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In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

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111–120 of 428 posts

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#111

@jackstormwriter just locked his tweets. Does anyone know who this guy is or his connection to this whole affair? just curious considering his tweet: 6:00pm: @jacksormwriter wants me dead

If I recall from reading the original, it was just someone who showed up and (I think sincerely helpfully) told him that if he wants retribution against the police, any lawyer would tell him to stop discussing the specifics of the case on social media.

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#112

This was very recent, and the facts are not yet in. The best evidence we have to go on is his most recent tweets, captured on Pastebin ( http://pastebin.com/dX3VSPkM ). His Twitter account ( https://twitter.com/imurdock ) seems to have been deleted, which is extremely strange. Main notes: * He was repeatedly beaten by the police. He alludes to having taken photos of the injuries, and having been hospitalized, so this…

He also literally said he was going to commit suicide, so perhaps we should stop speculating and wait for someone who actually has real information to share it.

Seriously, if ever comment on this page containing the phrase "I believe" or "I think" was deleted right now, we would not lose any objective facts.

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#113

@jackstormwriter just locked his tweets. Does anyone know who this guy is or his connection to this whole affair? just curious considering his tweet: 6:00pm: @jacksormwriter wants me dead

If I recall from reading the original, it was just someone who showed up and (I think sincerely helpfully) told him that if he wants retribution against the police, any lawyer would tell him to stop discussing the specifics of the case on social media.

Correct. http://imgur.com/h8ArTx4

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#114

This was very recent, and the facts are not yet in. The best evidence we have to go on is his most recent tweets, captured on Pastebin ( http://pastebin.com/dX3VSPkM ). His Twitter account ( https://twitter.com/imurdock ) seems to have been deleted, which is extremely strange. Main notes: * He was repeatedly beaten by the police. He alludes to having taken photos of the injuries, and having been hospitalized, so this…

> This to me strongly suggests a head injury.

Or, more likely in my mind, that if his chosen suicide method was overdose, the overdose had already begun at the time of this tweet.

(When I say "more likely" I'm not trying to suggest that I actually know what happened; merely that I can find explanations that are at least as convincing as your chosen one, so I don't think anyone should be claiming they have good ideas on what happened from reading the tweets.)

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#115
post #66

His other motivations for his act aside, the deeper societal (as opposed to personal) issue here is police abuse. This incident shows nicely how this kind of thing can happen to anyone -- even a nice person (as say all who worked with/knew him), with no violent past, having built a huge community project, a family, working in a prominent startup, etc. White, too.

We should probably reserve judgment until more information comes to light. It's possible he was having a mental breakdown and did not have an accurate conception of reality.

He says he was given bail, which implies he was arrested. Arrests are usually a matter of public record. Is there any data on the record supporting this?

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#118

@jackstormwriter just locked his tweets. Does anyone know who this guy is or his connection to this whole affair? just curious considering his tweet: 6:00pm: @jacksormwriter wants me dead

If I recall from reading the original, it was just someone who showed up and (I think sincerely helpfully) told him that if he wants retribution against the police, any lawyer would tell him to stop discussing the specifics of the case on social media.

[deleted]

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#119
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary: let's dig up all the links we can so that we can find out who was responsible, and prevent it from ever happening again. Just before he died, Ian had said he was going to devote the rest of his life to fighting police brutality: http://pastebin.com/dX3VSPkM Not only would we dishonor his memory by not digging up links and making speculations about what happened (did he commit suicide, possibly due to…

I should probably post this on a throwaway... but this hit somewhat close to home. A few years ago I was going through a very tough time. I lived in the UK at the time and went to california for a meetup. After even more personal crap happened, I went on a walk seriously considering suicide. Kept trying to call friends, family, nobody picked up, it was the hardest day of my life to get through. Next thing I knew I fo…

> I found myself on top of a tall building at which point I had the clarity to figure out I really should talk to a suicide hotline. Unfortunately I didn't know the number and internet abroad was impossible to get at the time,

I'm really sorry you had that experience. And I'm so so glad that you didn't die that night.

I wanted to let you know that there is work currently happening (in the UK) to prevent death by suicide from tall buildings. For example, in Gloucestershire we're trying to get multi-story car parks to put up signs for the Samaritans as a short term measure. Longer term we want to try to improve safety of the building, perhaps though planning control, or through asking owners to retro-fit fences.

Alongside that we're trying to improve health services to be more responsive for people at risk of suicide, especially men.

(If anyone has any ideas about useful suicide prevention measures please feel free to email me via the email in my profile).

> so I ended up calling 911. Funny that, it turns out when you do that in california, you are considered a "danger to yourself" and must be arrested.

This is something about mental health that people often don't understand: sometimes it's provided by police in a police van or a police cell. They have very little training in MH. In the UK things are slowly changing. The police have a power under the MH act to detain people and take them to a place of safety to be assessed by doctors. In many parts of the country that place of safety is a police cell, but some areas have specialist Section 136 suites. (Section 136 of the MH Act).

Thank you for having the courage to speak about your experiences. It sounds like a difficult time was made very much worse - it sounds awful.

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#120
post #6

Is this at all related to his statement on suicide and police brutality? What was the cause of death? Source: http://techaeris.com/2015/12/28/debian-founder-ian-murdocks-...

It's a good bet that, when a young person in a highly-developed country dies and the announcements about them do not give a cause of death, they killed themselves. Given that he was white and had announced an intention to kill himself the night before, it's almost an open-and-shut case.

There is an alternative idea that the police accidentally killed him and are trying to make it look like a suicide. They probably had his phone after all. I'd like to see if twitter can get up geocoded info on where those tweets were sent from... If it's the police station rather than Mr Murdock's house...

What happens in a case like this where the police are possibly suspects in a death?

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