Sandy Hook Elementary School Victims
Sandy Hook Elementary School Victims
NORMAL PEOPLE do not shoot children or other people!
Whatever the state of their mind at the time they committed horrible crimes against others... it is not an excuse! Please don't think, as an ex-FBI profiler does, that mental health issues are being used to excuse-away the "unimaginable events."
On the contrary, we're looking for the cause of such monster-like behavior, not to excuse it, but to understand it. It is ironic, for example, that both shooters in the tragic shootings in Colorado (July 20, 2012) and Connecticut (Dec. 14, 2012) wore bulletproof vests. Why? Since they both shot themselves in the end, what exactly is it they were protecting. If they didn't intend to be captured, why the bulletproof vests?
James Holmes, CO 
Adam Lanza, CT
Mary Ellen O'Toole, Ex-FBI Profiler
Dr. O'Toole told ABC news on December 16, 2012 that it's unlikely Adam Lanza "snapped" or made a sudden decision to murder children. He did afterall stockpile ammunition for his three guns, shoot his mother as she slept, and, as news report now indicate, smash his computers so they could not be searched. He showed "planning" and "control." It may have looked like he was on a "mission," but I would also suggest that his actions were full of pain and rage.
In my role as an advocate for those with mental health issues, I take exception with Dr. O'Toole's comments on December 18, 2012 ((http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/gunman-behavior-shootings-indicates-planning-control-former-fbi-180620270.html)) to the media that too much is being made of the Newtown shooter's mental health: "It's time we stop putting out the mental health issue as an excuse that he didn't know what he was doing."
But what does that statement mean? It's kind of a back-handed way of stigmatizing mental illness, isn't it? O'Toole is basically saying that it's time to stop using "craziness" as an excuse. But that is a typical response when people remain uneducated about mental health issues.
In my role as an advocate for those with mental health issues, I take exception with Dr. O'Toole's comments on December 18, 2012 ((http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/gunman-behavior-shootings-indicates-planning-control-former-fbi-180620270.html)) to the media that too much is being made of the Newtown shooter's mental health: "It's time we stop putting out the mental health issue as an excuse that he didn't know what he was doing."
But what does that statement mean? It's kind of a back-handed way of stigmatizing mental illness, isn't it? O'Toole is basically saying that it's time to stop using "craziness" as an excuse. But that is a typical response when people remain uneducated about mental health issues.
As a certified teacher of a free 12-week NAMI Maryland course (Family-to-Family) for the caregivers of loved ones with mental health issues, I hear too many stories about how difficult it is to get either a diagnosis or treatment for relatives "before something happens." Research shows that most people with mental health issues are not violent and that most incidents of crimes involving mentally compromised individuals involve untreated individuals. Treatment matters!
Until the public gets more information about the 27 deaths, what is clear that the 20-year-old shooter did not share a reality with "normal people" on the day he created the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. As we grieve the huge loss, in so many different ways, to so many different people and the nation... it should be remembered that we are not exscuing the killer's behavior, but seeking information. In the UK, for instance, one blogger is already blaming the mother after learning she stockpiled guns, food, and water because she believed society was on "the brink of collapse."
http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/sandy-hook/50640/did-adam-lanzas-paranoid-mother-trigger-killing-spree
Rather than perpetuating stigmas about mental illness, now is the time to flood the public square with discussions about the continuing shortages of resources (housing and treatment) for millions of families who are struggling with loved ones who have mental health issues.
Liza Long of Idaho did that in her Blog on the day of the Newtown Tragedy (December 14, 2012). Her truthful and raw description of what it is like to live with and be tormented by a child with mental health issues created a storm of criticism and generated an avalanche of acclaim from those with similar experiences. Her words on THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE hit close to home for too many of us. (Highlight, click, and read.)
http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html?m=1
LIZA LONG, author
LIZA LONG, authorSo I definitely agree with Liza Long... it's time to talk about mental illness, not just guns. No one is his/her right mind would murder little kids or shoot randomly in a dark, movie theater. Long, the single mother of four, writer, and musician attracted million of viewers when she also published her Blog essay in The Blue Review under the title - I am Adam Lanza's Mother.
(http://thebluereview.org/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother/)
Ex-FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole wrote a book in 2000 with Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh called - The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment. Yet, despite their best efforts to root out and identify those who might inflict the kind of violent behavior that erupted at Sandy Hook elementary school, an Adam Lanza would probably have been missed because he was not a student at the school and his disorder, whatever it was, was not typically associated with violence. Adam Lanza, in other words, didn't fit the academic or professional "profile" for a school shooter.
