don't have to read or participate in it.
Last edited by BlackCloud; 05-15-2019 at 21:23.
Be Prepared