Oops
Forget whatever you have been told about the shooter. because it’s probably not true.
It was reported early on that the he was autistic, but that was put out by an unidentified law enforcement official based on what the official said was a family member. They don’t know anything official about the shooter’s mental health.
It has been reported that he had learning disabilities, and disputes between his mother and the school district led to his being home-schooled for some period of time.
Autistic people are usually found listed as victims of crimes, not suspects. I know a number of people who fit the profile for Asperger syndrome, and they might make people who don’t know them nervous, but the only ‘threat’ they pose is knocking something over, as they all include the ‘clumsy’ part of the diagnosis. Given the shooting spree, and the accuracy displayed, as well as references to playing soccer, I don’t think he had Asperger’s.
He had black fatigues and a tactical vest, so he spent some time and effort getting ready. This was planned, not an instance of madness. He definitely had mental health issues, but he knew what he doing, and knew it was wrong.
I realize that the media has to fill their time slot with something, but it would be nice to wait until they actually have some real, verified facts, rather than speculation to offer their audience.
8 comments
They didn’t even have his *name* right at first. GAH! What a buncha useless bints our so-called “media” is!
Apparently being first is more important than being right, and hauling out a bunch of ‘experts’ to discuss things that are based on rumors is what passes for coverage these days.
There are reports that the disk drives on the computers at the suspect’s house were removed and physically damaged, which is atypical for these events. There don’t seem to be any notes or documentation left behind.
If NSA ‘accidentally’ collected emails, etc., I wonder if they would share them with the FBI, because that seems to be the best hope for finding out what was going on. I assume they have already subpoenied phone and Internet records. Unless there is something hidden somewhere, it is possible they will never find out why this happened.
No one knows exactly what this guy had. And it’s not like they haven’t been told. They have, over and over. But even today MSNBC’s ticker at the bottom of the screen was scrolling “killer had asperger’s” or some such nonsense.
That woman who wrote the viral post about being “Adam Lanza’s Mom” has done just as much damage to autistics as the media has. contrary to her blog name, I like to call her the Antichrist Soccer Mom….
He was probably never formally treated, because his death would dissolve the client/patient bond, and any professional would have revealed something a bit more substantial than the rumors being reported.
I’m wondering if anyone is taking a serious look at his mother. She may have been in denial, and refused to have him treated. That isn’t uncommon in some families. Another alarming trend is the number of misdiagnoses of ADHD that turn out to be bi-polar. The ADHD meds make bi-polar symptoms worse.
There was a definite problem, and it doesn’t appear to have been addressed, even though the family was comfortably in the upper-middle class.
There are a lot of people with Aspergers in IT and engineering. They do their ‘thing’ well, but they don’t get promoted because they don’t deal with other people very successfully. With competent supervision they put out a quality product. I imagine they are also in other technologies and research fields.
There was a mental health facility on the border of my jurisdiction and we encountered the ‘clients’ quite often. It was rare to have a client actually break a law, they were usually victims. We took a report if we could, and took them ‘home’ to explain what happened to the staff, but they were not a ‘concern’ to my department.
The mental health system in this country is broken. They closed the hospitals, but the community-based clinics were never built.
One issue is that what mental health treatment does exist in this country comes to a screeching halt the microsecond that a kid turns 18. I dealt with mentally ill youngsters as a teacher in a “behavior center” — this was one step up from a normal school special education program, one step down from residential commitment, they were basically committed to our program for the day and sent home at night. But the moment the kids turned 18… BAM. Not our problem anymore. Out onto the street they went, no longer qualifying for any of the wide range of programs that we could steer them to as children.
The thing about a 20 year old is that he’s legally an adult — you can’t force him into treatment unless you can convince a judge that he is a threat to himself and others. When you have treatment-resistant mentally ill people, that makes things a mite hard to handle no matter whether you want to help him or not. While the old system of involuntary commitment was way too easy to abuse, this current system simply doesn’t work. You can’t prove that someone is crazy enough to harm himself and others until he actually does it — at which point it’s sorta too late.
And finally, regarding Aspergers, I worked with autistic kids as a special education teacher. This kid was no more an aspie than Bill Clinton is. He was what I’d refer to as a “weird kid” — he likely was suffering from schizophrenia. Those were the hardest clients for us to deal with, because when you’re dealing with someone who is having hallucinations and harboring completely delusional thoughts with no connection to reality, it’s hard to find any set of behavioral constraints that are going to be effective, and finding effective medications can be difficult. And even when you do find an antipsychotic that works to calm the hallucinations and delusions, the microsecond they turn 18… bam, out of the system, and then nobody can force them to take those antipsychotic medications so they don’t.
In other words, it’s not just the fact that the institutions closed. It’s the fact that we now care more about the right of delusional patients to be delusional than we care about treating them and protecting society from them. I blame liberals for that as much as conservatives, because it was liberals who insisted that the mentally ill were merely “mentally different” and “just misunderstood”. Bah, humbug. Spoken like morons who’ve never dealt with mentally ill people. Gah, the stupid, it burns, it burns!
There are a lot of services in this country that come to a screeching halt when teens in trouble have their 18th birthday, including foster care. There is no transition, just a total cut-off of services almost totally without regard to the condition of the individual. Outside of prison, the next largest concentration of people with mental health problems is among the homeless, where, even if they want to take their meds, it is a constant battle not to have them stolen.
The country has lost its soul, and things won’t improve until it is recreated. You make a mental health arrest and you know they will be back on the street in 72 hours. They will have gotten a few good meals, showers, and some rest, but they are dumped back on the street after their meds are readjusted. There is nothing more the facility can do, even if they want to, which many do.
And I just got a missive from World Nut Daily claiming that the psych meds that this guy was on caused the shooting. Jebus Effin’ Great Penguin, it’s hard enough to get the mentally ill to take their meds without dimwit tighty righties telling them that their meds will make them even crazier! My guess is that this guy was by no means taking his meds. He was crazy sane in that special way that happens when the phases of the moon and his natural brain chemical cycles all coincide at the same time.
– Badtux the Flabbergasted Penguin
It is amazing how the ‘media’ supposedly knows things that the cops don’t know, like was he being treated in any way, shape, or form form mental illness. If you can’t determine that he was being treated, I’m not sure how you can even guess what meds he may have been on.
The toxicology screening for the autopsy takes a while, even when there is no mass shooting, and Connecticut isn’t exactly overstocked with the people and labs that deal with the process.
From what I can tell, the perp wasn’t exactly broadcasting his reasons for these events, and seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to cover up. Paranoia would seem to play a major role in his life, as well as secrecy.