Another Senseless School Killing

I ran this article about a week ago, but due to recent events in Oregon it makes sense to run it again.

Again we have another senseless shooting at a school campus, what are we going to do? What answer do we give to the parents or families of the victims that will ease their pain? What would you do if it was your child? The President had some very strong words about yesterday and he was right. Gun control was the most googled topic yesterday. Again when do we act and stop these killings?

Many people feel uncomfortable around people who are mentally ill and therefore the mentally ill are usually ignored. However, the number of school shootings or people shooting others in movie theaters or other public places has increased significantly. In fact, this number is increasing every year, it is not decreasing. Given this fact, when will we as a society act? Most of these killings could have been stopped if we listened to family members asking for help because they were afraid a family member might hurt others. Also a majority of these shooters are teenagers.

The killings that occurred in Santa Barbara show another family crying out for help for their son and the cries were basically ignored. The result was another senseless killing. One of the victim’s fathers made a statement “no more.” It would be nice if this were the case, but if we do not change our attitudes regarding mental health and the laws, there will be more killings. The parents called for a welfare check on their son for help. The police went to his front door and asked if he was alright, he said yes so by law they left. The boy wrote in his journal, “if they only had stepped into my apartment it would have been over.” The parents told the police he was having mental problems but because he said “I am alright”, the police did nothing and innocent people died.

I have this happen very often where parents are saying their teens need help and the teen tells me they feel suicidal so I call the police to have the teen hospitalized. This is the legal procedure. The officers arrive and ask the teen if they feel suicidal, if the teen says no the police may leave and ignore my professional assessment that the teen is a danger to self or others and ignore the family. They do so because this is how the law is written.

No one wants to take rights away from any one but a person who is feeling like killing themselves or others is not the person to ask “are you alright?” They know if they say yes, the police will stop their plans so of course they say yes. Also police officers have not had the training that mental health professionals have had and the officers are put in an awkward position.

The number of school shootings is up significantly and shows no signs of declining. Parents come into my office all the time concerned about their teenagers and they have a right to be. However, the teen refuses to come to therapy and the teen is too big for the parents to force them to come in for therapy. If they never come in I never hear anything that permits me to have the teen hospitalized. So we are stuck in a position were we have to sit and wait until the teen does something such as suicide or kill someone else. As a practitioner this is a terrible position to be in and for the parents it is a nightmare.

I am not sure what the right answer is for this situation. I do know that what we are doing is not working. We cannot ignore mental illness and we cannot keep pretending that teenagers in our society do deal with mental illness. Parents, mental health providers and our State Senators and Representatives need to sit down together and discuss this public health problem and we need to do it quickly. If we don’t, it is only a matter of time before their are more killings. The life you save may be your own or someone in your family.

Dr. Rubino is a licensed Marriage, Family and Child Therapist in Pleasant Hill who specializes in treating teenagers. He has appeared on national and local television and radio shows regarding this topic. To find out more about Dr. Rubino log onto his web site www.RCS-CA.com