Valentine's Day "a day of love for everyone," tweeted Pistorious' girlfriend before he allegedly shot her to death

What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay

— Reeva Steenkamp (@reevasteenkamp) February 13, 2013

Reeva Steenkamp, South African celebrity and model, tweeted that Valentine's Day should be "a day of love for everyone." Days later, she was shot dead in the home of her boyfriend, double amputee and paralympain superstar Oscar "blade runner" Pistorius. He has been charged with her murder.

• [MrBrownThumb]

  Is there a tumblr that collects famous last tweets? There should be.

• [Aaron Gilliland]

  Can SA cops administer Voight-Kampff?

• [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

  “Have you ever retired a human by mistake?”

• [Daneel]

  It sounds like he hasn’t got a leg to stand on, but then again, he’s always had a spring in his step.

  • [James Holmes]

    This reminds me of the day that my significant other committed suicide… I remember sitting on the ground outside her apartment, crying, in shock; freezing, inside and out. And the only thing I could hear was the police officers behind me talking about Monday Night Football… 

    I mean, I get it, but sometimes people can be serious dicks…

    • [Aaron Gilliland]

      Not a football fan?

    • [spejic]

      This calls to mind a memorable quote from a great work of art:

      “For you, the day Bison [destroyed] your village was most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.” – General Bison, Street Fighter

• [agonist]

  I wonder if he was taking steroids and if those helped push him towards this violent, senseless act.

  • [orangedesperado]

    Excuses, excuses.

    I wonder if being a successful athlete with corporate sponsorship, and medals, described as a “superstar” created a condition of terrible ego bloat, entitlement, and machismo, that made him feel like fatal aggression directed at his girlfriend was his “right”.

    • [rattypilgrim]

       I wonder if he was taking steroids and being a successful athlete with corporate sponsorship…. Explanations are not the same as excuses.

      • [orangedesperado]

        Sorry, I need a special sarcasm font. There is no adequate reason/rationalization for why a person with a history of domestic violence assaults or murders their partner. None.

        • [rattypilgrim]

           I hate it when that happens (sarcasm that doesn’t quite get across).

• [Must Love Alton]

  I can’t read this stuff straight after watching Black Mirror.

• [Digilante]

  This is just an opinion, and just based on my own experience of living for three decades in South Africa – absolutely not a judgement on this particular case, but…

  Statistics show (go find them yasself) that if you’re a gun owner, it’s very likely that a) you will kill the wrong person, or b) the burglar will use it to kill you. It’s why I refused to purchase a gun, in addition to reasons of principle. However, imagine what a life it is, when the slightest noise in your house (a gust of wind, a cat outside) results in your awakening with a double shot of adrenalin, pupils dilated, and ready to kill or die. Imagine having to consciously remember to be especially loving to your partner every morning, no matter what, given the risk of either you or her/him not coming back home alive at 6pm. I left the country after I decided to marry and start a family, and for three years after leaving I continued to wake up in the night screaming from nightmares of being slaughtered by a burglar. Yes, it may seem like paranoia to you, but please, go find those crime statistics before you slate me, or even better, go live there.

  So, a person shooting a member of the family in the night is a very common occurrence. Fathers shooting sons who are coming back from a late night out, and so on. If that is indeed what happened to Oscar, then for sure blame the lack of law enforcement and the engrained culture of crime, and let him free.

  On the other hand, these facts can be very easily abused to murder a family member and explain it as a mistake. If that is indeed what happened, well, may he rot in hell. So far reports from SA police seem to favour this latter version.

  In any event, any slightly financially advantaged person in SA is living at a level of stress that only now, after leaving, do I realise is insane, and thus causes insane things to happen.

  • [orangedesperado]

    Honestly, it sounds like this shooting was about intimate partner violence. This was not a shooting about a mistaken identity/intruder in the home, this was not a shooting due to economic despair(and why would you KILL your romantic partner if you were freaked out about poverty ? He had a Nike sponsorship for chrissakes), and there has been no mention of his having PTSD.

    This was a shooting where a man kills his girlfriend for ( — insert “reason” here — ).

    The ugliest truth is that people with an abusive mindset/character are everywhere, and many of them have excellent facades as an upstanding pillar of their community. His girlfriend was actively speaking out about domestic violence, * and had never mentioned that it was happening to her, too *. Even women who are educated, and aware of red flags, who have done everything “right” can find themselves in a relationship with an abuser.

    Who knows what reason/explanation he could give about WHY he killed his girlfriend ? Is there any reason that would be good enough ?

    * It should also be stated that police had responded to domestic violence calls at his address on several other dates — before he was in the relationship with the woman that he killed. *

• [Joel Emmett]

  Arguments about guns I have heard, which this incident contradicts:

  Guns keep you safe.  

  Guns keep your loved ones safe.  

  Guns make everyone “equal.”

  Guns are cool.  

  Guns are really fun.  

  Shooting guns is a great hobby.  

  Collecting guns is rewarding.  

  Guns are a tradition (and all traditions are always good, forever).  

  Guns are inherently, and always, good.

  It is your God-given right to own as many guns as you like, so you should exercise your right to own a gun. Or you aren’t showing that you believe in God.  (Just don’t actually use them except in highly-limited situations; that’s not a right, and in fact using them is almost always illegal.  But there is no contradiction in that because I am good, and so I can’t contradict myself.)

  Of course, only bad people could use guns in a bad way, so if you’re, you know, a good person, you should have lots of guns around.  Because that will show how good you are.

  • [chaopoiesis]

    “Guns make it easy to win arguments.”

    • [Wreckrob8]

      Guns make it easy to avoid meaningful dialogue, evade the issue and lose an argument.

  • [MTBooks]

     Do we really need to stretch it out as badly as pro gun folks have with their absolutist “more guns always make people safer”?

    This incident, which is really sad (you really want to like this guy for his Olympic story/participation – and now he’s taken everything this woman has or ever will have?), only contradicts those things you’ve listed with an absolute “always”. A single incident (you say, “that this incident contradicts”- this single incident) doesn’t contradict a general anything. Those non absolute items you’ve listed can be subjective and guns in general can be bad and good. The point is lost when such a stark dichotomy is drawn and it’s a “you are with us or against us” thing. Even if it was a majority of events, it isn’t absolute. Sort of pedantic, sorry, but I think we further the conversation when we realize the nuance and not absolute.

    It’s like this Dorner thing where people seem to think that if you don’t think the LAPD is in the right then they think you think Dorner is in the right (BB commentariat has largely seen this nuance and are not the people I am referring to).

• [oasisob1]

  http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-pistorius-remains-in-jail-facing-murder-charge-20130214,0,796946.story
  An advertisement for Nike, one of Pistorius’ major sponsors, was removed from his official website Thursday. It had shown the athlete in a green lycra athletic suit and the slogan, “I am the bullet in the chamber.”

• [Neil Shurley]

  Did you see this one from four days ago?

  “I woke up in a happy safe home this morning. Not everyone did.”https://twitter.com/reevasteenkamp/status/300503848022310912

• [Lithi]

  And she was also active for stopping violence against women. Bitterly ironic and just tragic. 

• [stumo]

  Rather disappointed by the commenters above who made light of the situation. Whatever the cause, someone innocent has lost their life in horrible circumstances, and it doesn’t feel appropriate to joke about it.