<p>The parents have reportedly told police ER may have been abusing Xanax.</p>
<p>Abusing Xanax only causes , on occasion, an acute ( short term) psychosis if abruptly discontinued. If someone was taking an extremely high dose and then abruptly stops rather than titrating it down, that can happen. </p>
<p>This young man sounds like he had a chronic disorder. It’s unfortunate that the family didnt (and assume they didn’t) consider a Long term residential therapeutic placement for him when he was a minor. </p>
<p>Maybe toxicology tests will tell us something, new. But in any case the planning here went on for a very long time.</p>
<p>He got the Xanax from a medical doctor. In other words, he had seen a number of physicians and mental health professionals of one sort or another including the celebrity psychiatrist two years ago but appropriate care it was not. That’s not blaming and I’m not one to think appropriate care was going to help avert this tragedy because plenty of people getting appropriate care flip out, too. But, it’s the facts.</p>
<p>Except in a few states (eg New Mexico and Louisiana) MDs or DOs handle prescriptions. Or if written by a PA or Nurse practitioner it’s under the auspices of a MD or DO</p>
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<p>Like which intensive therapy program, exactly? That would be better advice if intensive therapeutic programs aimed at the kind of problems ER was showing his parents actually exist. If Mr. Fang and I had known of any, we would have put our son in one of them. </p>
<p>The problem is, the kind of problems ER’s parents thought they were dealing with (autism spectrum disorder and depression) are not issues normally treated with intensive therapy.</p>
<p>Plus, you cannot force an adult into a program, and there is no program for potential mass murderers, anyway. And, if there was chances of success are slim. He was evil and smart. Fooling physicians is not brain surgery. He knew the game. He also knew how to fool police. Fooling his parents was probably the easy part. </p>
<p>As mentioned above, there are therapeutic residential or wilderness type programs, but the time he should have gone was as a minor. </p>
<p>I have not kept up in the past day or so with this active thread and apologize if this was already mentioned…</p>
<p>But after this incident occurred (and many, many posts ago), I questioned how when the police went to do the welfare check on this young man due to his mother and therapist contacting police out of concern after they watched disturbing YouTube videos of him, how the police just took the kid’s word that there was some misunderstanding and he was doing OK, etc. It seemed to me that a parent’s willingness to call police about their own son, along with a professional’s concern about his behavior, would warrant more than just taking the kid’s word that all was fine. At the time, people were saying that the police were not aware of the videos that caused the mom concern in the first place. In fact, it was even reported that the police said they were not aware of these videos. </p>
<p>Well, now it is coming out that the police were indeed aware of the videos but HAD NOT watched them! I’m not blaming the police for the outcome of this case, but it is disconcerting when we have family members and professionals going to police with justified concern and the police don’t truly investigate the evidence presented in those reports and just interview the person in question and leave it at that. People are now questioning the parents but look at how the parents did seek help and even reported their son to authorities and nothing happened. As jonri suggested many pages ago, perhaps mental health professionals should be part of these “welfare” checks. Just knowing this happened makes the case more difficult to swallow because there was some intervention but not enough happened. I imagine this makes it even more difficult for ER’s parents to deal with it all as they tried to seek intervention. </p>
<p><a href=“Police knew about killer's videos before rampage”>Police knew about killer's videos before rampage;
<p>By the way, I disagree with all the blame being put on the parents in this thread. I think they really did a lot to intervene with their troubled son and there is a limit as to what they can do about an adult son like this. It seems they kept tabs on him and got him professional help. They can’t lock him up unwillingly. </p>
<p>Soozievt - That was all covered a few pages back but people seem to have a huge misunderstanding of the role of police in these situations. Police are driving around and get a call on the radio. "Possible 5150 at this location. Beep. Young man suspected suicide risk. Beep. Copy.Officer on scene. 10-4. They do not have YouTube in the cruiser or launch an investigation before responding to very one of these calls. There are a lot of these calls, everyday. Their job is simply not suicide prevention. Someone really should have known this, though. It’s not a secret. </p>
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<p>I find this really offensive to families who have a family member/offspring with mental illness. I don’t have this with my own kids, but have compassion for those who do. Mental illness is not a byproduct of a dysfunctional family. The parents can be the best parents in the world and still have a child with mental illness! In fact, they may have one perfectly normal healthy child and one who is a monster. Why is the other child perfectly normal if the parents are so “dysfunctional?” Each child is different and mental illness comes in all kinds of families, even the best of families. </p>
<p>It is easy to say, “oh the parents should have stopped supporting him and thrown him out to be on his own,” when you have not walked their walk. I don’t think I could ever throw my kid, particularly a kid with mental illness, out on the street. It appears the parents were doing a lot to help their son and keeping tabs on him. Even when alarmed about his online videos, they called professionals and OK’d the professionals to contact police on their own son. </p>
<p>Also, what good can come from throwing a mentally ill person out on the street? That is not going to get him to “clean up his act!” It will likely make things a lot worse. At least they tried to get him professional help. They intervened when they observed concerning behavior, etc. Yes, ER still carried out a terrible act. But throwing him out the streets would not prevent that act. He would have been even more likely to get into negative behaviors. This is not a case of disciplining your kid (who is now an adult). It is not like, “we take your money away” because you are not doing things we want to see you doing and then the kid straightens out their act. Mental illness is not about discipline. Punishments, etc. are not going to take away their mental illness.</p>
<p>Another thing. Calling on the police on a mentally ill person is not all that unusual either. In many families dealing with this situation it is almost routine. Sadly. And, they learn very quickly that it won’t do much unless they are violent. Then it’s a temporary break of up to 72 hours. I have no answers and blame only the killer for the killings.</p>
<p>I agree that the parents did appear to be involved and took actions, but I don’t agree with those who conclude “they did all they could do.” I’m not saying they were bad parents, just that there is no one else we can look to to do more in these situations, and there was more that could have been done.</p>
<p>the link doesn’t work, soozie. parts of the address are ***'d out.</p>
<p>Good grief. Even the parents don’t think they did all they could do. And, that is not blaming. Mistakes were made, clearly.</p>
<p>Good grief. Whenever something tragic happens (eg a suicide) parents question what else they could have done to prevent the tragedy. Thats human nature for most folks.</p>
<p>Dont think anyone said they “did all they could do”. But they did not sit idly on their hands. It can be more complicated,e specially with divorced parents who possibly may not be on the same page about the situation.</p>
<p>jym - I realize that. But., I don’t get why it’s so offensive when a poster does the same thing. I’m not doing it, btw. Personally, I don’t think any particular parenting strategies were going to prevent this tragedy. Unfortunately.</p>
<p>Sorry that it was already covered here. I just did not keep up and cannot take the time to read back the last day’s many posts. </p>
<p>I understand your point, Flossy, but the thing is that when people are trying to intervene to prevent anything worse happening and that intervention is not taken all that seriously…it is worrisome in the scheme of things. I mean we can’t just have police do the work AFTER these acts are carried out. Nobody can predict such terrible acts (and the parents did not foresee this massacre of course) but the evidence in those videos that they said were concerning, were enough to go beyond just asking the young man if he was alright. Here we have people, including professionals, tipping off the police that there is a problem here and I just don’t think enough investigation took place about that problem. This was more than “can you check if my boy is OK?” A mental health professional contacted police to say that this kid put out disturbing videos. I think more should have been investigated about that. Perhaps the process should involve mental health investigators, not sure. But it is very disconcerting to know that the police were notified and not a lot was done to look into the matter.</p>
<p>In such cases, people (after the fact) question the flags that may have been missed. Here the flags were raised but to no avail.</p>
<p>The link I had posted apparently did not work. Try this:
<a href=“Police knew about killer's videos before rampage”>Police knew about killer's videos before rampage;
<p>What should they have done? He was not violent. He posted videos saying he was depressed. They have no options, either. Had they managed to get inside his room and seen the guns and looked on his computer and found the manifesto it would have been over. But, they would have needed a warrant. And, no-one knew they were investing a potential killing spree. You’re also assuming a mental health team would have foreseen this, somehow. They didn’t. and, there were 20 days between the police visit and the shootings. More than enough time for someone to do something had anyone known there was a crisis.</p>