Law Student of the Day: Minnesota 1L Dennis Jansen
In yesterday's open thread on #17 though #28 schools in the U.S. News rankings, we neglected to include a riff on the crime statistics in various schools' cities. We did start thinking about it today, though, as it seems that bullets occasionally fly in the City of Lakes, home to the #20-ranked law school. And Dennis Jansen, a University of Minnesota 1L, was unlucky enough to catch one in the back this weekend.
Jansen keeps a blog called No. 634 tracking his law school adventures. Usually the posts are about fairly mundane topics, like his new dog Harley (a mastiff) and classes ("CrimLaw is a waste of time"). But yesterday, he posted something rather out of the ordinary. One of his fellow students sent it along to us, saying, "So I read this blog by a kid in my 1L crim law class... and THIS was definitely the most interesting post: Jansen gets shot."
According to the post, Jansen was out on the wild streets of Minneapolis Sunday after going to a club when...
I'm walking across Hennepin with what felt like the entire hiphop room of the Gay 90's, when I hear popping sounds.People scream and start running.
I feel something hit my back.I stop on the curb and call over to T.
Me: "I think I got hit."
T: "Shut up, where?"
(I lift up the back of my shirt and point.)
T: "OH MY GOD, they got you! They shot you!"
Me: "It's a gunshot?"
T: "YES! THEY GOT YOU! (then to the street) HE GOT SHOT!"
His first thoughts were not of his mortality but of class the next morning:
So it's around 2:30 am on a Monday morning and I'm sitting downtown bleeding on the side of the street. Random people coming from clubs stopped as they saw the blood coming from my back. I had a pretty good idea that I was going to miss this morning's civil procedure class...
And you thought you were having a rough finals week.
Jansen may give former honoree Alex Botsios (the Arizona 1L who wrestled his laptop away from an armed robber) a good running for ATL Law Student of all time. More after the jump, including a gratuitous, but not graphic, photo of the wound.
Jansen stayed at the hospital until Monday morning:
I just hoped that I would get out of the hospital in time to walk Harley and that this wouldn't interfere with finals...Throughout the night the doctor kept vacillating between taking the bullet out and leaving it inside of me. She finally decided to leave the bullet be, so yes I'm attending Crimlaw [Tuesday] with a bullet lodged in my back...
Taking a bullet and showing up at CrimLaw is sincere dedication to law school. But finals are finals, after all.
The University of Minnesota is not a place for the weak.
Jansen Gets Shot [no. 634]
(84) Comments
Comments
Minnesota hail to thee!
What a tool that he's worried about class when he's bleeding.
In the next weeks he'll be very disappointed that he survived that gunshot.
2 -
I think law school trains us to be tools. If I got shot this morning on the way to work, all I'd worry about was this damn motion I'm working on and who would finish a draft to get to the client. Or maybe it's just that all people who go to law school are tools. It's one of those...
I've always wanted to get shot in this exact non-life threatening manner...this guy has the best story at every party for the rest of his life
That is hardcore.
Those crazy Norwegian Protestants. Where the hell is Garrison Keillor when you need him? All the children are well behaved my back.
Getting shot is nothing compared to the winters...
Talk about gunners...
Our finals start next week. What was a 1L doing out on Sunday night at 2am?
9 = line of the week
5 - Try shrapnel from an IED or Mortars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Preferably it would hit you in the chest and leave a small but visible scar.
Even if you weren't doing anything but going to take a piss, people would inflate it to Rambo type levels.
rock on, dude.
wouldn't want a little thing like a gun shot to F-up your first ranking b/c fall OCI is gonna be murder.
only in america...
Why is this guy clubbing on a Sunday night if he's so concerned about classes the next day?
This was a great post.
9 fucking WINS!
Is the University of Minnesota Law School accredited by the American Bar Association?
Is it my imagination, or or Minnesotan lawyers/lawyers-to-be really hardcore? Anybody remember Keith Radtke of Faegre & Benson a while back?
Getting shot is fine as long as winter is over. Once you make it through the cold nothing can really upset you anymore, that is why everyone here is so nice.
5 - Try shrapnel from an IED or Mortars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Preferably it would hit you in the chest and leave a small but visible scar.
Even if you weren't doing anything but going to take a piss, people would inflate it to Rambo type levels.
What a pussy.
UT2L
9 - FTMFW!!
Wonder if he can sue the club on a Restatement 90 theory of reliance?
damn Jansen, your blog is designed REALLY well. it looks great. perhaps you should abandon your LS plans and go into web publishing.
12.
Or it could kill you and tear your body to shreads and then we'd have to place your body in the refrigerated shipping container overnight since it's too dangerous to transport it at night and want to prevent decomposition.
even if ur taking a piss in Iraq you're still in Iraq. Don't diminish it.
- Iraq war vet
No you idiot - he was thinking about his dog, and class and whatever, NOT because he's a tool, but likely because he was in shock. Those are the bs things you think about when you're trying not to freak the hell out - that there may be a bullet in you, that you may be feeling colder, that you may get sepsis, that your insides may be shredded and you just don't know it yet. I'd MUCH rather worry about crim law than that crap.
No you idiot - he was thinking about his dog, and class and whatever, NOT because he's a tool, but likely because he was in shock. Those are the bs things you think about when you're trying not to freak the hell out - that there may be a bullet in you, that you may be feeling colder, that you may get sepsis, that your insides may be shredded and you just don't know it yet. I'd MUCH rather worry about crim law than that crap.
hey iraq war vet, thanks for your service to our country. i really appreciate it.
- a liberal democrat in new york city
I wonder what happens when some of his professors see this story and actually read some of his entries. I'm betting he doesn't get the coveted participation bump.
12--so, is dying while taking a piss in a war zone from enemy munitions less honorable than otherwise?
idiot.
I doubt he was in "shock". There is not that much blood on the shirt.
24 - i laughed
"Look, you stupid Bastard. You've got no arms left."
"Yes I have."
"Look!"
"It's just a flesh wound."
28=douche
32 - you are an idiot. Shock is not determined by the amount of blood exiting a wound. Go back to your first person shooting video games you pathetic mouth-breathing law student.
If he was allowed to carry a concealed weapon, this would never have happened.
33 = racist gun lover
Monty Python references = autoFAIL.
32 here 36: There are several different classifications of shock. For ease of reference I'll quote wikipedia here:
"Circulatory shock, commonly known as just shock, is a serious, life-threatening medical condition where insufficient blood flow reaches the body tissues. As the blood carries oxygen and nutrients around the body, reduced flow hinders the delivery of these components to the tissues, and can stop the tissues from functioning properly."
This guy probably had acute stress disorder...or psychological shock...
Signed
32
Former ER nurse, current prosecutor
P.S You're a fucking idiot 36
IS IT ME, OR IS IT EVERYWHERE THAT BLAMA GOES, SWINE FLU BREAKS OUT???
Swine flu - Its whats for dinner.
26 -
12 here. 9/11(classified) plus Kuwait '02 (R&S) + IZ invasion '03.
Not diminishing it at all -- but we both know that freaky stuff can happen that in reality isn't that bad (for the purposes of 5's comment) and civilians back here will take it and run with it, no matter how much you try to qualify it.
-- Semper Fi
Locke Lord = The Lord of Lockes
31 - see 43.
37 - Minnesota has a conceal and carry law....
40 - 36 here. Not sure what's worse, a former medical professional relying on Wiki for authority, or a practicing attorney.
Plus you're splitting hairs. Shock occurs all the time without any blood loss. You should know that if you really were a nurse.
Speaking of which...are you a hot nurse turned prosecutor, or a Gaylord Fokker man-nurse?
YOU ARE ALL IDIOTS.
Please die of Texas Bigswine Flu.
Skadden Secure.
I have burn marks from spent brass running down my back. It gets me laid.
-Iraqi War Vet # 3
Semper Fi, indeed.
Crazy...I'm also a Minnesota 1L. Sunday night, I texted a friend of mine who I grew up with in LA that hearing gunshots and police sirens outside my apartment at 2:30 in the morning really took me back. What an odd coincidence--my classmate was the victim!
Glad Dennis is ok.
Jensen needs to bust back. Now THAT would be a story for crim law on Monday morning.
49 - as it should.
Let out an oohh mother f'ng rah for me.
/s/
married
@36/47
Do you even fucking read...it said for ease of reference.
I'm a fat black woman, so neither really.
46 - all the clubs/bars downtown ban guns on premises. So if he was coming out of a club/bar he would not be able to carry.
Big. Fucking. Deal.
What's this asshole doing out with finals on the horizon? I guess that he realized he couldn't cut it and settled for festering at the bottom of his class. These type of people make me sick.
This reminds me of a story. Back in my glory days I took two bullets to the back three weeks before finals by a crazed ex-girlfriend. Yeah, it hurt and I was scared for my life. But, I still aced all my exams. When this disgusting excuse for a human being can do that, then I'll give him some respect.
Retired partner here: When I was in law school, one of my classmates developed cancer. I can't recall what kind. He had to miss a lot of classes due to chemo and other treatment. He passed his exams, but he was denied credit for the semester because he had too many absences from classes. You could only miss three classes per course per semester. No execuses, no exceptions. The rationale was that in the real practice of law you don't get second chances simply because your dead or dying. We also had Saturday class at 8 o'clock in the morning. You were not allowed to miss any Saturday classes, period. The theory was that it would make us better lawyers down the road.
and all the donuts have names like prostitutes
Wrestling a laptop away from an armed robber beats taking a random stray bullet any day.
Dedication to my outline rules!
Fugitive From Justice - You might consider frequenting this site:
www.stormfront.org
You might find some folks there who actually give a shit what you think.
59
In what way did I make a racist comment? You are a prime example of the insufferable and pathetic morons who attend law school.
@60 -- Would you like to meet up in the lobby for a bit of early afternoon sex?
Bubba Spanx
54 -
I figured 37 meant that because MN is a liberal haven there would be strict gun control laws
Bar/club owners can do what they want; it's private property. He's allowed to conceal and carry when in public. 37 wanted him to be 'allowed' to carry a gun; he's allowed. I'm not sure that there's any state that requires private property owners to allow others to carry weapons onto their property.
-46
Fighting Mondales, goddamn right!
Nick "the goat" Thompson had better step up his game...
http://abovethelaw.com/2008/11/legal_profile_nick_ultimate_fi.php
56 - you're sad.
now send me some money.
- your second son, third wife (we met once, remember?)
Cool - Minnesota to T14!!!
62/46 - you are correct. I was simply making the point that while the state of MN allows you to conceal/carry it is almost impossible to do within the city of Minneapolis because anywhere that you might want to go prohibits guns on the premises. However, if you go up north there are plenty of bars that do not ban guns.
Fugitive From Justice - your thinly veiled diatribes against all "others" speak volumes. please crawl back under the rock from whence your bitch ass came.
Signed,
59 - a T-10 law school graduate who ate douchenozzles like you for breakfast everyday in law school.
Who the hell gets shot leaving a gay club?
To 55: You're a heartless racist bitch! My guess is that you assumed he's at the bottom of his class because of his...skin color. What other grounds did you have? Perhaps he went clubbing because he had studied enough that day and wanted a break.
SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU MALADJUSTED UNDESIRABLE ELEMENT!
Isn't that bullet, like, I dunno, evidence???
62, 37 wants to point out in rhetorical fashion, that the state of the law is moot, because carrying a gun would not have helped the law student avoid being shot in the back on a crowded street.
Sunday night is ghetto night in downtown Minneapolis. It's a problem every week.
Eh, he was probably just on his period.
But U of M would still let him miss Civ Pro or exams for that too. But not Professional Responsibility. For a lesbian commune, they sure have a hard-on for PR.
How can you "think" you got shot? I've never been shot so I don't know what it feels like, but I always assumed it's one of those things you either know or you don't. Like how you can't be sort of pregnant.
Or it could be true example of how law school screws with the way you think. Good to see he didn't just jump to conclusions without gathering some visual evidence first.
"Good shot, Janson!"
- Wedge Antilles
75, if you read his blog post you'll see that the bullet was lodged just under this skin, this is probably classifiable as a "flesh wound". You wouldn't be able to immediately know if you had been shot or not. It would just feel like someone knocked you down.
76- I laughed.
78, I'm shocked it wasn't quoted earler.
I'm a geek.
- 76
ATL is focusing on law school drama too much lately. Start focusing on relevant news, and stop exploiting law students.
LMAO 76
win
Isn't the real question here why a 1L was out getting shot in the back at gay clubs on Sunday night rather than hunched over his outlines?
A girl in my class ruptured her appendix, came to the civ pro final, sat through the whole exam, then drove herself to the hospital. I was pretty impressed with that.
56-- Did you also walk uphill both ways in the snow to law school?