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Mayhem Fest = Signs of a killer?

Shanez_WifeShanez_Wife Posts: 2,008 just the tip
edited March 2011 in Off Topic
Here's the full article but check out number 1. Shane told me to post this. It was on bobandtheshowgram.com

WARNING SIGNS OF AN UNSTABLE PERSON CAPABLE OF VIOLENCE

In retrospect, it's easy to see the evidence that Tucson, Ariz., shooter Jared Loughner was mentally unstable. In his community-college classes, he would laugh randomly and loudly at nonevents. He would clench his fists and regularly pose strange, nonsensical questions to teachers and fellow students. "A lot of people didn't feel safe around him," a former classmate told Fox News.

Given these facts and the horrific turn of events at a Safeway supermarket on Jan. 8 that left six dead and 14 others injured, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition, could anything have been done to prevent the violence? What signs that trouble lay ahead were missed? What signs were observed but ignored? In short, what can be done to prevent a potentially ill or unstable person from harming others?

An investigation conducted after Cho Seung-Hui shot 32 people dead at his school, Virginia Tech, in 2007 found gaps in that state's mental-health system. Yet even proper execution of the state's existing laws might have prevented the tragedy, either by preventing Cho from buying a gun or by forcing him to receive outpatient treatment for his mental illness, which had been identified (in fact, Virginia Tech had him institutionalized briefly but did not follow up after his release). Officials fell down on both counts.

For at least 18 months prior to the Virginia Tech massacre, Cho had shown many disturbing signs: bizarre writings for classes that included revenge fantasies; the stalking of at least three women; near total silence, including with his roommates; and even involuntary commitment to a mental institution. Similarly, it seems that Pima Community College (and Loughner's classmates and instructors) didn't do enough to recognize at least six warning signs in Loughner:

1. For months, he showed a classic symptom of psychosis: disorganized thoughts and speech. He routinely made irrelevant and nonsensical comments in classes. On one test, according to the Washington Post, he wrote, "Eat + Sleep + Brush Teeth = Math." On another test, he wrote, "Mayhem Fest!!!" (See what motivated Gabrielle Giffords' shooter.)

2. He showed another symptom of psychosis, or at the very least, an inability to function in social situations. One example from the New York Times: he enthusiastically read a poem in class in which he discussed touching himself in the shower.

3. He showed signs of paranoia, telling a classmate that U.S. currency was worthless and that the government was seeking to control people through grammar. He also became interested in a concept he called "conscious dreaming" (a concept at the heart of the mind-bending thriller Inception). (See photos of the outpouring of support for the shooting victims.)

4. He regularly smoked marijuana, and while there is only a small correlation between having a mental illness and committing violence, that correlation becomes much more significant when mental illness is combined with drug use, according to John Monahan, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia School of Law.

5. Several classmates said Loughner scared them. One of them even wrote e-mails in June saying she was afraid he would bring a gun to class. A teacher worried every time he had his back to Loughner that the student would pull a gun on him.

6. Loughner had five contacts with campus police, although it is not clear what behavior led to those contacts.

Hindsight is perfect, of course, but all institutions need to monitor students and employees who are consistently acting strangely. There was arguably enough evidence for Pima authorities to go to a judge and have Loughner involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, as Virginia Tech did with Cho. At the very least, the college could have required Loughner to check in with a counselor on a daily or weekly basis.

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