Mass Shooter, Amy Bishop's Tragic Past
In this week's New Yorker, TCF fellow Patrick Radden Keefe explores the tragic past of Amy Bishop, a member of America's long (and growing) list of mass shooters. TCF VP Greg Anrig leads a chat with Keefe as he discusses the story and gun violence in the U.S.
- The great New Yorker piece:
Patrick Radden Keefe: A Mass Shooter's Tragic PastAmy Bishop, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, sat down at the conference table just moments before the faculty...- The chat begins:
Ok @praddenkeefe, it’s time to discuss in 140 character tweets your 14,000 word @newyorker piece on mass shooter Amy Bishop. #loadedgun
Thanks, Greg. As you will have gathered, brevity of expression is my specialty. So this should be fun. #LoadedGun- .@praddenkeefe How cooperative were the cops w/ you re Amy’s shooting of her brother in 1986, which was deemed an accident? #loadedgun
- @greganrig quite cooperative. Paul Frazier, the chief in '10 spoke at length. As did Ginny Polio, widow of the chief in 86... #LoadedGun
- @greganrig the problem was that almost everything they said contradicted one another. So people talked, but the truth was elusive #LoadedGun
- @greganrig that was typical of this story: there were a lot of competing narratives, so the challenge was to parse them all #LoadedGun
- .@praddenkeefe John Polio, the Braintree police chief blamed by other cops for the cover up, died in 2010. Was he the culprit? #loadedgun
- @greganrig Well, a lot of his former subordinates certainly think so. He was a powerful, outsized figure in a small town... #LoadedGun
.@praddenkeefe's story on Amy Bishop reminded me of The Staircase, documentary about Michael Peterson murder case. Elusive truth. #LoadedGun
Patrick, at what point in the story did you approach Amy's parents? And, in general, what was the chronology of your reporting? #loadedgun- @greganrig the real question was why was Amy Bishop released by the police in 86 without further investigation. To his dying day #LoadedGun
- @greganrig Polio insisted this was not his decision. His widow says the same. But many others told me that Polio ordered release #LoadedGun
- @elbenson I reached out to the Bishops, and to Amy, fairly early on. But it was a slow process persuading them to talk #LoadedGun
- @elbenson One advantage was there'd been some shoddy reporting on this story, and the Bishops felt their story had not been told #LoadedGun
- @elbenson there was also fact that trial for Seth's death seemed unlikely to happen. Journalism can be a sort of day in court. #LoadedGun
- @kriswilton I started tentatively last spring, but really delved in over the summer. So it was a long haul... #LoadedGun
@praddenkeefe well bravo on a fantastic piece! Been talking about it all week. #loadedgun- .@praddenhkeefe Amy’s mother, Judy, was the only witness to that shooting. What were your interactions with her like? #loadedgun
- @greganrig I spent a lot of time talking with Judy over several months. They were emotional conversations, always... #LoadedGun
- It is all still very vivid and raw for her. She's angry, and feels betrayed, I think, by the town she lived in for decades. #LoadedGun
