Eating more collards also might not help but wouldn’t hurt.

And that’s the thing. Just because we wish we could help, doesn’t mean there is a thing we can do before the killing.

Anything we could do could also be used to deprive us of our civil rights. Remember how the USSR didn’t have prisons, they had insane asylums. They figured anyone who committed crimes against their practically perfect state must be insane.

Blaming the government for not stopping the killing in advance would be reasonable if they COULD actually have done so. Even the medications you mention (assuming they exist) only work if they are taken. It would be nice if we could always be proactive and stop problems before they became problems (like we did when we invaded Iraq just in case they had weapons of mass destruction) but they don’t always work and we are stuck with being reactive.

David for sanely viewing the real world
(on all our parts)

I was simply making sure that I had not given the impression that I thought he should be set free, turned loose upon society.

As for whether him getting help would have prevented any of this, I don’t know…..but it wouldn’t have hurt.

No, we can’t always “cure” insanity, but we can usually help regulate behavior…hence, preventing things like this from happening.

Religious beliefs…idiocy…not really, but when it manifests itself in the behavior that leads to situations such as this, it’s not a religious belief, it’s a delusion and should be treated as such.

No, we can’t force treatment….UNLESS it causes them to be a threat to themselves or others. At that time, they can be “Baker Acted” for 72 hours. At the end of that time, if they have convinced the doctors that they are no threat or their condition has stabilized, then they are released. If the doctors believe that they are a threat, then they can be held until such time as they are no longer considered to be a danger.

(unlike the previous comment which was not directed to you)

Perhaps he would have.
Does our current state of mental health capability include the ability to cure his insanity?

Would he have accepted that help if it did exist?

This person’s mother claims his grandfather practiced black magic and she was too strong for it to work on her but that it worked on her son.

Does our current state of mental health capability include the ability to cure her insanity?

Would she accept it?

Further, it is obviously part of her religious belief that the black magic and demons were involved. Can you lawfully treat a person’s religious beliefs just because you consider them idiotic?

David for better people

Maybe you didn’t read my posts. I knew Thomas. I say “knew” instead of know because I haven’t seen him since right before this tragic event occurred. I work in the psychology field. I DO know that he is mentally ill. I am not commenting on things I do not know. I am commenting only on what I DO know.

I don’t know his family, nor did I disrespect them in any way. I am so sorry for the loss and pain that they all are feeling. I’ve been there, and I understand. That’s one of the reasons I chose to go into psychology, to help prevent these things from happening to other families.

There are always questions after something like this happens. There are always different facts and opinions that are brought to light and voiced. Some will disagree with the opinions, but you can’t dispute the evidence. That includes the evidence that he had been battling mental illness for quite some time before this tragedy. Perhaps if he had gotten the help he desperately needed…..his grandfather would be alive today, he wouldn’t be sitting in jail, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.

nami.org is a nice starting place if you would like to research how many people are affected by mental illness, signs, symptoms, treatments, ways to help, etc.

I hope that I was clear in my posts that I don’t think Thomas should be out walking the streets. He needs to be confined, yes, not in a regular prison but rather in a mental facility where he can get help and come to terms with what he has done. I don’t know if he even realizes it because he is so delusional.

If you do, please make arrangements to keep him in your house.

Obviously you’ve never known anyone who had a mental illness. After having worked with many victims of these horrible diseases and studying psychology and its many abnormalities, I can assure you that it doesn’t take any level of normalcy to pull a trigger. For all we know, when this happened, he saw some huge, grotesque, menacing “demon” attacking HIM!

I know that a man has lost his life! It’s a very sad situation. What’s even sadder is that Thomas needed mental health services and DID NOT RECEIVE THEM!!! If he had, this scenario probably would have turned out entirely differently!

Prison is not going to help him any. Instead of getting the treatment he needs, he’ll be “doped up”, pushed to the side, ignored, and probably bullied by the other prisoners. I guess the plus side to that is that he’ll never even realize that he’s being “punished” or what he did because his mental faculties left him quite some time ago.

Question for you: would you punish a child in the same way? I mean a small child who obviously didn’t understand what he/she had done? That’s what you’re saying, because his ability to understand any of this is just the same.

It’s very sad for all involved. We need a better mental health care system, one that can actually be accessed! Until we have more readily available help, stories like these will continue to happen, more innocent lives will be ruined, and more people who have no understanding of the problems will continue to speak about things of which they know nothing.