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It Happened Again
There has been yet another school shooting, this time in the Amish community in Pennsylvania. I wasn't going to write about this because I don't think I can give the proper depth in my words about this incident.
The truth is that I've heard so many stories of similar incidents in the last few years that I'm now inured to it; it no longer shocks me as it once did. I no longer react with the horror that such heinous atrocities deserve. I'm numb. I read of yet another incident and think to myself, "That's a shame", then change the channel, turn the page, and go about my business. It's not that I don't care or think these are trivial matters, it's just that I've gotten used to it.
From my years on the police force, I can say that these incidents represent a failing in the mental health system in our country. They never happen out of the blue. People who do things like this don't act normal all their lives, then wake up one morning and suddenly decide to go postal for no reason. There are ALWAYS warning signs and, for some reason, many such troubled people fall through the cracks and fail to get the mental health help they need that could prevent such tragedies. This is true of school shooting incidents, as well as incidents of mothers killing all their children, such as Andrea Yates and Susan Smith. None of these people were well adjusted people who inexplicably went off the deep end one day.
I dealt with quite a few mentally ill people working in law enforcement. The mental health system in my county did not often deal effectively with such people, either turning them away or only partially treating them. The police and the jail system was the end of the road for many mentally ill people, as, unlike other agencies, we could not pick and choose with whom we preferred to deal with; we could not "turn them away". Unfortunately, the jail system isn't designed to help mentally ill people and having to do so, anyway, takes takes time and manpower away from the primary purpose of law enforcement and jails; to deter and punish crime. We did the best we could, trying to work with the mental health system, bringing people in whose problems were primarily mental health based rather than criminally based, but quite often, they helped these people only minimally, if at all. It seemed to us that their prime goal was to keep as many beds empty as possible in the local psychiatric hospital.
Our country needs to beef up the mental health system for the safety of the general public as much as for the sake of the severely mentally disturbed.
Thoughts?
You nailed it. I would add that it would be helpful if we took the shame
out of mental illness, which would allow people to seek help without
considering it humiliating.
W, I've been thinking about this (watching the news). I was already
thinking that it represents a failure of our mental health care attitudes
and systems when I read your post. Such needless tragedy, that people are
so filled with shame about what's going on inside of them that they're more
afraid to get help, to see a doctor than they are to go into a school and
kill children. How unbelievably sad.
I think the shit we are showing on TV has a lot to do with it as well.
Every channel shows violence....I watch the Food network and
nickelodeon....otherwise I'd be so depressed I'd kill MYSELF.
The government can only do so much, you know. If the mentally-ill person
does not agree with treatment, you can't force the person. It isn't legal.
There are many people in the steets who are mentally-unstable, taken in by
the charitable organizations, only to have these same people refuse
medication by reasons that they think it interferes with their state of
mind and then they go back to the streets. There's the fine line of what is
free will and being forced to take medication. I understand the frustration
but what can be done?
We need to arm people in the school system. Train them too. It worked in
Thailand and Israel.
