Can Alcohol Explain Roommates’ Inaction in Idaho Slaughter? – The American Spectator

On Jan 6, 2023

When reports arose of the surviving roommates of the victims of the off-campus University of Idaho slaughter sleeping through the carnage, many people reacted in disbelief.

But in a big house on a big-drinking night, that theory appeared quite understandable from here. News breaking Thursday that one of the surviving roommates encountered the killer before retreating to her room makes less sense, to me at least.

Did strangers pass through that house so regularly that the sight of one wearing a mask as another roommate cried at 4:15 or so in the morning did not alarm the roommate enough for her to call the cops? Did she freeze? Was she so discombobulated from lack of sleep or an abundance of alcohol that she just did not react as a clear-headed person would?

The lives of college students, particularly ones living in a party house, likely differ so dramatically from a 40-something guy’s that their behavior may just prove beyond comprehension.

With no experience in a such a situation (few among the living can boast of it), one cannot definitely say what one would do in her shoes.

Probably she second-guesses herself every day. No need to add to her discomfort.

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Daniel J. Flynn

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Daniel J. Flynn, a senior editor of The American Spectator, is the author of Cult City: Harvey Milk, Jim Jones, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco (ISI Books, 2018), The War on Football (Regnery, 2013), Blue Collar Intellectuals (ISI Books, 2011), A Conservative History of the American Left (Crown Forum, 2008), Intellectual Morons (Crown Forum, 2004), and Why the Left Hates America (Prima Forum, 2002). His articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, New York Post, City Journal, National Review, and his own website, www.flynnfiles.com.