Another Tragic Incident

Another tragic episode has taken the lives of innocent people praying in their church. One more event might have been avoided had the parents of a mentally ill young man taken care of his mental, physical and emotional needs. As the mother of a young woman who suffered from bipolar disorder I must say that the parents of Dylann Roof have dropped the ball and society must pay. How many times will we allow this to happen before we take steps to identify and treat mental patients in this country? We are horrified at beheadings by ISIS and are willing to sacrifice members of our military to help in the fight – yet we ignore the mental disability of our children. We allow the problems to fester and grow until the patient begins to act out. They stop taking their meds abruptly and suffer the delusional behavior consequences -- aggressive behavior and rage. This is not gun violence. It is the abandonment of parental guidance and care as well as that of society.

The suspects responsible for the atrocities at Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora and Sandy Hook all suffered from forms of mental illness. Now it’s time to change course and find the children at risk for psychological, social and mental problems so we can provide help and treatment for them and their families. Senator Creigh Deeds of Virginia was nearly killed by his own son. I’ve been in contact with him and the least we can do is to put all available mental health hospital beds on a database for concerned parents. Every change of medication should require at least a three day period of close monitoring in a hospital. This is one major precaution the medical profession can take. Non-invasive psychological testing by a team of social workers and child psychologists with the ability to track children into early adulthood would identify those at risk. It’s counter-productive to call for the death penalty for Roof or pass more gun control laws. Neither is the solution.

The cost of creating a children’s task force to test and track children whose problematic behavior raises red flags would be minimal because we already have a number of experts working within our communities. We have lost the war on poverty. We have lost the war on drugs. We must not let down our children by failing to adequately protect them. Each generation has been cognizant and concerned about the legacy we leave future generations. We may have messed up our economy, our place in the universe and our environment thinking to ourselves that we have built an unsinkable ship of state. We cannot continue going full throttle, expecting the icebergs to change. We must take care of our children now, before it’s too late...again.