Ashley Smith

People Forum

Note from the moderator. This thread was split off from the other one because it was off topic. You may discuss Ashley Smith in this new thread.

Fuscia


I heard Ashlee Smith's interview for about the third time today on MSNBC and heard things that I didn't hear before.(unfortunately I did not get to hear it live) Ashlee Smith does not seem to have been talked about much on this forum but I Guarantee you that most of the nation is! her story is very interesting and if you haven't seen or read about it I suggest you google Ashlee Smith.

Benyamin

Wow. Thanks for pointing this out.

An exerpt:

Im sorry...I totally disagree with that.

I mean if he bought that story..oh well.

But I dont think that it can be construed as a miracle.

The man (for whatever his reasons) escaped...people died.

Maybe in his mind he believed that God wanted him to spread the word in prison....but as a realistic person..thats not it..for a few reasons:

1. God could show himself to many people in prison and use them to "spread the word."

2. The guy is probably going to be on death row...so being that he will be locked in his cell 23 hours per day with one hour of that being spent outside by himself...how is he supposed to "spread the word?"

Luckily this type of talk with him worked for her...but as it may have been noted that it was "textbook..." well, there is no testbook case for hostage negotiations...they are done case by case and depending on the suspect involved and his/her mental capacity.

Anyhow..it worked for her...but to call it a miracle in reality? No way.

Unless you consider that God would actually kill people so that another could spread his word...but personally I find that thought and rationalization appauling!

We may find the actions of some repugnant.
This still shows that God loves everyone.
And how very blessed we are that God has this mind for us and not the mind that we would have toward people who have committed such actions.

People may have limits in our minds as to what is sin and what isn't and who deserves to rot in hell and who doesn't.
But God doesn't look at us that way.
And I for one am very grateful for that!

Im sorry...Im not gonna turn this thread into this"God loves us all" junk.

The man killed people...if you want to consider that a miracle...go ahead...I mean if you REALLY believe and worship a God that kills so that people can spread his love...then you really are living in another world.

You might buy it...the killer might buy it..but too many of us arent gonna go there!

Anyhow..this thread isnt about God...so I think the preaching should go back into the religion forum.

No, He took a bad situation where people make bad choices for whatever reasons and turned that into good.
Otherwise we would have all killed each other off eons ago.

And mystic this isn't your Universe, this isn't your forum, and this isn't even your thread.

If the moderators want to delete posts because Benyamin brought up something interesting about the thread topic so be it.

For the record we rarely delete posts. We can merge and split threads. Please if it is off topic then start a new thread. It save us all the arguing.

Words of Nichols (per Ashley Smith)

"He said he thought I was an angel sent from God, and that I was his sister and he was my brother in Christ," she said. "And that he was lost, and that God led him to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people."

Words of Ashley Smith:

"I basically just talked to him and tried to gain his trust."




I would have said it was a miracle he made it there too if some guy had a gun in my face!

As I understand it this guy grew up going to church. His response could be the shame of what he had done if he felt any. We just don't know yet what he was thinking at the time.

after reading all the posts that diverged from the shooting in Atlanta story I think the thread should just say Ashley Smith and whatever falls so be it. I was interested in Ashley Smith because of her great humanity and her ability to solve a very serious current American Crisis. With her name alone on the thread it would allow everyone to post opinions regarding the religious ideas involved or just her plain amazing hostage negotiating ability to be talked about. (Police Departments that need a great hostage negotiator take note)

Certainly Ashley Smith is a subset of the Atlanta story but I think she is a story in herself.


PS I misspelled her name earlier. it is Ashley not Ashlee

Also the Ashley Smith thread is not just about the Atlanta shootings. it is about a women who luckily (for us) or divinely was at the right place at the right time. Some have suggested she should have made a run for it. (there were times that she could have but she said she wanted to gain his trust) (Stockholm syndrome, yes even she caught the Stockholm bug but fortunately he got the syndrome from her even worse (Stockholm syndrome in reverse)

Ben I agree that Ms. Smith is a great person for keeping herself calm in a crisis situation.

But I disagree that you feel that her way is the way to handle a hostage crisis. There is so much training involved in a position like that. You cant just walk into a police department and get hired doing a job such as this. I agree that her talking and establishing a relationship with him was the most important role..but there is so much more involved.

She got lucky that he was calm enough that he chose not to kill her...and that she was able to talk to him in a way that was good for him.

But thats it..she was lucky.

People in this field are trained in all types of mental syndromes and they are also police investigators who have had training in dealing with all types of criminals.

They dont even allow psychologists or psychiatrists to do the negotiating. They can be of assistance in helping the negotiator in dealing with the suspect, the hostages and they help the negotiator themselves at times.

I know they said it was "textbook," but like I said...cases are different everytime...and there is no such thing as a textbook case on how to handle a hostage crisis.

She got very lucky that Nichols was calm and relaxed by the time he reached her...things could have been different. Had he not been that way..she could have said one thing, and it could have set him off, killing her also.

This isnt a field I will ever be in...but it was something that I had to study for a mandatory forensic psychology course I took.

Mystic you are correct when you point out that she really couldn't go from where she is now to be a hostage negotiator but she has the best basic building blocks of a hostage negotiator that I have ever seen. She had absolutely no training in that area and probably the whole science of hostage negotiation didn't even cross her mind. But what a piece of clay to be molded were she to go to a hostage negotiator school.


of course it was her life story and her ability to empathize with others and possibly even more her obvious non-racism, which if she was a racist I think he would have detected that immediately and it would have changed the whole story. (anybody who watched her interview could tell she didn't have even a touch of racism in her bones, very important I think in the saving of her life (and because of her some other lives)

Fighting racism has always been a deep rooted core value in me since the time I heard the N word in school for the first time. (where upon I brought this new word home to my father who immediately slapped my face (the first and only time my father ever hit me) and said "you will never use that word in my house", which I never did again.) (I just noticed that my father said "you will never" as opposed to a modern politically correct "you should never" If a child is told he shouldn't it is like saying there is a possibility he might. Sometimes we need to tell our children that "You will not, Period"

Not to be cynnical, but I don't think the victim's families think anything about this was good and would question any 'miracle' taking place.

Just because it could have been worse doesn't mean it's better than it really is.

-HECK!

heck said "not to be cynnical, but I don't think the victim's families think "nything about this was good and would question any 'miracle' taking place."

I strongly disagree. The victims families know the heartache of losing a loved one unexpectedly and realized that her actions (may have)saved more lives, (we will really never know the paths not taken.) and Ashley Smith may have saved an unknown number of lives...

I think given his actions over the past few days, it is a miracle that he surrendered without killing the woman. It fits in the "thank heavens for small miracles" category. I never thought they would take this guy alive.

Ben,

Sure she may have saved other lives, but thats really a guess because no one really knows that..he may have killed himself before taking another life..but again, who knows...anyhow there are people that still lost their loved ones...people died in this!

I agree with HECK..those people are not sitting around stating that this was a miracle!

If I lost my husband to this guy..the last thing I would be doing was stating that God must have done this miracle in order to spread his word..therefore my husband died for his cause!

No way would I ever think that!

Come back to reality people...the families of the victims arent thanking God for taking their loved ones as part of some bizarre miracle!

Note to all. The thread has been re-named Ashley Smith.

I was watching a news show tonight that focused on this.
They interviewed Ashley's lawyer.
Will someone please explain why a key witness would need a lawyer?
I have some ideas, but this makes very little sense.