The death of a nightclub bouncer. A man, we're led to believe, with a history from an early age of bullying, violence and intimidation of others. A man known to mental health and social services for refusing to take up the offer of the help that he had asked for. A man with connections to known criminals and a long list of arrests and charges against him including conspiracy to murder. And, up until his recent conviction and imprisonment for assaulting his own child, a man who seemed to have somehow 'got away with it all'.
My gut feeling - and without professing any expert knowledge - is that he was what I would call a vicious bully with a highly controlling, suspicious and self-centred personality. It seems clear he planned the murder of his ex-girlfriend's new partner and the attempted murders of his ex-girlfriend and a police officer while in prison. He 'forced' or manipulated several others to help him. It sounds like he had every intention of killing or maiming more. He had every chance to hand himself in peacefully and every chance not to kill himself.
I don't doubt that he may well have been depressed, angry, frightened. Especially when cornered by the police. He may even have been paranoid and rightly so, given the incredible and heavily armed forces of the state out to get him. But at no time did he ever show any inclination to accept responsibility for his own actions. His pitiful apologies to his ex-girlfriend for shooting her while claiming it was her fault for provoking him were shallow in the extreme. A desperate attempt, by a desperate man, to evade responsibility and put the blame others.
I also don't doubt that he was highly adept at presenting to his so-called friends and acquaintances a charming, friendly, helpful front, while privately abusing those weaker and much more vulnerable who were closest to him - his girlfriends and children.
I don't doubt that it's a miracle his then three year old daughter survived a fall from their flat several stories up after she somehow dragged her bed to the window and climbed up to the open window from where she fell.
If this all sounds terribly unsympathetic, that's because I don't have any sympathy for someone who did what he did. His was NOT a crime of passion. It was planned, cold-blooded murder and attempted murder. Not the behaviour of someone with mental health difficulties.
Any time someone commits an horrific act of violence, mental illness seems to be assumed by the media to be a factor and often 'confirmed' retrospectively by the authorities in the course of legal proceedings.
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. Mentally ill people do sometimes commit horrific acts of violence. But it's actually quite rare despite the sensationalised and stigmatising media coverage that goes with it tarring with the same brush the vast majority of people with mental health difficulties who, in my experience, are some of the most honest and gentle people you could wish to meet.
Having said all of that, any loss of life is sad. And I do believe that our society has a lot to answer for in terms of people's upbringing, emotional development and mental welfare. Things could have been very different, I'm sure, with a bit more love and care. I hope we can all do our bit to change how things are.
One final point. Many people seem to be trying to say the police 'executed' him by Tasering and causing him to involuntarily pull the trigger on himself. My guess is that they have a plan for such situations and when he started talking about saying sorry and goodbye they knew he was about to shoot himself. That's why they tried to Taser him in a last-ditch attempt to save his life and bring him to justice. Maybe they could have tried other strategies. Maybe some of this will come out in the inquiries.
Of course, I could be entirely wrong. I'm only going on what's been reported in the media, like everyone else, and my own interpretation of that. It's almost certainly much more likely that he was a CGI character created by psyops to send a message to the lizard people about starting the next world war with Iran.
