For 17 years, Sean Hodgson was best friends with the man who would commit Maine’s deadliest mass shooting.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Taken alone, the article does explain why Hodgson likely wasn’t taken seriously by authorities:

    Hodgson, who was unaware of those comments until contacted by AP, acknowledged in a series of interviews that he struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol addiction but said he wasn’t drinking that night and was awake because he works nights and was waiting for his boss to call.

    Hodgson also acknowledges that he faces two criminal charges, one alleging he assaulted a woman he was dating in 2022 and another alleging that he violated his bail conditions by possessing alcohol last month. He’s also in hot water for wrecking a military vehicle last summer, he said.

    HOWEVER- all of the other warnings about Card should have been enough for them to take Hodgson seriously.

    The article does seem to suggest Hodgson only warned his military superior and not the police, but the cops had plenty of warning about Card.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The article does seem to suggest Hodgson only warned his military superior

      It makes me wonder if to the superior, it sounded like general lockerroom talk.

      I know a lot of shitty people think it’s edgy or funny to talk about shooting/killing. And others dismiss it because “ah who hasn’t want to shoot up a whole town?” Then they actually do it and yikes

    • snooggums@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Why does bad behavior mean the person should be ignored?

      Unless you are just pointing out that people with legal issues tend to be ignored, which is definitely true.

      • “Not the most credible” implies he had a tendecy to dishonesty. There may be a measure of “the boy who cried wolf.” Maybe they made a decision on where to best use finite resources, something they do every day. When they’re right, it doesn’t make the news.

        I don’t know whether it’s that in this case, or straight-up malfeasance. But I don’t think it’s absurd to take into account a person’s history of being unreliable when deciding whether or not to SWAT someone.