It seems privacy protection works because I don’t remember anyone talking about this.
Back in 2020, a guy rams with his cars two 15YO girls in Thurgau . Not an accident. The guy is livestreaming the attack while justifying his actions.
Of course, there is a written “manifest”. Women, immigrants and Jews are bad.
Still collecting my thoughts in this.
For those people who don’t believe people use their cars as weapons - here’s one such story.
Absolutely. People have also used a prosthetic leg as a weapon in the past. Can’t trust people with anything these days…
Debra Hewitt was living homeless in Louisiana when she bludgeoned her boyfriend to death with her prosthetic leg – all while balancing on one leg. Despite being acquitted of two murders previously, Hewitt was given a life sentence.
Well, she should be given some sort of leniency for that. It is impressive!
Know what you mean. They even made a film about it https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gy0QhvNae0U?feature=share
Cars can be used as weapons. Road rage is a thing. But this is beyond road rage, there’s all the manosphere crap from the internet and premeditation.
The surprise for me is the “nothing happens in Switzerland” environment. People in Christmas markets and street protests are rammed with cars, but not in Switzerland. It feels a bit weird to see the collective action of police and other authorities to hush this down for 5 years.
As you wrote - it wasn’t reported. Because you didn’t hear about these things doesn’t mean it they don’t happen.
I did a search for similar stories in Thurgau and couldn’t find the story either - there was one about a girl getting driven over on a pedestrian crossing and another of a schoolgirl getting sexually assaulted but not this one.
Maybe there was a reason it couldn’t be reported at the time -perhaps they were investigating an incel network.
I think that the prevailing opinion in Switzerland is that a lot is not reported in order to minimise copy-cat acts. The advent of social media only reinforces this idea. It is a contentious issue, especially around family violence.
It’s also a privacy thing. We had a big incident round by us about 5 years ago. The bare bones were reported in the press but the press got nothing from anyone about any of the details to protect the family involved.
I like the press in Switzerland from that perspective. In the UK, they would be front and centre with a critique of their life, jobs, value of their house, etc.
I think it’s a double-edged sword.
There are locals here who think many acts just don’t happen in Switzerland because they have never read about it.
Case in point was teenage suicides.
If you don’t think something will ever happen then you might not spot or be aware of early signs of it.
Certainly not reporting suicide spots is a good thing as that has been shown to produce copy-cat deaths.
This! On one hand, copy-cat acts are minimized. On the other hand, early signs are missed because those ugly things never happen here and all menaces are external.
Of course, no need to make a media circus. Anyway, the info needs to be made public so people don’t live in a distorted reality. I guess it’s hard to find the balance between privacy and public communication and people errs on the side of privacy protection.
One could argue that the extreme media attention we see outside of Switzerland with pearl-clutching headlines and endless, breathless coverage of dickheads driving cars into crowds over recent years, MAY have fuelled subsequent copy-cat incidents for those people who are attracted by the media circus that follows it.
Agree it’s a balance but the rabid demand for instant news coverage clearly isn’t helping.