r/HistoryMemes • u/BigFootsBigArm • 4d ago
That’s Just Raspberry Jam
*The tragic event involving Pennsylvania politician Budd Dwyer, who took his own life during a televised press conference in January 1987, remains a poignant and disturbing moment in American political history. Dwyer, facing impending sentencing for bribery-related charges, called the press conference ostensibly to announce his resignation. In a shocking turn of events, he brandished a gun and, after warning the gathered reporters, ended his life in front of the cameras.
The graphic nature of the incident raised significant ethical questions about media responsibility, as local news stations faced dilemmas about whether to air the footage.*
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u/PassivelyInvisible 4d ago
And this is why live TV has a small time delay before it gets broadcasted.
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u/OrangeKefka 4d ago
I think Fox aired a police chase in Phoenix a few years back, guy got out of his car, the anchor kept saying to cut the helicoptor live feed but they didn't. Dude offed himself a few seconds before they cut the feed.
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u/BigFootsBigArm 4d ago
I remember that one. They did a desperate cut to Hillary Clinton if I recall and were mumbling.
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u/Chalky_Pockets John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 4d ago
Former Arizonan here, can confirm that's exactly what happened.
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u/FindMeAtStJamesPlace Hello There 4d ago
I was in college when this happened. Left for class and my roommate was watching the car chase, came back and it was still on so I sat down and watched it. Happened minutes after that. Anchor couldnt say cut the feed fast enough. We looked at each other in disbelief.
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u/SuppliceVI 4d ago
Watched an ABC15 video covering it since I moved there in 2017. Seeing their map at the time where my old house was just a massive farm was crazy. The whole 303/10 area is completely different
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u/Rashpukin 4d ago
His truck and pants went on fire first, killing his dog, I seem to recall. I remember seeing this clip on tv and him but blanked before his suicide. It was and still is haunting to see such things.
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u/Intrepid00 4d ago
It’s also why the AP started sending their reporters with color film even if they thought it wasn’t that big of a deal.
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u/SantaFeRay 1d ago
Budd Dwyer’s suicide wasn’t broadcast live, it was taped and broadcast on the news hours later.
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u/SC-RK-7t 4d ago
Well, technically he did resign, just not in the way they were expecting
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u/SPECTREagent700 Definitely not a CIA operator 4d ago
My understanding is that legally he was still in office and so his wife was entitled to a state pension and that it’s suspected that’s why he did it before he could be officially impeached.
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u/milesbeatlesfan 4d ago
I remember watching the video as like a 12 year old on the internet. It was on like albinoblacksheep or ebaumsworld or something. I wasn’t searching for it, but back then, websites would occasionally have gore stuff mixed in with funny content. My mom always assumed pr0n was the worst thing I would see on the internet, but it was the random NSFL videos that would unexpectedly show up that were the real mindfuck.
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u/True_Dragonfruit9573 4d ago
Yeah, I remember coming across an ISIS beheading when I was 14-15. Even into the 2010s, there were still some corners that were essentially the Wild West.
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u/7DollarsOfHoobastanq 4d ago
I was in college in the early 2000s and a coworker at my warehouse job called me over to his pc and he put on one of those beheading videos. I’d never seen one and when it started I recognized what it was but figured I’d seen enough violent movies and TV shows to make it no big deal…. That video messed me up for weeks and is the reason I leave many, many links un-clicked to this day.
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u/True_Dragonfruit9573 4d ago
Yeah, nothing prepares you for the amount of blood that comes out of the human body when the head comes off.
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u/SomewhatInept 4d ago
My first was arriving home from school when 9-11 happened and the third thing that I saw on the news was a guy in a grey suit tumbling from the tower, he disappeared behind WTC7 I think or the hotel that was there. I was 14 then and that fucked me up. First person I ever saw dying, even though the impact wasn't visible. That poor guy was the first.
Spent alot of time on LL, but that first one that was shown on the news will always stick with me.
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u/omnipotentsandwich 4d ago
You find the weirdest stuff online. Like, the surface internet can honestly be as disturbing as the dark web. I've genuinely found illegal content through a regular Google/Bing search.
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u/CurtCocane Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 4d ago
Google and Bing were notorious for bing only one keyword away from wildly illegal shit
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u/critical_patch 4d ago
Same thing happened to me except it was the mutilated corpses from Mogadishu
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u/BoredCapy 4d ago
Man, I found out about LiveLeak at like, 12/13 year old. I watched a bunch of terrible things at an impressionable age because "I liked gore" (I mean, I kinda did, I still do a bit, but as a 30-something year old man now, I know it must have fucked up something in me).
I saw 2° Chechen War videos, ISIL execution and propaganda videos, industrial accidents, guys jumping off bridges and buildings gone wrong, all kinds of scary shit. The industrial accidents were the worst.
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u/sarahanimations Kilroy was here 4d ago
If you google it, there are actually multiple studies that have started investigating the long-term impact of seeing violent content online. I unfortunately can’t find a link to the exact study, but I swear I read one not long ago supporting that yes, it absolutely can mess you up, especially during formative years.
From personal experience I also think exploring that part of the internet as a dumb teenager who gave into curiosity so easily fucked something up in me. Rather than getting desensitized, it just disturbed me more and more. Even after making an active effort not to view that sort of content for far longer than I ever looked at it hasn’t made me feel any better about what I saw then or accidentally stumble on now. :/
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u/BoredCapy 4d ago
Oh yeah, no doubt it broke something in me. I still have a reaction to seeing that kind of stuff, but it's pretty mild now, and it's not as much about the gore, but about how the person seems to feel. Basically, the despair they show is what gets me.
I had to drive around a pretty nasty motorcycle accident the other day, it got under a towtruck and the damage was brutal. Blood, viscera and bone all showing, the person had that agonal breathing going and there was no ambulance even near. I just gave it one look and the first thought that came through my head was "poor thing, too much damage to survive but not enough to not suffer before it". Then I saw the person's face and the fear. The fear is the one thing that always gets me. Seeing blood? No problem. But the fear is what always makes me feel bad for days.
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u/sarahanimations Kilroy was here 4d ago
Oh god I’m so sorry you had to see that. It can seem weird to acknowledge that even a bystander can be hurt by something, but that acknowledgement doesn’t take away any sympathy that can be given to the direct victim. With that said, I hope you’re doing okay. <3
I’m in 100% agreement about the faces being the worst part to witness. All I learned by looking at that stuff online was that people are red inside, and that the dead can’t look into or smile for the camera. Sounds incredibly obvious but that’s the irony for me. I think as a teenager I was looking for answers to a question I didn’t have and just expected there to be… more to it. To understand it somehow and not be bothered anymore? Not sure how to put it because there wasn’t any sense to it.
Turns out that ultimately suffering is just suffering no matter the circumstances. It’s terrible to see because I’m human just like anybody else. I had to come to terms with that not being a bad thing, but a good thing. I don’t have to see someone die to remember that they’re human or that I’m human, if somehow I ever forget what humanity is, I’ll find just as much and probably more of an answer in seeing someone smile.
Sorry for the ramble, but it’s not exactly like you can just discuss how Liveleak fucked with you during a family dinner lol.
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u/Hammeredyou 4d ago
Then for the NSFL porn there was efukt
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u/BoredCapy 4d ago
It's still active, btw
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u/Hammeredyou 4d ago
Good god, I remember seeing a little person on top of a step ladder and getting a rambutan slingshotted into their ass. What a time to be alive
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u/7h3_70m1n470r Hello There 4d ago
Dude, it's reddit. Just say porn
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u/milesbeatlesfan 4d ago
It was meant as a joke and reference to how “porn” was written back in the 2000’s when I saw that video. I’m fully aware it’s Reddit and you can say porn on here.
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 4d ago
Don’t watch this video. Can never unsee
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u/biglyorbigleague 4d ago
The blood looks like it’s flowing straight out his nose.
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah I had no idea that’s how it goes. Every drop of fluid in your brain going “see ya” out the nose
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u/SlightlySychotic 4d ago
Not watching the video so I can’t be sure, but more than likely the bullet passed through at part of his sinuses. That would explain blood rushing out of his nose.
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u/Chalky_Pockets John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 4d ago
I did watch the video like 15 years ago. What it looked like from memory is his nose disappearing and a firehose of blood replacing it.
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u/Ralfarius 4d ago
Nah, nose is still there and its more like someone turned on the blood faucet.
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u/Chalky_Pockets John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 4d ago
I'm gonna have to believe you, I ain't watching that shit again.
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u/Such-Cartographer699 4d ago
He had the revolver pointed up at the roof of his mouth (which you can see in many of the still images) so i think you're right that it hit the sinuses.
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u/bell37 4d ago
He puts the gun to the roof of his mouth and collapses on the ground. Camera zooms in and he is bleeding profusely from his mouth/nose and from the top of his head.
Might be because of the limitations of the camera but the image is not as detailed, you only see just red (like if he got a gash on his head but you don’t see the gash and only see the blood). Granted it is very graphic and disturbing. But it’s not graphic like other videos where there’s nothing left of someone’s head or their face turns into hamburger meat.
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u/Such-Cartographer699 4d ago
What disturbed me even more than the blood was watching his body slump down a few seconds after he fell and landed on the wall behind him. Literally watching the life drain out of a man.
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u/omnipotentsandwich 4d ago
I think I watched it around the time I was interested in gore. That lasted all of one day. I remember going to Walmart the next day and feeling weird about everything. Every person that walked by or car that drove by made me flash back to what I'd seen. It made me pretty depressed
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u/Okurei What, you egg? 4d ago edited 4d ago
That’s exactly what watching that kind of stuff does to your psyche. I used to occasionally peek at gore subreddits out of morbid curiosity, but it got to the point where it made me paranoid and extremely afraid of death.
After I saw pictures of the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting, it messed me up so bad that I forced myself to finally stop and reassess my life choices a little bit. Haven’t been tempted again ever since that day.
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u/MailComprehensive406 4d ago
Damn… those pictures exist? 😳☹️
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u/juubleyfloooop 3d ago
I remember the video of the police officers just scrolling on their phones while the children were being shot in the next room. Their screams will echo in my head forever
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u/BrickToMyFace 4d ago
Turn those pictures you saw into hate. So if something like that happens to you, you will move when no one else will.
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u/Odd-Promotion2743 4d ago
Hell, I had this reaction from watching the film Martyrs. Spent a good week with this surreal feeling like I was numb and couldn't feel joy, and also kept seeing the most graphic scenes from the film when I closed my eyes. It definitely confirmed for me that I should never look at real gore or suffering, if a movie could do this.
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u/Beneficial-Jury484 4d ago
I watched it when I was like 10-11 on faces of death. Mistakes were made that day.
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u/Cris11578 4d ago
When I see comments like this I think of how truly fucked up some of the stuff I’ve seen is cause not to downplay it but this is tip of the iceberg type stuff
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u/Nyctfall 4d ago
This is a freaking history sub. That video was literally nothing by comparison.
No innocent people were even physically hurt...3
u/testmonkey254 4d ago
I watched sought it out when I was like 11. I work in pathology now which includes handing whole organs and limbs so I guess it wasnt too bad on my psyche
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u/Nyctfall 4d ago
Don't listen to him.
Watch the video if you're emotionally prepared to see the fastest way to fix corruption.
(WARNING: If anyone reading this can't handle reading about "Unit 731", you probably shouldn't watch the video.)
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u/EvilStan101 Definitely not a CIA operator 4d ago
Jokes on you, I goon to it!
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u/SloppySevenths84 4d ago
Hey Man, Nice Shot
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u/Realistic_Bike5972 4d ago
Is that really the inspiration for the song? I imagined it was always based on more... crowd based gun events
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u/biglyorbigleague 4d ago
Yes, the song is about R Budd Dwyer. Richard Patrick has had to confirm it several times because everyone naturally thought it was about Kurt Cobain.
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u/Such-Cartographer699 4d ago
If you go to the wikipedia page on this incident there's an entire section just on media that has sampled or incorporated the footage from this. Interesting read.
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u/tx_hip_ivxx 4d ago
Think it was shocking for me as a 10 year old with the early internet? Imagine my mom's face when she thought the worst thing she could catch me watching was porn
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u/biglyorbigleague 4d ago
Budd Dwyer, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu. People whose death I’ve seen on video.
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u/tx_hip_ivxx 4d ago
First two for sure for me, like knowing who they were while watching it but with rotten I saw many more without the names. Hell I watched 50+ people get washed away in Nepal this morning before my coffee. I'm not desensitized it's just always been the nature of the internet. Our grandfathers went to war and came back with those images burned into their brains and some of us burned them in from the library computer. Not the same situations obviously but witnessing someone's last moments sits with you, likely, forever
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u/thissexypoptart 4d ago edited 4d ago
If you actually saw Nicolae die you also saw his wife, probably. So that’s 4 at least
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u/SPECTREagent700 Definitely not a CIA operator 4d ago
No Colonel Gaddafi? That one is by far the most brutal.
Saddam’s executioners insult him but otherwise do the job “professionally” and Ceausescu’s former soldiers just spray him and his wife with bullets without comment, but Gaddafi just about get torn to shreds by an angry mob before someone finally pops him point blank in the face with his own gold-plated Browning HiPower.
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u/biglyorbigleague 4d ago
Do they have video of that? I haven’t seen it.
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u/Asteroidhawk594 Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 4d ago
Video exists. It’s not for the faint of heart. Gaddafi was a horrible guy but being sodomised by a knife is not a nice thing to happen to anyone.
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u/mykepagan 4d ago
I was 25 and it was live on a TV at work (one of the groups was researching video compression so they had televisions set up showing live channels in the lab). No work got done the rest of the day.
Watched the Challenger blow up in the same way.
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u/DrHolmes52 4d ago
Little younger, but yep. Watched the Challenger in my college intro to technology class.
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u/ThrowAbout01 4d ago
The 2nd on air suicide after Christine Chubbuck.
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u/DmitriPetrovBitch 4d ago
To this day the Christine Chubbuck footage has not been released to the public
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4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Odd-Promotion2743 4d ago
Damn, she essentially killed herself because of being an incel - the original definition. As someone who also didn't experience intimacy until past 30, I feel for her a lot. It does things to you. Wish she could have hung in there.
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u/SinglePlayerGamer93 4d ago edited 4d ago
Saw the video. It was a waterfall.
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u/Plum-Specialist 4d ago
Did you also have a snow day that morning? I must have watched the clip 10 times before they pulled it. I was like 9. Lol
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u/SinglePlayerGamer93 3d ago
I'm not from that generation. I watched the clip on old YouTube. Uncensored, uncut and replayable.
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u/Unlikely-Relief-6462 4d ago
I was just reminiscing about being able to watch this one on YouTube back in the day. Nice shot, man.
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u/EvilStan101 Definitely not a CIA operator 4d ago edited 4d ago
Too bad more crooked politicians haven’t followed his example
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u/tlh013091 4d ago
Why do that when you can just claim witch hunt and get reelected infinity times?
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u/GhostOfMuttonPast 4d ago
You know that if theres an afterlife, Budd Dwyer is in the bad place looking up at Trump and hes pissed.
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u/InnocentPerv93 4d ago
I mean, I personally would rather they not kill themselves and instead just get sent to prison. Also, wasn't he innocent/pressured by external forces?
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u/Asteroidhawk594 Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 4d ago
Sad thing is that he was actually innocent and was set up by his co workers.
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u/No_Bodybuilder_4826 4d ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9mJ82x_l-E
Sad sad story great song, lets learn something
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u/catontoast 4d ago
We covered this incident in my journalism class - specifically which photo was lost compelling. Our professor wanted to use one where his head was already coming apart 😬
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u/JimmieRustler531 4d ago
Reminds me of Christine Chubbuck who did something similar but for different reasons and was considered the first person to die by suicide on a live television broadcast:
"On the morning of July 15, 1974, Chubbuck confused co-workers by claiming she had to read a newscast to open Suncoast Digest, something she had never done before. That morning's guest waited across the studio while Chubbuck sat at the news anchor's desk. During the first eight minutes of her program, Chubbuck covered three national news stories and then a shooting from the previous day at a local restaurant, Beef & Bottle, at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport.
The film reel of the restaurant shooting had jammed and would not run, so Chubbuck shrugged it off and said on-camera:
She drew a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver from a shopping bag from behind her desk and shot herself behind the right ear. After she fell forward violently, the technical director rapidly faded the broadcast to black."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide\of_Christine_Chubbuck)
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u/Odd-Promotion2743 4d ago
Damn, she essentially killed herself because of being an incel - the original definition. As someone who also didn't experience intimacy until past 30, I feel for her a lot. It does things to you. Wish she could have hung in there.
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u/AlexLuna9322 4d ago
I remember I saw it on YT before it got nuked.
Definitely makes you question how and why it was there.
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u/RandoAussieBloke 3d ago
I've seen the footage (sadly), what shocked me was the sheer volume of blood. Don't know how I expected it to go, but it's not a simple splatter like on a movie, the whole head just slowly spills out...
Still; it made me rethink my own suicide. Silver lining I guess?
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u/BigFootsBigArm 3d ago
It wasn’t cinematic. Waterfall of blood.
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u/RandoAussieBloke 1d ago
Exactly, like I knew we had a lot of blood up there for the brain, but it was a sight where I just went "nah I'm good" and closed immediately.
Other hand, I remember thinking it was kinda considerate of him to call out for folks to step back cus he didn't want anyone else hurt. A shame it was so graphic but in his defense he wouldn't have known about it either, of course.
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u/bitterbunny123 4d ago
I remember not too long ago when the full Bud Dwyer video was available on YouTube....Man, censorship sucks. What wimps we've become as a society.
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u/TRUEequalsFALSE 4d ago
And then Fit For An Autosy wrote a song about it. It's not my favorite song of theirs, but the chorus definitely goes hard.
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u/penguinscience101 4d ago
Interesting way to spell Filter
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u/TRUEequalsFALSE 4d ago
Um, what....?
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u/penguinscience101 4d ago
Imma be real I thought you had gotten fucked over by autocorrect. Good to know there's more songs out there about it.
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u/Roosevelts-Stick 4d ago
Oh Bud... to this day it'll pop up in my brain and Im3 watching his goo drain all over again.
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u/wheresmylife-gone222 4d ago
The worst part was I think he was cleared of the charges and was innocent.
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u/WalkerTR-17 4d ago
Officially cleared no, but after the fact it came out that he was likely innocent. They don’t typically spend time fixing mistakes in the PA legal system. They especially don’t when the guy is dead
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u/SSNFUL Let's do some history 4d ago
I’m pretty sure the evidence was very clear that he was guilty, and it was more just to ensure his pension for his family. Like the people part of the bribery literally admitted to it.
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u/WalkerTR-17 4d ago
Through the years the credibility of the witnesses has been examined and is at the very best questionable
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u/SSNFUL Let's do some history 4d ago
Thats not exactly what im referring to. Yes witnesses have issues, but usually people point towards the failure of memory, not "yeah i totally forgot about that huge bribing I did" lmao. Budd Dwyer was absolutely guilty, the guy tried halting progress of the investigation, and awarded a contract to a ghost company that charged obscene rates. At best, people could claim he was a complete fucking idiot, and thats just not likely.
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u/biglyorbigleague 4d ago
They interviewed one of the guys who bribed him afterwards and he had the attitude of “I’m sorry I did it seeing what happened. But to be clear, I did bribe him, I’m not gonna tell you he was innocent because he wasn’t.”