That a brilliant student would make a dramatic shift, amass weapons and perpetrate a massacre at a movie theater-- sounds much too much like the plot of an adventure film. But we know it is the truth, the scientist seemingly turned mad.
Or is he a criminal? The media certainly seems ready to execute him. Yet we know that Student Services at the university he attended flagged him as a potential danger. A psychiatrist treated him and he sent her a present, a package with drawings of a shooter and his victims. Perhaps the doctor asked him to draw out the things going on in his head.
He might have been hospitalized, had he not dropped out of school, fallen between the cracks. It shouldn't have happened, and yet, probably others, not only his psychiatrist knew that he had violent thoughts. Why didn't anyone stop him?
That's a very good question. Clearly the answer is mandatory psycho-education about violence and mental illness.
Read this blogger's take on it for more. James Egan Holmes
Linda Freedman, MSW, PhD, LCSW, LMFT
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Another shooting at school
First day! Not what we expect to hear, that a teenager brings a gun to school and a bottle of vodka and opens fire in the school cafeteria.
But it is happening, and it did happen in Perry Hall, Maryland.
What can we do about it? The young man had warned his friends on Facebook, and yet, nobody called his parents. Not one "friend" stopped him from his rampage. His father tells us that he was bullied.
Anti-bullying workshops are popping up everywhere, but clearly are not universal. Nor are psycho-educational efforts like those that Relationship-Wise, Inc. puts out, School Wise division. We're hoping to see more of these, and less violence.
Linda Freedman
But it is happening, and it did happen in Perry Hall, Maryland.
Robert Wayne Gladden Jr. was being held without bail on charges of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault, Baltimore County police said. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Sept. 7. The state's attorney's office did not know if he had a lawyer.Gladden's last status update on his Facebook page, posted the morning of the shooting, read: "First day of school, last day of my life. ... f--- the world."
What can we do about it? The young man had warned his friends on Facebook, and yet, nobody called his parents. Not one "friend" stopped him from his rampage. His father tells us that he was bullied.
Anti-bullying workshops are popping up everywhere, but clearly are not universal. Nor are psycho-educational efforts like those that Relationship-Wise, Inc. puts out, School Wise division. We're hoping to see more of these, and less violence.
Linda Freedman
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