Holy Cross Student’s Death Threats Reexamined After CA Massacre
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Fifteen months after former Holy Cross student Gregory Hamalian threatened to shoot up a local movie theater, the case still hasn’t been resolved.
In the wake of the recent massacre in California where Elliot Rodger, 22, killed six people before killing himself, Hamalian’s case draws comparisons. The only difference in the case of Hamalian is that he was arrested prior to being able to act upon his threats.
“In terms of severity, I would say that there is a difference between the two cases,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University. “A lot of people make threats; I don’t know what steps specifically he made toward completion of those threats.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTOn December 13, 2012, Hamalian posted messages on 4chan.org, saying that he intended on attending the local premier of The Hobbit and shooting up the theater in response to the movie theater shooting that happened in Aurora, Colorado five months prior. His case is still in the Worcester district court system with a current court date of July 7, 2014.
The Psyche of a Killer
Although Hamalian didn’t kill anyone, the state still perceived him as a threat, ordering house arrest and eventually a psychiatric evaluation. Hamalian was under 24 hour house arrest until the end of September of 2013, when he was switched to GPS tracking with a curfew not allowing him to be outside of his home between the hours of 11:00pm to 7:00am, according to court documents.
In his column posted on the USA Today website on Monday entitled “Why mass killers need to explain their plan,” Fox examines the psyche of a mass killer and why they feel the need to tell others what they do. While specifically focusing on Elliot Rodger, these statements could certainly still be true of Hamalian.
“Like many other rampage killers before him, Rodger likely felt the need to set the record straight — to inform the world about his justification for carnage,” said Fox in the column. “He may have reasoned that without his written words and recorded explanation, society would conclude he was just some deranged individual who suddenly snapped and slaughtered innocent victims for no reason at all.”
Unfortunately, a mass of media coverage could partially be to blame for the amount of mass murders and other threats that have been made as of late. Those who crave attention may use threats or even worse as a way to seek attention that they have been long seeking after.
“The real downside to the media-driven dissection of Rodger's commentaries is in the message it sends to other obscure individuals who may seek the kind of attention they have been denied for so long,” said Fox. “Although well-crafted and even articulate, Rodger's words are not worthy of our continued study, at least not on the public airwaves.”
Defending the Case
Hamalian’s case is still being dragged out in the Worcester, Massachusetts district court system. Although the original court case was set for January 11, 2013, the date has been continued multiple times, including reasons such as the defense attorney being sick, waiting for psychiatric evaluations, and Hamalian’s grandfather’s death, according to court records.
Kevin J. Reddington, the defense attorney for Hamalian, said he was not willing to comment about the case at this point in time. Although Reddington was not willing to comment, another Massachusetts attorney was willing to speculate about a potential defense.
Michael Erlich, a criminal defense attorney in Worcester, Massachusetts, said that one defense for cases involving a device such as a computer is that while ownership may fall to Hamalian, that doesn’t immediately place him as the person who made the threats.
“It is easy to say whether or not something came from his computer, but it is much more difficult to prove that he was the one that committed the threats,” said Erlich. “It would be the same for a hit and run case. You may be able to track a license plate to a person but that doesn’t mean that they committed the crime.”
The problem with such a defense is that Hamalian essentially admitted to posting the threats on the website to police, which makes the defense a lot trickier. Erlich says that this is where a psychiatric evaluation may come into play.
“Mental health could definitely play a role,” said Erlich. “If he did admit to the crimes in question then a psychiatric evaluation could be a potential defense. This could also play a role is the case being delayed for as long as it has because sometimes the evaluations can take some time to complete.”
Related Slideshow: MA Movie Theater Shooting Threats Case: Inside the Delays
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