A Draft Affidavit of Educational Illegal Discrimination Based on Age

The following is a draft version of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities AFFIDAVIT OF ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION I plan to submit.

I am crowd sourcing the proof-reading and accuracy testing of what I'm presenting that affects individuals aside from myself. I can be confidentially contacted at krasicki@protonmail.com if you have concerns or corrective criticism. 

 I provide the following particulars:

1. The Respondent employs more than 15 persons.
   
   

2. I am a 71-year-old male with an undergraduate degree (1974) in Studio Art and Education from Doane University (then Doane College), a Liberal Arts institution.  I wanted to continue and further my Studio Art education by applying for an opportunity to be selected into  UConn’s Master of Fine Arts ( MFA ) program at the Storrs Campus at the University of Connecticut.
   On March 24, 2023, I received written notification that I was not selected by Judith Thorpe – the Chairperson of the MFA. And the reason for the denial was there were only five opportunities for admittance and I wasn’t one of the individuals still under consideration.
   My complaint has absolutely NOTHING to do with that selection process. This item simply provides a context and baseline for the following situation that not only affects myself but anyone who is older and not already an insider to the system.
   
   Footnote 1 - The number of accepted applicants to UConn’s MFA program is tightly coupled to the MFA program’s boast that all MFA candidates are “fully-funded” therefore the very acknowledgement that someone attended an MFA program by means other than those already in place will somehow diminish its prestige or competitiveness.
   
   

3. I had collected a number of fallback positions in the event that I was not selected.  One alternative approach was to attend a UConn Studio Art course to introduce myself to faculty and demonstrate both my talent and seriousness in being reconsidered for the program going forward. Concurrently, I learned that senior citizens can attend State institutions tuition free.
   On March 25, I emailed Judith Thorpe to confirm this was true.
   And I inquired about the possibility of attending a UConn studio Art course or the potential to design a DIY MFA that wouldn’t interfere with their current prestige track.
   She replied on March 26 by saying that “Tuition free courses are allowed only at the undergraduate level. You should consider auditing an undergraduate course in drawing, painting, or printmaking to develop your work…”
   
   Footnote 2 - This is a legitimate [tho misinformed] response from the Chair of the Art Department that provides an insight to faculty understanding of how things work.
   
   

4. On March 27, I contacted the UConn registrar’s information office to ask what policy governed the“undergraduate courses only” constraint.  The website merely alluded to the policy but there was no cross-reference as to where it came from or who was accountable for it. The information desk person didn’t know  but said that an email to the registrar was required to get that answer. On March 27, I sent an email to the registrar asking for the information required to appeal the policy because I found it unfair and potentially illegal.
   
   Footnote 3 - This was the basis of my original CHRO complaint. By April 14, I had called CHRO and was corresponding with Robert Aldi to say that I never did hear from the registrar. In order to file this complaint I set about investigating it myself which has far broadened the scope of the discriminatory nature of UConn and the State’s ageism problem.
   
   

5. I spent a lot of time attempting to navigate UConn and other State educational facility website attempting to understand how any senior citizen could know about, navigate, or take advantage of higher education based on the law, DEI protections, or even as a matter of interest.  I will detail some of this below.
   
   

6. On May 3, Uconn’s registrar - thanks to an audit of their email activity or lack thereof - finally responded to the question asked in section 4.
   
   “To clarify, the Over 62 Waiver does cover tuition only for both degree-seeking and non-degree seeking courses in the fall and spring. The webpage on the Bursar's Office is here: https://bursar.uconn.edu/tuition-waivers-graduate-students/ “
   
   …The policy authors are the CT State Legislature, and the statute is cited at the top of the page.
   
   That link defines the Over 62 Tuition waiver thus,
   
   “This waiver pertains to any person 62 years of age or older who has been accepted for admission, provided this person is (1) enrolled in a degree-granting program or, (2) for a person not enrolled in a degree program, provided, at the end of the regular registration period (on or after the first day of classes), there is space available in the course in which the person intends to enroll. Students must be a Connecticut resident and 62 years old prior to the beginning of the term they wish to enroll in. The waiver is only available for fall and spring semesters, and is valid for TUITION ONLY. Residual fees are the responsibility of the student. For any person who receives a tuition waiver and also receives educational reimbursement from an employer, the waiver is reduced by the amount of the educational reimbursement. Some fee based programs may not qualify for this waiver. The senior tuition waiver does not apply to students in graduate certificate programs. Please contact bursar@uconn.edu for any questions. For registration inquiries please contact the Registrar's Office.”
   
   Footnote 4 - There is nothing here that indicates Undergraduate Only courses for seniors.  Nor is there a means test to qualify for such a waiver.
   Not only is the website wrong (and subversively discriminatory) but so is the faculty understanding of such a waiver (see item 3 previously).
   The discrimination against senior citizens is systemic and this is just one aspect of what soon develops into a Kafka-trap of ignorant and disingenuous, plausible deniability on the part of these State institutions. Details to follow.
   You might also ask yourself why this information is so deeply buried in their website. I’m a lifelong Software Engineer/Software Architect and I never stumbled across this.  Imagine any senior ever having the chance to know this exists. IMO, this qualifies as Elder Abuse just as withholding health information or necessary drugs from someone does.
   
   Footnote 5 - Notice that the law isn’t discriminatory. UConn’s interpretation, disingenuous dissemination, and implementation is.
   
   

7. Armed with this new information, I contacted Judith Thorpe once again.
   
   “Given this clarification of tuition waiver;

• my application for admission to the MFA program is no longer contingent upon either a grant, scholarship, or other arrangement - the tuition is covered and I can cover any other expenses required

• the prestige of UConn's fully-funded MFA program remains intact

• UConn's misleading website references that institutionally and functionally promote age discrimination based on disingenuous interpretations of the law that create a classic example of passive systemic age discrimination will be addressed through a CHRO complaint that I am currently compiling

For the sake of clarity, I don't necessarily require studio space. I live just a few miles up the road.  While I am open to both the critical nature and informational aspects of the program, I don't believe I add undo or unnecessary overhead to anyone's teaching or guidance role.

So.  What do I need to do to be accepted into the graduate program?  Such acceptance no longer is dependent on the five students already accepted which, presumably was the critical decision in eliminating my portfolio from further consideration. “


Judith never replied back.

8. On May 9, Kent Holsinger - Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor,  Vice Provost for Graduate Education, and Dean of The Graduate School sent me an unsolicited opinion email to reassure me that the system is self-insulating and to go away.
   
   “I understand your disappointment at being declined admission to the MFA program in Art. As Professor Thorpe described in her original email to you, admission to the program is highly competitive. Only a small fraction of the many talented applicants are finally recommended for admission. I have not spoken with Professor Thorpe or with anyone else associated with the decision in your case, but nothing in the correspondence below leads me to believe that the decision to decline your admission was related to your ability to pay tuition, whether through the Over 62 Waiver or not.
   
   If you believe that references on any University website are misleading and promote age discrimination, you may refer your complaint to…” [all of the gatekeepers who enforce these policies in the first place].
   
   Footnote 6 - This is a guy who used to teach science.  Brutal.
   
   He never asked me what the issue was so he can’t know the question. But he has the systemic response in his back pocket. He doesn’t care about discrimination at all.  He personalizes the problem, it’s me (any person), who is unworthy - go test our website out for us - and don;’t go away mad, just go away and don’t forget what a big shot just corresponded with you - just a warning!
   Needless to say I responded in kind.
   
   

9. RE: Footnote 3 -  My research into the details because nobody else - not UConn, not DEI, not their Board of Trustees, nor anyone else incentivized to raise an eyebrow for American Connecticut senior citizens - fuck ‘em, they can’t prove it!
   
   a.) 2019 State Programs for Older Adults (https://www.cga.ct.gov/2022/rpt/pdf/2022-R-0131.pdf)
   
   “Tuition Waivers for Older Adults By law, state residents age 62 or older may qualify for a tuition waiver at any of the state’s public higher educational institutions, if at the end of the regular registration period enough students are enrolled in the course for it to be offered and enough space is left to accommodate the senior citizen (CGS §§ 10a-77(d), -99(d), and -105(e)). “
   
   b.) Revisit Item 3 - “consider auditing an undergraduate course in drawing, painting, or printmaking to develop your work…”
   
   See: https://nondegree.uconn.edu/senior-citizen-audit/
   
   “Senior citizens who do not seek degree credit may audit undergraduate courses only. Consent of the instructor is required. …[snip]... The senior audit does not apply to laboratory or studio classes.”
   
   In other words, not only are senior citizens denied an opportunity to take or audit a graduate level course, they cannot take a necessary [laboratory or studio] undergraduate course either.  In Footnote 4, I described the discriminatory practice as systemic.  This is another example of the Catch-22 nature of attempting to take advantage of a State-sponsored tuition waiver and the intentional roadblocks that the University invents to prevent in succeeding - you can’t get there from here. This likely affects other such waivers - say for veterans as well.
   
   Note the systemic nature of the discrimination is the reminder of the brain-dead “undergraduate only” UConn policy that no one seems to be accountable for except to deflect blame somewhere else.  For individuals who already hold undergraduate degrees this makes zero sense while for those without either an undergraduate degree or relevant life-experience, the policy works.  In other words, it is written to constrain the academically immature or unprepared from advancing beyond their preparedness.  Applying this to individuals who have earned degrees, succeeded in a life’s journey, and want to proceed is something that makes this unnecessarily punitive and petty.
   
   But even these arguments fail to fully describe the broader scope of discriminatory practice at UConn that involves not only ageism but a failure to provide uniform, consistent diversity practice throughout the State.
   
   To compare and contrast the difference between the treatment of senior citizens and younger students one need look no further than E.O. Smith high school -  the only high school that UConn allows qualifying junior and senior high school students the opportunity to attend tuition-free, undergraduate courses.
   
   The comparison is stark. A high school student can “step up into” undergraduate courses that have empty seats (the priority of these students with veterans and other qualifying candidates is unclear).  What is clear is that these students do not even possess a high school diploma yet and can move ahead.
   Seniors with either life experience aplenty, an undergraduate degree or more are not able to move up into appropriate courses.
   
   But as obvious as this difference is, there are even more complicated nuances involved. The E.O. Smith students who enjoy these benefits are more often than not related to UConn employed local citizens can mean that ensuring that “consent of the instructor” qualifications are wholly impartial is a questionable requirement for seniors or older vets to contend with.  I served on the E.O. Smith Board of Education for 12 years so I’m confident of what I’m saying.
   
   But the rabbithole of cascading discriminatory practice digs even deeper. E.O. Smith students who succeed in these courses enter UConn not only with a pocketful of tuition free courses that give them a head start.  UConn’s process of course selection includes a Byzantine hierarchy of who gets first preference in selecting courses. These high school/UConn courses are applied to that course selection priority ranking. All things being equal, these students can and do enjoy an entitlement that even better or equally qualified undergraduates cannot match.
   
   And deep as this rabbithole is, it has even more consequences that UConn’s virtue signaling marketing hides.  The Storrs campus is surrounded by lily-white suburban communities. If high school kids from the area can take tuition-free courses based on geography alone then logically - I, as a senior citizen of the area - should also enjoy that preference.
   
   But it’s not about geography, it's about the comfort of nepotism. UConn and other State institutions have urban extensions throughout the State.  The E.O. Smith high school entitlement is not extended anywhere else - not Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, or a dozen other locations - despite the University’s virtue signaling rhetoric about the importance of student opportunity and diversity. This is an institution that needs fresh governance and a serious and honest audit of their current educational practice.  While my complaint is constrained to age it should be obvious that the cancer of structural and systemic discrimination is chronic and widespread.
   
   

10.  The Roots of Discrimination
    
    Age discrimination is explicitly expressed in https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_185b.htm#sec_10a-100
    
    “PART III
    THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
    Sec. 10a-102. (Formerly Sec. 10-117). Object of The University. Enrollment. Degrees. The University of Connecticut shall remain an institution for the education of youths whose parents are citizens of this state. The leading object of said university shall be… [snip]... The board shall establish policies which protect academic freedom and the content of course and degree programs.”
    
    Bolded mphasis mine.
    
    Compare and contrast this to (https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/free-college-tuition-senior-citizens/)
    “ Colorado State University — Fort Collins, CO
    
    CSU's senior citizen class visitation policy allows resident instruction classes on a space-available basis to students age 55 and over. Lifelong learners can register for classes in subjects like theater, Italian, and women's studies without paying tuition. “
    
    Nationwide the use of terms like “lifelong learners” is wholly non-discriminatory and wholesomely accurate.  Uconn’s indifference to 18% of Connecticut’s population who are potentially lifelong learners is criminal. It is the responsibility of the State’s flagship higher education institution to correct this.
    
    
    

11. To synthesize my complaint I offer this draft summary.
    
    There are unnecessary UConn policies that violate the spirit and intent of the anti-discrimination State and Federal laws. These policies not only compound the inability of senior citizens to take advantage of a benefit from institutions that many of us have spent decades supporting with our taxes but these benefits are subverted by obfuscating their existence not only to senior citizens but UConn faculty, communications, and administrative services.
    
    I think I’ve sufficiently documented how self-serving and self-insulating the system is.  What UCONN is doing is a form of discrimination under Title VII, the ADAA, ADEA, and a host of State and regional legal protections.
    
    
    

12. Upon belief & knowledge, I and many more are being discriminated against by the university because of age. 

I request the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities investigate my complaint, secure for me my rights as guaranteed to me under the above cited laws and secure for me any remedy to which I may be entitled.

Resources on the Teaching Effects of AI Chat Bots

 This from Yale: 

The End of the American Bill of Rights - The Freedom of Speech is Dying

 In the early hours of the dawn of Liberal Fascism, the first empirical casualty is the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.  The assassins are twofold - a public education system that has imprinted the idea that speech is violence and a social media war that rewards on a first come first serve basis the solicitation of censorship.

The society of the United States has normalized a global social practice which is the idea that free speech is only practiced between trusted cohorts.  In repressive and unstable countries, the individual is no less capable of Free Speech but it carries a heavy risk.  What separated the United States conceptually was the idea the the free exchange of ideas was precisely what liberated society and the country to greater art, science, and political stability.  After all, if only tolerated speech was common, free speech that differed was not only risky but psychologically retarding.

In recent years, the main stream media (major networks and streaming services large and small) have vocally advocated the kind of Freedom of Speech that repressive societies practice.

It is usually expressed in one way or another this way - "Say whatever you want but there are consequences!"  And it isn't expressed in a way that implies that Freedom of Speech is a healthy exchange of ideas, a reasoned civil disagreement, or simply a temporal opinion or belief based on recent thinking.

No, Freedom of Speech today is a chilling subliminal warning that saying anything that isn't believed or tolerated by the urban liberal majority WILL be subject to immediate consequence.  That could mean loss of job, loss of access to one of the many 21st century communications platforms, physical harm, exposure of family to social retribution, and so on.

This xkcd website political cartoon puts a smiley face on the obvious ominous warning;

The door being illustrated is to a gas chamber,  a person cancellation that is publicly humiliating and that carries draconian punishment that far outweighs any harm that the speech might contain. It invites and encourages "people listening" to imagine and fashion a door of their own choosing that somehow teaches the speaker of an unacceptable narrative a punishing lesson.

The new theater lesson isn't the fear that someone will yell 'fire' in the crowded theater, it is the fear that the crowed theater will all yell 'kill' should anyone dare speak something unwelcome.

Snow Days a Thing of the Past

In 2006, as a member of the school board, I created a post advocating Virtual Make-up Days.

Fourteen years later, the State of CT - thanks to a worldwide pandemic - has finally figured it out.

Someday learning will apply to teachers, administrators, and education bureaucrats as well.

Sol Pais, Semantic Tagging, and the Toxicity of Google Visual Search

This are the final observations I will offer about the Sol Pais history.

Before Sol Pais was found dead in the woods of Colorado, she came to my attention in some information streams I religiously monitor.  The authorities, according to these reports, were looking for her because of some mysterious connection to a Columbine anniversary.  I found the ambiguous nature of the evidence to be disturbing.  This country has far too many self-righteous vigilantes who shoot first and ask questions later for a young girl to be widely advertised to be a threat to a community perpetually "on edge".

Years ago, I had worked (as a Software Engineer) on the Homeland Security Information Network (HISN) that I suspected was used to communicate between Florida and Colorado authorities.  The more I read about this real-time manhunt, the more concerned I was about this woman's safety.

The other oddity about this event was the release of two photographs of Sol, one that made her look like a woman in her thirties and uncannily simulating a Patty Hearst ambiance.  I had a gut feeling she would not be seen alive again.

So, curiosity piqued, I started doing what I do well - research.  I took screen shots of the Sol Pais images and dropped them into Google search to see who she was aside from the shady pictures being published.  I didn't get the results I expected.

A picture search should, theoretically, return images that match the images you submit.  A picture of Sol Pais should have returned one of the many pictures of her I later found on numerous websites.  Instead what was returned were dozens of the same photos semantically tagged with Columbine, school threat, and so on.  And the rest of the photos returned were not young 18 year old girls but female killers and criminals.  The photo search was not comparing pictures but inferring semantic matches based on the tagging of the photos and the not the likeness of photos.  Furthermore, the photos released by the authorities and cloned in every MSM outlet were weighed to be given priority. Sol Pais may as well have been wearing a target on her forehead.

Given the ubiquity of this profile, Sol Pais was a marked target whose presumption of innocence was stripped from her systematically in multiple systems that were failing to ensure the veracity of the data being transmitted. To this day, from what I can puzzle together, I believe local Florida authorities twisted the words of a traumatized father to manufacture a nonexistent psychopath.  A sandbox psychopath that authorities in Columbine welcomed with open arms - target practice to satisfy a community on edge.

I continued to research the story for a few weeks after reports of her death.  My previous posts document what I found.  If she, in fact, committed suicide she should be recognized as a heroic figure.  Our society should be so lucky as to have suicidal individuals wander off somewhere and make decisions about themselves alone instead of inflicting violence to strangers.  Sol Pais is a tragedy and a study in our social mean but her image should have her semantic tags changed - updated for posterity as collateral damage.

I believe she did commit suicide - there's good evidence to that effect.  But there is also plenty of reason to fear for the health and welfare of anyone who gets caught in the pathological paranoia that is every community that has experienced a mass shooting.

Our systems no longer have a fail-safe mechanism to distinguish truth from lies and when government systems lie to MSM and Big Data search engines the result is a real-life terror that makes Black Mirror episodes seem tame.  Be afraid, be very afraid. 
 

Sol Pais: The Hypothermia Problem

According to Wikipedia, a person suffering from hypothermia who takes their clothes off is suffering from Extreme Hypothermia.

" In mild hypothermia there is shivering and mental confusion.^[2] In moderate hypothermia shivering stops and confusion increases.^[2] In severe hypothermia, there may be paradoxical undressing, in which a person removes their clothing, as well as an increased risk of the heart stopping.^["

Assuming this is true, why would authorities clear an area in which there was a report of a woman running around nude? 

The situation implies by its very nature to be a case of hypothermia that is life-threatening.  Clearing the area means reducing the chance of finding the person before they die of cold.  And assuming a fear of an armed Sol Pais not being *that* woman, are we to believe they thought Sol Pais had retreated to woodland she had zero familiarity with to ambush someone else as lost as she?

Because it is not unreasonable to assume that they might have believed it could likely be Sol Pais and if it was, clear the area, let her freeze to death, and their job made that much easier.

The New York Times reported [bolding my emphasis]:

"It was a tactical team from the Clear Creek County sheriff’s department that found Ms. Pais’s body, near Echo Lake, according to the sheriff, Rick Albers. According to the sheriff, Ms. Pais had taken a rideshare to a lodge by the lake.

At some point she had hiked about half a mile from the lodge, and then about 100 yards up a hill. She would have had to hike through snow to get there, somewhere between one and four feet deep, officials said. Clear Creek deputies found her by a stump, dead from a gunshot wound. She was in the same clothing the F.B.I. had reported her as wearing — boots, camouflage pants and a black shirt. She was also wearing a plaid jacket, and had a bag and a shotgun with her. Mr. Albers said that he did not know of any other guns found on her."

The massive manhunt for Sol Pais was resolved by locating the drop off point of the ride share and following the footprints up a hill nowhere near a school or publicly exposed area.

The story of the nude woman running around in the woods was false but it cleared the area. No one would bear witness to anything that went on.

The internet community as represented by Reddit was filed with assertions that Pais was nude, could not be suffering from Hypothermia, was mentally ill, and so on - virtually nothing resembling the reality of her isolation.

The Denver Post reported a far more detailed and accurate picture of Pais on the day she died.

"Florida teenager Sol Pais likely killed herself Monday evening on Mount Evans, never knowing that she was the target of a police dragnet more than 50 miles away or that her actions had incited panic as the 20th anniversary of Columbine approached, said the Clear Creek County undersheriff who led the search for the young woman on the mountain. 

Pais, who was from Miami, would have been on a remote mountainside without cellphone service, no car and lacking the gear to survive the brutal weather conditions. There were no credit card purchases or cellphone pings that would have indicated she left Mount Evans once a rideshare driver dropped her off late Monday afternoon. 

“She had no idea what occurred from late Monday afternoon to Tuesday when a search for her began and to Wednesday when her body was found,” Clear Creek County Undersheriff Bruce Snelling told The Denver Post. “The logical likelihood was she was here to end her journey.”

Snelling was part of a sheriff’s tactical team searching the mountain for Pais. They followed footprints in deep snow, interviewed the rideshare driver who took her to the area and talked to experts to try to understand her mindset. Eventually, they found her body, which appeared to have been dead for more than 24 hours, about three-quarters of a mile from Echo Lake Lodge."

and [bold letters are my emphasis]...

"Investigators had discovered Pais was infatuated with the Columbine shooting. An online journal she kept included sketches of one of the killers and of guns. Social media posts along with comments she made to others led the FBI to see her as a credible threat, Dean Phillips, special agent in charge of the Denver office, said Wednesday during a news conference. However, she never made a specific threat to a specific school, he said. 

As the FBI began tracking Pais’ whereabouts, agents also began informing local law enforcement that Pais was in the area and that she was armed. Hundreds of schools along the Front Range canceled classes Wednesday as the manhunt intensified. 

By the time a massive media campaign was unfolding, Snelling said, authorities had evidence that she was at Mount Evans with no means to come back to the city. 

The FBI provided the Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office with information that showed Pais was dropped off 56 miles west of Columbine High School at a pullout on Highway 103 at the base of Mount Evans in Clear Creek County. 

From that moment, the 18-year-old dressed in a black T-shirt and camouflaged pants was on foot, Snelling said. She had no tent, no sleeping bag and no coat. 

The Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office never received any evidence that Pais planned to use the shotgun to shoot others, Snelling said. 

“I had no direct information from the FBI that any of her writings indicated she would do a school shooting,” Snelling said. “She didn’t have a master plan.” 

But Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Shrader, whose jurisdiction includes Columbine High School, said there was strong, generalized evidence that an attack was imminent. 

Because Pais bought a one-way ticket, purchased a gun and ammo, and expressed a fascination with Columbine, authorities had reason to be concerned, Shrader said. 

“A lot of that added up to give me quite a bit of concern,” he said. “Knowing what we knew — until her body was found — there was a belief of a general threat.” 

Even as schools began increasing security Tuesday afternoon, searches had begun in and around Mount Evans. 

Shrader sent the Jefferson County mountain team. The FBI sent a team, Snelling said. And Clear Creek deputies began searching at the top of Colorado 103 near the Echo Lake Lodge. 

Snelling interviewed the rideshare driver, who told him that he had dropped her off at a pull-out on Colorado 103 about 7 miles from Idaho Springs. Pais had told the driver she wanted to see snow, and the driver did not think that she appeared to be distraught or on edge. She got out of the car carrying a duffel bag and a gun case, Snelling said. 

Snelling said he consulted with an FBI agent who specializes in cold cases as well as a nationally recognized police psychologist to understand her possible mind-set. After those conversations, Snelling said he developed three theories about what Pais was doing: 

Pais could have traveled to Echo Lake Lodge to hide out or practice shooting but didn’t realize it was closed. Her cellphone didn’t work, so she was stuck in the wild. 

After visiting Echo Lake, Pais could have hitchhiked to Idaho Springs and then called for another rideshare to get back to the metro area and carry out a shooting. 

Or, Pais’ sole reason for flying to Colorado on a one-way ticket and heading to a mountain was because she intended to commit suicide. 

“She went dark,” Snelling said. “There was no digital footprint anywhere. No phone. No credit card use. To me, that pointed to a near impossibility that this ill-equipped, 18-year-old teenage woman would fly from sea level in Florida to Colorado and then go up into the mountains with plans to go on a killing spree. I believed the third scenario was the most likely one.” 

-snip- 

Almost two hours after their search began, deputies saw footprints veering off Resthouse Trail. 

“There was a little flat spot in the woods, and that’s where we found Ms. Pais,” Snelling said. “It was isolated and off the beaten path. It was peaceful. She was by a tree stump. Everything she had brought with her was in arm’s length of her. 

Pais’ body was still clothed in the same camouflage pants and black T-shirt, and she had a small duffel bag that contained two boxes of shotgun shells, he said. 

It snowed later Wednesday, and Snelling said he was thankful that deputies’ work had led to the discovery. Otherwise, Pais’ tracks could have been buried and could have prevented anyone from finding her body until summer. 

At the time of the discovery of Pais’ body, law enforcement and school officials were discussing shutting schools for another day. 

“What would today be like if we hadn’t found Ms. Pais?” Snelling said Thursday morning. “We would be operating under the umbrella of fear with the Columbine anniversary approaching.” 

When Pais’ body was found, there was a simultaneous sense of relief and sadness, Shrader said. 

Snelling described the same feelings. He was proud that his team had found Pais and ended the panic and chaos along the Front Range. 

“In the waning hours, I was struck by how sad it was,” Snelling said. “This poor, mentally ill girl needed help and probably never got it.”

The plaid "jacket is what she was wearing at the airport.  She was also wearing black pants that look nothing like camouflage and an Alice in Chains t-shirt.     The description of the authorities, even after her death, implies a far more threatening profile than the reality.

The point of this exercise is that it was the "massive media campaign" that provoked the panic and hysteria more than anything Sol Pais had in any way provoked.  And while the sanity of Sol Pais was and is continually questioned, it is the sanity of the Columbine survivors and their neighbors that must also be considered questionable.

The rhetorical paranoia obvious in this Jefferson Couty Officials press conference should make everyone uncomfortable.

The presumptions about "outsiders" visiting the area are haunting and threatening in themselves.  Yes, bad things can happen but when public officials address public profiling as potentially 'evil', we may be crossing a very dangerous crossroad.

Sol Pais: The Two Boxes of Ammo Mystery

One of the curiosities of the Sol Pais suicide was that she purchased two boxes of ammunition for the shotgun.  Before 8chan was scrubbed, that community thread debated this anomaly.

If she intended to commit suicide (which she actually did), why buy two boxes of ammunition.

I have a new, recent theory about this based on a comedy sketch by Dave Chappelle that aired on Netflix.  In it he describes going to a gunstore to buy a shotgun for self protection and asking the gun shop owner for advice.  The gunshop owner grabs two boxes of ammunition from the case because that's what is usually bought.

My theory is that Sol Pais was confronted similarly and not wanting to look naive, bought one box of each.

Here's Chapelles skit - IMO, its compelling.