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<p>This is not necessarily true, either. I know of plenty of alums from my public magnet HS who have successfully completed STEM majors…including PSMCC and became successful engineers/technology workers/managers who were later diagnosed as having ASD or ADD/ADHD later in life. </p>
<p>Their main difficulties laid mainly with the social aspects of college/post-college life, not academics or work in which they excelled. </p>
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<p>That’s a catchy bumper sticker line. However, of the 60+ mass shootings that have occurred in the USA during the last ~30 years, how many have been stopped by a “good guy with a gun” (other than a trained police officer)? These events unfold very rapidly and unexpectedly. The bad guy has the element of surprise. If the perpetrator is shot, it is almost always by a trained police officer, or by themselves, not by an armed civilian bystander.</p>
<p><a href=“The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys – Mother Jones”>http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/nra-mass-shootings-myth</a></p>
<p>One takeaway from this should be for all of us to take it very seriously if an apparently unstable person begins talking about wanting to kill people. This should go without saying, but it seems that plenty of people in ER’s life knew enough to be alarmed but did nothing.</p>
<p>Yes, the parents went with the police with fears that their mentally ill son might be a danger to himself or others, but that is very different from being able to point to particular threats. Had someone reported THOSE, maybe the police would have actually been able to do something. </p>
<p>It astounds me that a big number of Americans look at their country’s homicide rate, which is higher than that of almost any other stable democracy, and think the solution is more guns. Like, they look at all these mass shootings committed with legally purchased guns, none of which was interrupted by another citizen carrying a legally purchased gun, and still think that private citizens carrying guns are the country’s biggest chance to end mass shootings.</p>
<p>Incredible.</p>
<p>“One takeaway from this should be for all of us to take it very seriously if an apparently unstable person begins talking about wanting to kill people. This should go without saying, but it seems that plenty of people in ER’s life knew enough to be alarmed but did nothing.”</p>
<p>Would they? I don’t know. It’s a question. But, the closest parallel I can come up with is domestic violence. Reporting threats doesn’t usually get you much. In this case I don’t think anyone was aware of the specifics until the release of the manifesto which was intentionally too late. Of course, everyone knew he was a looming problem but I don’t know if that’s enough to do anything, My D was told at school today to be sure report creepy behavior to school officials. Her response was a sadly skeptical question. “Everyone already knew. What would they do?” </p>
<p>The Capri apartments are a private complex that will rent you a room in an apartment and find you a roommate. I anyone can rent there. I don’t know if some of the apartments were leased out to the Independent Lesrning Institute.
If anyone is interested I think you can watch at gauchocast.ucsb.edu the service at the university 4pm pacific time today</p>
<p>Maybe a more proactive psychiatrist? It doesn’t sound like apart from having seen one much was going on there. He said he never took the medication. That’s should not be okay. </p>
<p>CTTC, the sister is not a minor, from what I can tell. She graduated from high school in 2013.</p>
<p>Here is a somewhat recent article on gun laws and the mentally ill by state.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/09/20/state-rules-vary-on-guns-for-the-mentally-ill/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/09/20/state-rules-vary-on-guns-for-the-mentally-ill/</a></p>
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<p>Barring 24/7 monitoring in an involuntary commitment setting which has serious civil liberties implications, how is a given psychiatrist going to ensure the prescribed meds are being taken in the appropriate dosages and intervals?</p>
<p>I understand that the mother and counselor saw disturbing YouTube videos of the IV killer and requested a mental health check from the police. Couldn’t the parents and counselor alert the police the seriousness of the videos even if they were informed by police that everything was fine because he was nice and polite? Or did the parents and counselor actually pursue the matter with the police and the police did nothing?</p>
<p>The police did what they called a routine welfare check and determined that he did not meet the criteria for an involuntary hold back in April. What else happened? Well, it sounds like nothing until the manifesto was released on Friday. Of course, then it was too late.</p>
<p>Edit to add - The dad said he spoke to Elliot on Thursday and he sounded fine. </p>
<p>Everything is horrible about this case. </p>
<p>@flossy comment about the dad speaking to him the day before is awful. As a dad, I can’t imagine having that conversation and then the next day all this horror…and to know it was planned. </p>
<p>Up to now I assumed that as a 22 year old he either was estranged or rarely spoke to them (maybe some texts here and there) since he was busy with his life. </p>
<p>It’s horrible. They were doing what you do when are worried about a mentally ill kid. Hoping against hope. </p>
<p>Cobrat, I understand you can’t force feed meds into someone long distance but I don’t know how you can call someone “undergoing treatment” at that point, either. If I go to a doctor and get some pills and don’t take them and move away I am not being treated for anything. That’s what I meant. But, I don’t think it matters because it’s doubtful it would have changed anything here. Sadly.</p>
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Truly sad. More than 20 days of as Flossy says just hoping. I’m curious about the relationship b/w the IV killer and the British grandmother and the Moroccan (?) stepmother but I don’t want to read his autobiography. Any links to a summary?</p>
<p>I just read the whole manifesto. All 137 pages of it. It is so sad and frightening at the same time. The vulnerability and despair, the self-loathing that metamorphized into hatred of everyone else, the magical thinking. What can we, as a society, do with this kind of broken human being? I have no answers. </p>
<p>I hesitate to say this, but I will. The thought did go through my mind…“if this were fiction, it would probably become a critically-acclaimed movie.” </p>
<p>Oh, it’s a movie waiting to happen. He wrote well. Too bad he didn’t channel his energies into that.</p>
<p>None of the videos nor the manifesto are ‘gone’, by now hundreds if not thousands have downloaded them.</p>
<p><a href=“https://twitter.com/AarneHeikkila/status/471431889900023808/photo/1”>https://twitter.com/AarneHeikkila/status/471431889900023808/photo/1</a></p>
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<p>agreed. Not selling him a gun would have been a first step, but he didn’t seem to have any history of serious crime, and the throwing drinks incidents probable wouldn’t capture much attention even if they had been known.</p>
<p>I’m still curious about whether the police who visited him could have looked on some list and learned that he owned a gun, and that it had been purchased recently. This is a question of fact, but unfortunately that’s something that reporters are challenged on. You’d think someone would be digging into that. </p>
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<p>Let’s hope that is not the case. </p>