On-campus mental illness issues unique

By Dick Durbin
RRSTAR.COM
Posted Apr 17, 2008 @ 10:59 PM

This week, our nation marked the anniversary of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech that took 32 lives and wounded 17 other people. Just two months ago, our state was stunned to witness a similar tragic shooting at Northern Illinois University in which 5 students were killed and 17 were wounded.

I cannot imagine the magnitude of heartbreak and pain for friends and families of those killed or the trauma borne by those who survived these tragedies. As we mourn the loss of so many promising young lives, it is important also to learn from these tragedies.

So what are those lessons?

The first is to consider the tortured mind of the shooter. Mental illness is an illness, not a curse. It can and should be treated. Many who receive appropriate counseling and medication lead normal, stable and happy lives. But our laws ignore this reality. We have created legal and financial obstacles to appropriate care. This year, for the first time in a decade, the U.S. Senate has passed a bill to give mental health parity with physical health under the law. The House of Representatives also has passed legislation, and we are negotiating a compromise to fulfill the promise of health parity for millions facing mental health problems.

But the challenge of mental health on our college campuses is unique. Many mental illnesses manifest themselves in this period when young people leave the security of home and regular medical care. The responsibility for the students' well-being shifts many times to colleges and universities struggling with limited resources.

The situation is growing worse. Studies show that 10 percent of college students have contemplated suicide and 45 percent have felt so depressed that it was difficult to function.

Colleges also are encountering students who 10 to 20 years ago would not have been able to attend school because of mental illness, but who can do so today because of advances in treatment of such illness.

To meet the increased need, many schools have tried to increase mental-health education and outreach efforts. But the ratio of students to counselors is growing. Currently, there is only one counselor for every 2,000 students on our college campuses.

NIU and Virginia Tech taught us that mental-health parity and better campus counseling services are not only critical in preventing these tragedies, but in dealing with the aftermath. The victims were not just those who were killed or injured in the shootings. Others have mental scars that are less obvious than bullet wounds but often slower to heal.

The emotional trauma experienced by many students, faculty and families might require years of therapy and counseling.

Finally, when the unthinkable does happen, as it did at Virginia Tech and NIU, we need to respond quickly and effectively to the immediate and long-term needs of the affected college community.

Our colleges and law-enforcement agencies have made great strides in preparing for and responding to active-shooter situations, progress reflected in the admirable response to the NIU shootings.

But we also need to view these violent tragedies on our campuses for what they are — catastrophes, like natural disasters, that require a sustained and coordinated recovery effort in the months that follow.

We have a federal agency to deal with hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. But there is no central federal resource to help guide college communities through the recovery process. In the days and weeks after the shootings in DeKalb, NIU officials found themselves being led in circles through the bureaucracies at the federal departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services, not to mention numerous state agencies. These entities, all of whom were well-meaning, often didn't talk to one another, forcing school officials and victims' families to navigate a red-tape maze to find answers to even their simplest questions.

Just as we expect a coordinated emergency response to a flood or tornado, we need to ensure that victims, their families and college communities are able to receive similar assistance in the wake of these personal disasters.

Reflecting on the loss of his own son, the well-known minister the Rev. William Sloan Coffin once said, "When parents die, they take with them a portion of the past. But when children die, they take away the future as well." As we mourn those lost at Virginia Tech, NIU and other schools across the country, we must learn from these incidents, work to avoid them and improve our response when they do occur.

Dick Durbin, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Illinois.


Licensed under Creative Commons
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic</a>

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Original Source:
<a href="http://www.rrstar.com/opinions/x1498098116">http://www.rrstar.com/opinions/x1498098116</a>

Dick Durbin

2008-04-19

Kacey Beddoes

eng

Lessons from Blacksburg

By Armin Rosen
PUBLISHED APRIL 19, 2007

It unfolded like a terrifying set-piece, and each new item of information seemed more trite and intuitive than the next: the killer had been a student. He had been a social outcast, homicidally contemptuous of the society that he felt had cast him out. The guns used had been purchased legally. And there had been warning signs that now seem to have stopped tantalizingly short of portending the coming carnage. "When this is all said and done," the online magazine Slate cited one blogger as writing a few hours after the shooting, "we will likely have an unhappy young person who probably had an unhealthy obsession with guns, violence, gory video games, and over the top blood-fest movies"-which means that, even in its horrifying randomness, the Virginia Tech shooting takes on a grim aspect of predictability.

But what should this predictability teach us? Since noted poet and Virginia Tech English professor Lucinda Roy found Cho Seung-Hui unstable enough to justify contacting campus counseling services over 18 months prior to the attack, it could be argued that universities and society in general should be more aggressive in administering psychological help to those who obviously need it. We Americans are great believers in therapy: with nearly one in four adults seeking professional help and Adderall alone bringing in over a quarter-billion dollars in annual revenue, we, arguably, have put more faith in the redemptive powers of the clinical or prescriptive than any other society on earth. But it would be a mistake to let this past week&#39;s events reinforce this notion that normalcy can be clinically prescribed, or, as some have recommended, clinically imposed. As author Deepak Chopra appropriately noted in an interview with CNN, psychologist Abraham Maslow maintains that love and belonging are as fundamental to human existence as food and shelter. And the professional concern of a therapist for her patient can&#39;t fill basic emotional or social voids any better than social relationships alone can cure mental illness.

Does this teach us that our society predisposes people to committing horrific killing sprees? I, for one, appreciate a certain irony in the fact that this event has ultimately strengthened the very community from which Cho felt so excluded. However, it is patently insensitive to blame the Virginia Tech community for excluding someone who was so invisible to it. And, by all accounts, Cho was not just invisible to those around him, but invisible to himself as well: by shaving off his weapons&#39; serial numbers, carrying no identification, and committing suicide in a way that would obscure his most individual physical feature-his face-he argued against his own humanity and individuality. So if we are to blame the community as a whole for its exclusivity, then it would be disingenuous because we too fail to reach out to those in potential danger of lapsing into a permanent state of social and personal non-existence.

But is the existence of such people alone enough to teach us that our society is somehow structured to produce killing sprees like the one at Virginia Tech? In his seminal work, Suicide (1897), sociologist Emile Durkheim poses a similar question, and proceeds to argue that the social and historical consistency of the suicide rate proves the act to be an unalterable "social fact," built into the social structure. It&#39;s terrifying to think of the destructive confluence of mental instability, exclusion and a propensity for violence as one such "social fact." But reactions to the massacre suggest that that&#39;s exactly how a lot of people feel: for instance, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert blamed a "staggering amount of murders" on "feelings of inadequacy, psychosexual turmoil and the easy availability of guns." According to Herbert, the only item over which we, as a society, have conscious control is the last.

Yet, if we learn one thing from the Virginia Tech massacre, it should be the importance of using what sliver of control we do have. We can encourage people like Cho to seek the help they desperately need without expecting that help to be a cure-all. We can reach out to the socially alienated, and make an effort to acknowledge those people who we would usually ignore. We can also limit the availability of handguns. Most importantly, we can insist that this past Monday&#39;s event were not structural, and avoid lapsing into the kind of cynicism that might have made such an event possible in the first place.

Scores of Facebook groups have a name derived from the phrase "Today, we are all Hokies." The phrase was meant as a show of solidarity with a university suffering in ways none of us can imagine. But as long as we keep internalizing, tolerating, or even ignoring the factors that led to Monday&#39;s attack it, also functions as a cynical truth: we are all vulnerable. And in that respect, we are all Hokies.


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Photo By: Shana Rubin

Original Source: Columbia Spectator
<a href="http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/24952">http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/24952</a>

Armin Rosen (Author)/Shana Rubin (Photo)

2008-02-18

Kacey Beddoes

Tom Faure (tomfaure@gmail.com)

eng

Reflections on a Mass Homicide (Commentary)

<p>(PDF, 30KB; Full text below.)

Commentary

<b>Reflections on a Mass Homicide</b>

Jimmy Lee,¹ MBBS, MMed (Psych), Tih-Shih Lee,^1,2 MD, PhD, FRCP (C), Beng-Yeong Ng,¹ MBBS, MMed (Psych), FAMS

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore² Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore

Address for Correspondence: Dr Tih-Shih Lee, Department of Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Outram Road, Singapore 169608. Email: tihshih.lee@gms.edu.sg

<b>Introduction</b>

The names "Virginia Tech" and "Cho" will be associated forever with the tragic mass homicide of 32 persons <i>cum</i> suicide by Seung-Hui Cho on 16 April 2007. In the aftermath, many questions have been posed: "What happened and why?", "Was he crazy?", "Could it have been prevented?", "Could it happen here?" This was the third mass killing in a US campus, with the largest number of fatalities. The first was in 1966 in the University of Texas with 16 dead and 31 wounded, then the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, in which 13 students were killed. We do not profess to know more about what happened in Blacksburg, Virginia, or Cho&#39;s neuropsychiatric condition than whatever is published in the popular press.¹ But through a series of questions, we reflect on this tragedy, attempt to place it into a human and psychiatric perspective, and offer insights into if, and how, it can be averted in the future.

<b>Question 1: Was Cho insane?</b>

Cho was described as a shy and quiet child, who was good in mathematics, but struggled with English. There were allegations of him being taunted and bullied in school since young. Both his pastor and relatives had suspected he might be autistic and suggested professional assistance. There was no record of him being involved in overt violence except that he had harassed 2 female classmates, one of whom called in the campus police.

He expressed suicidal ideation and was involuntarily committed by a judge in a mental health facility briefly for assessment. A psychiatrist wrote in his chart, "Affect is flat and mood is depressed" and "Insight and judgment are normal," and released him. He was supposed to have been on some treatment regimen but may not have adhered to it. In English Literature classes he wrote on haunting themes of violence and death. Moreover, from the rantings of his final macabre video, it can be inferred that he had grandiose and persecutory thoughts.

One could conceivably argue that anybody who murders <i>en masse</i> and then commit suicide must be insane. But insanity is an imprecise term that is no longer in the psychiatric lexicon. So we ask if he met criteria for a diagnosis based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM-IV) or International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10)? Or was he of a criminal antisocial or psychopathic mind? Unfortunately without having interviewed him or having access to his records, we cannot say for sure. We could speculate that he was depressed with delusional thoughts, and perhaps had undiagnosed Asperger&#39;s disorder (a mild variant of autism), or was taking illicit substances. But we do not have enough evidence to be certain of a definitive psychiatric condition that could account for his extremely violent behaviour.

<b>Question 2: Was it due to psychosocial developmental difficulties?</b>

Cho emigrated at the age of 8 years from South Korea and had difficulty speaking English. He was reportedly ostra-cised by his classmates and was isolated. The effects of migration on mental health are well described in the litera-ture. In the US, alienation is a problem for many Asians. Among Southeast Asians, the Hmong feel the most alien-ated, followed by Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese.² Many symptoms could be due to acculturative difficulties, racism, and overwork. A migrant faces difficulties with 3 main areas; changes in social environment, changes in interpersonal relations, and cultural differences.³ Reports from those who knew Cho strongly supported the roles of these 3 factors in his maladjustment to the new country. From his video and writings, it is evident that he had tremendous envy and rage projected onto better-adjusted and well-to-do American kids.

Southeast Asian refugees have higher rates of brief reactive psychosis and paranoid psychosis compared to other Americans.^4,5 Sometimes paranoia develops among Southeast Asians when they are dealing with a new environment and experiencing "varying degrees of miscommunication, fear of rejection, and feeling mistreated, slighted or discriminated against".⁶ Psychosis among Southeast Asians can take the form found in many ethnic groups, e.g. "Aliens&#39; paranoid psychosis", a syndrome characterised by a usually short-lived xenophobia and by feelings of persecution because one belongs to an ethnic minority group.⁷

On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of immigrants and minorities are well-adjusted and functioning, despite having endured many of the same stressors that Cho endured. In particular, his sister, who shares much of his genetic substrate and environmental milieu, had apparently been doing very well. Many immigrants may have coping difficulties, but they do not usually resort to violence. The other 2 campus mass murderers were neither immigrants nor from minority groups. So, whereas difficulties relating to migration probably played a part in his violence, it would be simplistic to attribute it to primarily these stressors. Instead it would be a disservice to the large immigrant and ethnic minority communities.

<b>Question 3: What factors may have precipitated Cho&#39;s sudden outburst?</b>

There is a small literature considering situational factors and triggers that have consistently been found to be important in initiating a homicidal episode. Triggers for murder in Ressler et al&#39;s study⁸ included financial, legal, employment, marital and other conflicts. Emotional states such as frustration, anger, hostile moods, and feeling agitated and excited were reported at a lower frequency. Levin⁹ has offered a four-factor model of sudden indiscriminate mass killing. First, the potential offender has led a "life of frustration"; second, he has access to, and the ability to use, firearms; thirdly, there is a significant destabilising experience of a loss of "social controls", such as moving to a new area or the loss of an important relationship; fourth, there must be a precipitating event such as unemployment or divorce. Gresswell and Hollin¹⁰ have suggested that a more useful way of conceptualising the "firearms" component would be to consider that a fascination with weapons indicates a style of coping with stress, frustration, and low self-esteem that includes violent fantasies involving weapons. In such cases, the nature of such fantasies may be the best predictor of a homicidal response to a stressful event.

<b>Questions 4: Is there a neurological basis for aggression?</b>

Aggression refers to behaviour that is intended to cause harm, and is the behavioural manifestation of disturbances in the brain or mind. We now have some, though incomplete, appreciation of various neuroanatomical structures that may be involved in aggression. These structures include the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus, and temporal lobe. In particular, some evidence suggests frontal lobe dysfunction in violent and criminal behaviour, especially in the presence of focal orbitofrontal lobe injuries.¹¹ Brower and Price¹¹ proposed that clinically significant focal frontal lobe dysfunction is associated with aggressive dyscontrol. Orbitofrontal syndrome is associated with behavioural excesses, impulsivity, disinhibition and mood lability. Outbursts of rage and violent behaviour occur after damage to the inferior orbital surface.¹²

Abnormal brain concentrations of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and gamma-aminobutyric acid are implicated in impulsivity and aggression.¹³ Pharmaco-therapy with selective serotonergic reuptake antagonists, antipsychotics as well as mood stabilisers have all been used in treatment, with mixed results.

Studies of aggression in patients with brain injury suggest that their aggression tends to be (1) reactive, i.e., triggered by modest stimuli; (2) non-reflective, i.e., not premeditated or planned; (3) non-purposeful, i.e., does not serve long-term goals; (4) explosive; (5) periodic; and (6) ego-dystonic.¹² Some of these features describe Cho&#39;s aggression. But we do not know, and may never know, if a definable lesion was present in Cho&#39;s brain, or if present, whether that was severe enough to account for the violent behaviour.

With the evolving science on aggression, a discussion about "nature versus nurture" often arises, i.e. whether murderers are born or bred. Research has now demonstrated that genetic aberration per se is not the sole reason leading to violence; environmental factors such as childhood adversities play a significant part in the development of violent behaviour.¹⁴ Gene expression is influenced by environmental factors, and brain circuits are affected by life experiences.

<b>Question 5: How is dangerousness assessed?</b>

Psychiatrists are often called upon to determine how much a threat someone will pose to others and society, also known as dangerousness. Dangerousness is a subjective assessment of the element of danger attributed to a particular person and is qualitative in nature. Predicting dangerousness, particularly in an extreme form such as mass homicide, has been an elusive goal for those investigators who have attempted it. It is often said that "Hindsight is 20/20". When a person is exposed to be a murderer, we tend to focus on those warning signs in his character and biography that were previously ignored. For a category of violence such as mass homicide, however, the low base rate and consequent likelihood of finding false-positive results are overwhelming.¹⁵

Just as in Cho&#39;s instance, numerous questions were raised about the concerns of his teachers and the psychiatric assessment in November 2005. It must be emphasised that the assessment of dangerousness is not an exact science, and cannot yield a black-and-white result of "dangerous" versus "not dangerous". In our psychiatric assessments, we weigh various factors such as past history of violence, history of mental illness, personality, social background, context and state of mind in which dangerous behaviours manifest.

Past behavioural patterns provide the best insight into future behaviours. However, the accuracy of dangerousness assessments quoted in the literature is as low as 0.33.¹⁶ Mossman¹⁷ in 1994 extracted 58 datasets from 44 published studies, and revealed that mental health professionals&#39; violence predictions were better than chance. Current risk assessment tools such as the Historical/Clinical/Risk Management 20-item (HCR-20)¹⁸ and Psychopathy Checklist (revised) (PCL-R)¹⁹ offer a structured and more systematic approach to violence prediction, but none could tell with consistent (surely not 100%) accuracy that a person would re-offend.

Homicide is clearly the most serious of all crimes. Approximately two-thirds of homicides involve the killing of a victim by a partner, relative, friend or acquaintance. This may partly explain why the clear-up rate for these crimes is particularly high - the police do not need to look very far in order to solve the majority of murders.²⁰

The relation between mental illness and dangerous behaviours has been overemphasised, especially in the eyes of the public. There is a tendency to believe that murderers are mentally ill. However, a recent study among homicides in Singapore showed that 57% of murderers have no mental illness. Out of the 110 charged with murder, depressive disorders accounted for 9.1% and schizophrenia, 6.4%.²¹

The proportion of foreigners (defined here as non-citizens and non-permanent residents) who committed murder in Singapore was significantly higher compared with locals, which supports the earlier point about the stressors of migration. Also, foreigners tend to suffer from more serious psychiatric disorders, are less likely to have a known history of violence, and are more likely to be new to psychiatric services.²² This implies that the first violent outburst is usually the first presentation to psychiatric services. Cho did not have a history of overt violence prior to April 16.

<b>Question 6: What about the psychological trauma to family and friends of the victims?</b>

For those who saw their friends getting shot and killed, those who were injured and those who survived unharmed, the families and friends of the victims, it would be very difficult to collectively summarise the ordeal they went and are still going through, as each will have their own individual experience of it. Some may be at high risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but others will cope fairly well with milder symptoms. But it is safe to say that life will never be the same again. And we must not forget the hapless and unfortunate family of Cho, whose suffering cannot be fathomed.

There were positive measures taken by the school and public authorities in the aftermath that are worth learning. The measures included leave from school, time and ceremony to grief, and the provision of counsellors to all students of the school. School events such as examinations and convocation ceremonies continued as usual in an attempt to restore normalcy.

The telecast of Cho&#39;s video on national TV was highly controversial. Many others around the world later saw Cho&#39;s nefarious video and images of the "massacre". The national broadcast potentially traumatised viewers and re-traumatised survivors. In addition, it helped Cho achieved his aim of broadcasting his views, possibly achieving "martyrdom", and it may inadvertently encourage copycat murderers, as if a race were on to increase the body count. We would strongly urge that TV network companies and their regulating agencies revisit the guidelines and regulations on such telecasts.

<b>Question 7: Can it happen to us?</b>

Mass murder in a US school or college is a relatively rare event - three times in 40 years, despite the widespread availability of firearms and the large numbers of disenfranchised youths. Hence, it can be described as a low-probability, catastrophic-outcome event, like an earthquake occurring on a given day. The probability of its happening is very low, but once it hits, the results may be catastrophic. For countries with strict firearm and explosive control laws, the risk of a mass murder on the same scale is much lower.

With the benefit of hindsight, to discuss what the psychiatrist or the judge should have diagnosed or done is moot now. There was and always will be a balance between protection for society and infringement of the individual&#39;s civil liberties. This dilemma is all the more difficult if the assessment is made before a crime is actually committed. It would be virtually impossible for a psychiatrist to predict which of the patients would commit violence, least of all mass murder. If the decision is to commit the patients as a preventive measure, how long should the internment last, and who would set him free?

Nevertheless, for psychiatrists and all doctors, this is a timely reminder to be thorough and diligent in the assessment for dangerousness, and to acknowledge that we are far from perfect in our assessments. Under Section 34 of the Mental Disorders and Treatment Act (1973, revised in 1985), any registered physician in Singapore may refer a patient suspected to be of unsound mind or requiring psychiatric treatment to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for evaluation and treatment. IMH is the only gazetted mental hospital that has the statutory authority to hold patients involuntarily, should the person be deemed to be suffering from a mental illness, and detention serves the person&#39;s best interests and those of other persons.

For the majority of patients who are deemed not to need involuntary hospitalisation, there is little we can do to enforce treatment, other than relying on the family to supervise medications and appointments. If we suspect that a patient may pose a specific threat to another person, we may face an ethical dilemma with regard to confidentiality. This issue brings us back to the landmark Tarasoff case where the Californian courts found the therapist negligent for not warning the intended victim of a threat.²³ Kok et al²⁴ discussing this case with regard to the applicability of the Tarasoff ruling in Singapore, concluded that in the absence of local case law, a psychiatrist caught in this situation should consult the Singapore Medical Council prior to breaching doctor-patient confidentiality.

The Cho case also brings to mind the problems of troubled youths in Singapore - a combination of disengagement from society, low self-esteem, poor coping with rising expectations, and academic pressures. These forces predispose them to seek alternative forms of release and validation, such as using illicit substances and joining street gangs. Therefore, parents and school authorities should always be on the lookout for troubled or poorly adjusted youths. If need be, they should be referred to mental health professionals for evaluation and treatment. Another lesson in the local context would be for us, as a society, to be more tolerant and empathic to those who are less well-adjusted and successful, especially foreigners and migrants, so as to minimise resentment and wrath.

<b>Conclusion</b>

In summary, as we try to make sense of this apparently senseless violence, we find ourselves in the recurring debate of nature versus nurture. We probably will never know what Cho was really thinking when he pulled the trigger repeatedly, or nor can we be sure if he had a psychiatric condition that fulfilled DSM IV or ICD-10 criteria. Our hypothesis is that he had an underlying neurobiological or genetic vulnerability; he endured developmental psychosocial stressors in a chronic invalidating environment; and that finally some yet unknown "third-hit" triggered his rampage. Nevertheless, we highlight the need for thorough assessments of dangerousness by mental health professionals despite the limitations of our tools; the need for a system to attend to the psychological anguish of the survivors and loved ones of the victims; and the need for us collectively to adopt a more empathic stance towards our less fortunate brethren.

We also remember the 33 lives extinguished and countless more traumatised on that Spring day in 2007.

<b>REFERENCES</b>
<ol><li>Thomas E. Special Report: Making of a Massacre. Newsweek April 30, 2007:18-30.</li><li>Nicassio P. Psychosocial correlates of alienation: study of a sample of Indochinese refugees. J Cross-cultural Psychol 1983;14:337-51.</li><li>Moilanen I, Myhrman A, Ebeling H, Penninkilampi V, Vuorenkoski L. Long-term outcome of migration in childhood and adolescence. Int J Circumpolar Health 1998;57:180-7.</li><li>Nicassio P. The psychosocial adjustment of the Southeast Asian refugee: an overview of empirical findings and theoretical models. J Cross-Cultural Psychol 1985;16:153-73.</li><li>Westermeyer J. Paranoid symptoms and disorders among 100 Hmong refugees: a longitudinal study. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1989;80:47-59.</li><li>Lin KM. Psychopathology and social disruption in refugees. In: Williams C, Westermeyer J, editors. Refugee Mental Health in Resettlement Countries. Washington, DC: Hemisphere Publishing, 1986.</li><li>Tung TM. Psychiatric care for Southeast Asians: How different is different? In: Owan T, editor. Southeast Asian Mental Health: Treatment, Prevention, Services, Training, and Research. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1985:5-40.</li><li>Ressler PK, Burgess AW, Douglas JE. Sexual homicide: patterns and motives. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988.</li><li>Levin J. Why his last shot blew the truth away. The Sunday Times, London 1987, August 23, p23.</li><li>Gresswell DM, Hollin CR. Multiple murder: a review. Br J Criminology 1994;34:1-14.</li><li>Brower MC, Price BH. Neuropsychiatry of frontal lobe dysfunction in violent and criminal behaviour: a critical review. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2001;71:720-6.</li><li>Silver JM, Yudofsky SC, Anderson KA. Aggression. In: Silver JM, McAllister TW, Yudofsky SC, editors. Textbook of Traumatic Brain Injury. Washington, DC: American Pychiatric Publishing, 2005.</li><li>Swann AC. Neuroreceptor mechanisms of aggression and its treatment. J Clin Psychiatry 2003;64 Suppl 4:25-35.</li><li>Reif A, Rosler M, Freitag CM, Schneider M, Eujen A, Kissling C, et al. Nature and nurture predispose to violent behaviours: serotonergic genes and adverse childhood environment. Neuropsychopharmacology 2007.</li><li>Fox JA, Levin J. Serial murder: myths and realities. In: Smith MD, Zahn MA, editors. Studying and Preventing Homicide: Issues and Challenges. California: Sage Publications, 1999.</li><li>Monahan J. The prediction of violent behaviour: Toward a second generation of theory and policy. Am J Psychiatry 1984;141:10-5.</li><li>Mossman D. Assessing predictions of violence: Being accurate about accuracy. J Consult Clin Psychol 1994;62:783-92.</li><li>Webster CD, Douglas KS, Eaves D, Hart SD. HCR-20: Assessing risk for violence (version 2). Burnaby, BC: Mental Health Law and Policy Institute, Simon Fraser University, 1997.</li><li>Hare RD. The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. 2nd ed. Toronto, Canada:
Multi-Health Systems, 2003.</li><li>Ainsworth PB. Psychology and Crime: Myths and Reality. Edinburgh: Pearson Education Ltd, 2000.</li><li>Koh KG, Gwee KP, Chan YH. Psychiatric aspects of homicide in Singapore: a five-year review (1997-2001). Singapore Med J 2006;47:297-304.</li><li>Koh KG, Peng GK, Huak CY, Koh BK. Migration psychosis and homicide in Singapore: a five year study. Med Sci Law 2006;46:248-54.</li><li>Tarasoff v Regents of University of California. California Report 1976;118:129.</li><li>Kok LP, Yap HL, Cheang M. Mental disorders and public safety of the community at large - does the Tarasoff principle apply in Singapore. Ann Acad Med Singapore 2002;31:535-6.</li></ol></p><p -d="nq">--

Archived with permission of the editor.

Original Source: Annals, Academy of Medicine, Singapore, June 2007, Vol. 36 No. 6
<a href="http://annals.edu.sg/PDF/36VolNo6Jun2007/V36N6p444.pdf">http://annals.edu.sg/PDF/36VolNo6Jun2007/V36N6p444.pdf</a></p>

Jimmy Lee, Tih-Shih Lee, and Beng-Yeong Ng

2007-08-26

Brent Jesiek

Kirat Kaur (Ms)
Editorial Executive
Annals, Academy of Medicine, Singapore
annals@academyofmedicine.edu.sg

eng

Enlightened

My youngest son, Travis Miller graduated from Virginia Tech in 2006, and my experiences goe back gto my early teens. As a woman, a Mom, and a researcher, the events of April 16, 2007, grabbed my full attention, and still do.

You see, since 1993, I have been treated for a condition, called Bipolar/Manic Depression. My losses have been many, and severe, as in those 14 years, due to the disease, I had no judgment, no sense of reality. I have all my charts, and I now know I was very over medicated by my EX Dr of some 12 years. Life altering changes occured, for myself, and my 3 sons [who were not educated, nor had therapy] which resulted in Dad walking away, after 5 years. Treating mental illness, as something one chooses, or can "snap out of" is extreamly uneducated.

The past 3 years, I have dedicated myself to research, and to understanding the past, as to understand the present, and hopefuly simplifly the future. Including my sons somewhat in the exploration, led to estrangement, and Family Protective Orders. I was not included in my son&#39;s graduation of 2006. Isolation, since 1993, continues from my family, but I now have a better understanding, throught my faith, Buddhism. I accept my part, and thankfully, injoy a full remission, which requires no prescriptive medication at present. But there is still fall out, and I am fighting the good fight, to bring awareness to Virginia, the Nation on the subject of Mental Health.

Trying to understand April 16, 2007, I did know perhaps better that most, how Cho might have acted out his terror, his emense anger, at his perceived rejection, his isolation. I think he fell through the many "cracks" as it were, and that as a state with a D- rating by Nami, [mental health ass.] we have the chance for change. I wrote a Letter to the Roanoke times, on a bill before Congress, up in September for vote, on teaching K-12, good mental health. Yes, we need the tools, we need the education, to demistify, what is baseicaly a "chemical imbalnce", widely unreported, and over or undermedicated, and yes, ignored by too many.

It is up to each of us to know, and to be aware of the very real symtoms, of mental illness.

And I personaly want to do all I can to help, as I council freely in my hometown, happily 2 friends have also seen the "root&#39; of their depression, and no longer take prescription medication, and are doing great. It is a process, and that is called life.

Dona Wheeler

2007-08-19

Dona Wheeler

eng

Violence by mentally ill not the norm

By:Sarah A. Newlin
Posted: 4/27/07

I am writing in response to Richard Poskozim&#39;s opinion piece in the 4/25 issue of The Lantern.

In the article, the author seems to imply that Cho&#39;s motivation to kill somehow originated from his alleged mental illness: "After everything that&#39;s come out about him, I think it&#39;s pretty safe to say his motivation was that he was crazy." While it is clear that something had deeply distressed Mr. Cho, one should be careful about jumping to conclusions about how mental illness played a role in this tragic event. Numerous studies have shown that it is incredibly rare for someone with a mental illness to commit gross acts of violence, especially on the scale of the Virginia Tech shootings. Violence is no more prevalent among individuals with mental illnesses than among the general public.

In actuality, those suffering from a mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. Furthermore, I am concerned that the focus on the shooter&#39;s possible mental illness will cause many students on college campuses who suffer from mental illnesses to not seek mental health services or to be feared and shunned by their peers, leading to their further isolation and discrimination.

If any positives can come out of this horrible event, I hope that one will be a larger discussion about the need for increased recognition of mental health issues among college students and the need for adequate treatment, support and recovery resources on college campuses. I ask that The Lantern staff take this into consideration as they continue to cover the tragic circumstances surrounding the Virginia Tech shootings.

Sarah A. Newlin
Program Manager
Campus Suicide Prevention Program

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Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.thelantern.com/media/storage/paper333/news/2007/04/27/Letters/Violence.By.Mentally.Ill.Not.The.Norm-2885645.shtml>The Lantern - April 27, 2007</a>

Sarah A. Newlin

The Lantern

2007-08-16

Sara Hood

GERRICK LEWIS <lewis.1030@osu.edu>

eng

Threats to Civil Liberties arising from the fallout of the Virginia Tech Forcible-disarmament Frenzy

May 1, 2007 4:51 pm

<b><i>An article from a new contributor:
Loren Bliss</i></b>

<b>THERE ARE TWO EXCEPTIONALLY</b> grave dangers to American liberty arising from the present, post-Virginia-Tech forcible-disarmament frenzy. These are:

(1)-The criminalization of even the mildest forms of mental illness, as proposed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), in HR 297.

(2)-The criminalization of political protest and dissent, as proposed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-NJ), in S 1237.

Each of these measures is enthusiastically supported by the Bush Regime. The Lautenberg bill was written at White House/Justice Department request — a leading Democratic senator serving as the mouthpiece for a despised Republican administration — an unprecedented act of collaboration with the most corrupt regime in U.S. history. Once again, opposition to the Second Amendment is being used as a diversion behind which to conceal an all-out, bipartisan attack on the entire Bill of Rights- including, via S 1237, repeal of the presumption of innocence that is the cornerstone of all English-language jurisprudence.

Meanwhile, welcome to the New American Reich, where (if McCarthy, Lautenberg and Bush have their way), anybody deemed a mental case, an effective labor activist or a disruptive political nonconformist will soon be forcibly disarmed, denied all rational means of self defense and thereby condemned to perpetual victimhood.

*********

Modern efforts to criminalize mental dysfunction have a long history dating back to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and are typically part of a broader right-wing agenda of oppression and euthanasia. But in the United States, the primary advocates of criminalization are the forcible disarmament cult and the Communitarian movement, members of which universally (and often vehemently) claim to be leftists and/or "progressives."

The Communitarians have argued for at least two decades that diagnosis of mental illness should instantly terminate not only all one&#39;s civil rights but also strip one of all privileges as well, driver&#39;s licenses included, after which the victim of such determination could then theoretically earn back the abolished rights and privileges in carefully supervised increments. Toward this end the Communitarians — who despite their leftist disguise and innocuous-sounding name are radical Skinnerian fascists of the harshest sort — are demanding creation of a national registry of mental patients. Deliberately established and maintained as a powerfully oppressive tool of social control, this roster of official pariahdom would include the names of anyone now or ever in any form of mental health treatment, regardless of the relative mildness or severity of the condition for which they are being treated. (Google "communitarians" and scroll at will for additional information.)

<i>Despite its huge contempt for the Constitution, the Communitarian faction is but one small portion of the forcible disarmament cult, but it is probably disproportionately powerful. Its intellectual prowess is considerable, and it often assumes a behind-the-scenes leadership role, focusing on the development of strategy, tactics and ideology. Another venue of profound Communitarian influence is the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. It was the Communitarians who provided the Clintons and their cronies with the ideological justification for the Democratic Party&#39;s abandonment of New Deal principles and its subsequent wholesale betrayal of the working class. The Communitarians&#39; grasp of Orwellian principles is also very evident in the present-day effort to redefine forcible disarmament as "gun safety" and the present tactic of concealing disarmament schemes behind apparently friendly but patently false gestures toward firearms owners.</i>

All this dovetails neatly with the broader forcible-disarmament-cult agenda of reducing legal firearms ownership by any means possible. Since it is credibly estimated as many as 50 percent of all U.S. citizens will at some time require some form of mental health treatment ("treatment" defined in the broadest sense, to include grief counseling, post-divorce therapy and even self-esteem classes or remedial reading for dyslexics), a favorite ploy of forcible disarmament fanatics is to demand closure of "the mental health loophole" in such a way that participation in any treatment process is penalized by automatic forcible disarmament: either turn in your guns before you see the professional caregiver, or the police will soon be there to kick in your front door, shoot your dogs, wreck the interior of your house by violent search and terrorize your spouse and children into lifelong bouts of shivering catatonia.

Typically — and the forcible disarmament advocates make no secret of the fact they are obscenely aroused by the prospect of unleashing such police brutality against firearms owners — this means criminalizing all forms of mental illness or mental dysfunction and thereby forcibly disarming anyone who is or ever has been in any sort of therapy or formalized healing, permanently abolishing their gun rights, no appeal allowed. This is already the law in New York City — if you consult a mental health professional even once in NYC (no matter the nature of your problem), your name is reported to the police and you lose your gun rights forever. Indeed, the Democrats attempted to impose a similar restriction on Washington state residents in 1994, but it was vigorously resisted there by a coalition of mental health professionals, who recognize in such criminalization a huge disincentive to voluntary treatment.

Which brings us to the present "mental health loophole" bill pending in Congress. As originally written, it was called the "Our Lady of Peace Act" (Google for details), and it would have permanently denied firearms ownership to anyone "adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution," which is further defined as occurring whenever "a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority determines that an individual is mentally retarded or of marked subnormal intelligence, mentally ill, or mentally incompetent" (HR 4757, 2002, Sec. 103 and 103:c). By including the phrase "other lawful authority," the measure would have empowered any psychiatrist, psychologist or even guidance counselor to deny someone their gun rights forever, merely by declaring that person "mentally ill" — a designation that covers everything from definitively murderous Andrea Yates/Cho Seung Hui psychosis to the mildest cases of neurotic nail-biting and low-self-esteem fidgets.

<i>The generic designation "mentally ill" would also have allowed the forcible disarmament of anyone ever found to be "mentally disabled" — never mind that "mental disability" is a very specifically focused evaluation of one&#39;s employability or lack thereof, typically for purposes of granting welfare stipends or Social Security disability payments. Thus a finding of "mental disability" has absolutely nothing to do with one&#39;s suitability to own firearms, vote or exercise any other Constitutional right.

But the Our Lady of Peace Act, which McCarthy has introduced in every Congress since 2002, would nevertheless require the Social Security Administration and every state welfare agency to add to the federal government&#39;s computerized catalogue of criminals the name and dossier of every individual who had ever been found to be even temporarily "mentally disabled" — resulting in a permanent loss of Second Amendment rights against which there would be no possibility of defense or appeal.

Thus criminalizing "mental disability" (or any other mental disorder in even the mildest forms) would clearly further the forcible disarmament cult&#39;s long range objective of making the requirements for legal firearms ownership increasingly prohibitive — ultimately reducing the number of legal firearms owners by the aforementioned 50 percent. The cult&#39;s triumph would be all the greater for the fact the imposition of "prohibited person" status would allow disarmament by outright seizure, thereby exempting government from any compensatory (buy-back) costs.</i>

Under extreme pressure from mental health professionals, McCarthy has slightly modified her present proposal, HR 297, so that those denied their Second Amendment rights on the basis of mental health considerations would be specifically limited to persons who have been "adjudicated as mentally defective or...committed to mental institutions." Alas, the term "mental defective" remains undefined — leaving unanswered whether it includes those who have been found to be "mentally disabled." It also leaves a number of other questions as to its scope, such as whether a child diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit disorder is to be branded "mentally defective" and therefore — after reaching adulthood — denied firearms ownership for life.

Apparently — though this is not clear either — McCarthy has meanwhile broadened the term "committed" to make it as prohibitive as possible: that is, to permanently deny gun rights to anyone formally committed to a mental institution of any kind (including out-patient clinics) regardless of whether the commitment was mandatory (court ordered) or voluntary. (Present federal law allows those who undergo voluntary commitment to retain their Second Amendment rights unless other specific prohibitions apply.)

Furthermore, McCarthy — who formerly made no secret of her froth-at-the-mouth hatred of firearms and firearms owners but now (in service to the Democrats&#39; new deception policy) speaks much more softly — recently told ABC News that in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, she would amend the bill back to its original, criminalize-all-mental-disorder wording except for the fact "the NRA...is holding everybody hostage." Given that the National Rifle Association has supported the Our Lady of Peace Act from the very beginning, HR 297 included, McCarthy&#39;s accusation is not only false but is an especially misleading, hypocritical and even malicious claim: no surprise given the infinite maliciousness that is the forcible disarmament hysteric&#39;s most notorious characteristic.

<i>But on the HR 297 issue, the NRA (to which I have belonged since 1951) is equally treacherous and hypocritical, especially given its demonstrably false claim to be a defender of the entire Bill of Rights. Indeed the NRA&#39;s opposition to the civil rights of mental patients reveals the frustrating extent to which the organization has deteriorated into nothing more than an instrument of the Republican Party. (And the Republican Party — especially since Big Business America&#39;s 1930s alliance with Hitler, Mussolini and Franco — is itself the U.S. equivalent of the fascist parties that formerly dominated Europe.)

Thus the NRA implicitly embraces the right wing position that "mental defectives" should be savagely oppressed if not actually euthanized. Not that the NRA is out of step with American opinion: most U.S. citizens — though they are loathe to admit it — emphatically agree that "mental defectives" deserve the harshest treatment possible. As a consequence, the U.S. has long been infamous for the industrial world&#39;s most superstitiously ignorant fear of mental affliction and its most violent rejection of anyone so afflicted, attitudes that have been credibly traced to the enduring influence of Abrahamic religion and the grave extent to which our society remains a defacto theocracy. (Anyone who doubts this assessment of our national values need look no further than our officially murderous hatred of those who are homeless.)

Meanwhile other Second Amendment advocacy groups remain stonily silent on the patient-rights implications of forcible disarmament,* understandably (given these selfsame U.S. attitudes) terrified they will be accused of supporting "guns for crazies." Never mind that study after study proves mental patients are statistically no more dangerous than any other group of Americans — and far less dangerous than some.</i>

_________

*Gun Owners of America has vehemently opposed the Our Lady of Peace Act and HR 297, and it has done so for the very best of reasons: these measures could "bar mentally stable people from buying guns" merely because they had sought mental health treatment, and it is "morally and constitutionally wrong to require law-abiding citizens to first prove their innocence to the government before they can exercise their rights — whether it&#39;s Second Amendment rights, First Amendment rights, or any other right."

Alas, GOA — which based on its rhetoric seems to be very closely tied to the Christian Theocracy faction of the Republican Party — also opposes such legislation for the very worst of reasons: it echoes the traditional Jewish/Christian/Islamic stance that the husband is god&#39;s representative in the household and, as god&#39;s enforcer, has unlimited god-given right to beat his wife and children. Thus GOA protests that denying guns to family patriarchs convicted of domestic violence is inflicting punishment for "very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or...merely yelling at a family member" — never mind the bloody testimony of Crystal Brame&#39;s death and far too many other murders just as bad or worse.

*********

The criminalization of labor activism, political agitation and effective dissent is not the stated purpose of Lautenberg&#39;s newly introduced S 1237, which was dropped in the Senate hopper very late Friday 27 April 2007, the introduction obviously timed to minimize public disclosure and avoid press scrutiny. But given that the Republicans now and for a long while have condemned anyone who opposes Führer George Bush and his New American Reich, denouncing each opponent as a "terrorist" or "terrorist sympathizer," the impact of the measure is made obvious by its stated purpose: "to increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists." Predictably, Bush himself has already demanded S 1237&#39;s immediate enactment. Just as predictably, Lautenberg — perhaps even more fanatical a forcible disarmament advocate than McCarthy — lauds its unprecedented subversion of the Constitutionally implied principle of presumed innocence as "too long" overdue.

Absolute proof of the calculated political malevolence embodied in the Lautenberg proposal — proof too of how the Democrats have finally abandoned any pretense of being civil libertarians and now (in the name of forcible disarmament) fully and even gleefully embrace the Bush Regime&#39;s agenda of totally nullifying the Bill of Rights — is found in the federal government&#39;s post-9/11 redefinition of the term "terrorism" to include any form of political protest that is genuinely disruptive. Participants in a legitimate strike or a protest that blocks or even slows vehicular traffic could thus be persecuted as "terrorists."

Quoth the American Civil Liberties Union in an analysis disseminated on 6 December 2002: "The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and World Trade Organization protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism."

Meanwhile Reason magazine, the official journal of the Libertarian Party, has repeatedly noted that in the eyes of the Bush Regime, "terrorist" and "enemy combatant" are synonymous

In other words, any member of any labor union that participated in the Seattle WTO protests could be labeled a "terrorist" merely based on the union&#39;s presence there and — under Lautenberg&#39;s S 1237 — he or she could be forcibly disarmed forever. But the reality is far more chilling: given the criteria of disruptiveness, the participants in any effective strike or job action can now be subjugated as "terrorists."

And given the Third Reich cloak of secrecy that now hides all U.S. security matters from judicial scrutiny, such subjugation could never be appealed. Indeed it is conceivable a labor activist (or any other opponent of the status quo) could be disappeared forever into the gulag of Guantanamo merely on the basis of the spurious argument that the (denied) attempt to purchase a firearm is absolute proof of "enemy combatant" intent.

The law that would enable such outrages should more properly be labeled the Lautenberg/Bush/Alberto Gonzales Bill of Rights Nullification Act of 2007 because it would not only subject all future U.S. firearms ownership to the tyrannical whims of the modern-day incarnation of the dread Reich Security Service (RSHA), but it would but it would repeal the presumption of innocence that is the great wellspring of the American legal system.

Thus, with active Democratic party collaboration, at the very least the Bush Regime is laying the groundwork to forcibly disarm every labor activist in the United States — and anyone else it chooses to put on its (secret) enemies list. Thus too another advance for the modern-day variant of fascism — not marching forward on hobnailed jackboots but sneaking past us on politically correct rubber soles.

Note also how McCarthy&#39;s HR 297 undeniably anticipates enactment of S 1237: "The Secretary of Homeland Security shall make available to the Attorney General...records, updated not less than quarterly, which are relevant to a determination of whether a person is disqualified from possessing or receiving a firearm..."(Sec. 101:b.1.A). Now the relationship between the two measures comes into sharp focus: Lautenberg abolishes the presumption of innocence and grants the government the unprecedented power to rule on our political reliability while McCarthy provides the infrastructure to make sure the secret police get every possible scrap of information.

Suddenly I wonder if closing the alleged "mental health loophole" — though no doubt an egregious blow to our freedom — isn&#39;t maybe just another red herring to distract us from the genuinely fatal wound that would be dealt our liberty by Lautenberg&#39;s coup-de-grace against due process.

*********

Predictions past and future: as some of you may remember, before I was booted off Progressive Independent for speaking tactless truth to tacky tyranny, I predicted that the Democrats would take back Congress in 2006, would founder pathetically in their efforts to accomplish any meaningful socioeconomic change, and would then cut a win-win deal with the Bush Regime to impose forcible disarmament and further subvert the Bill of Rights in general, thereby enabling each side to claim accomplishments dearest to its ideologues&#39; alleged hearts.

Though the onslaught is not developing exactly the way I imagined it would, there is no doubt such an offensive is underway. But just as I foresaw the betrayal of our electoral hopes for Medicare reform and the restoration of labor rights, I can no longer doubt this new Democrat/Republican collaboration to abolish the presumption of innocence and grant the Homeland Security apparatus the ultimate power of approval or disapproval over all individual civilian firearms purchases is (A) the beginning of the final assault on the Constitution by representatives of the corporate ruling class and (B) the beginning of a Bush Regime effort to co-opt public reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre and thus rehabilitate its public image by launching its own forcible disarmament campaign — not out of the craven hoplophobia that so agitates the Democrats and alienates so many voters, but in the name of the same self-proclaimed robust patriotism that seduced us into cheering the (failed) conquest of Iraq. I can hear it now: "if y&#39;all love your country, you&#39;ll give us the common-sense power to determine who&#39;s politically reliable enough to have a gun." The last time the politicians said something like that, the language was German.

*********

NOTES:
The text of HR 297 and the unfolding details of S 1237 are available through the excellent and superbly useful Thomas legislative search engine: <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/">http://thomas.loc.gov/</a>

I am posting this same essay on my blog, Wolfgang von Skeptik, <a href="http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/">http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/ </a>

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Original Source: <a href="http://www.midwest-populistamerica.com/articles/threats-to-civil-liberties-arising-from-virginia-tech/">http://www.midwest-populistamerica.com/articles/threats-to-civil-liberties-arising-from-virginia-tech/</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution 2.5</a>.

Loren Bliss

2007-08-09

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5

eng

Police identify Norris Hall shooter as Va. Tech student

Cho attended Northern Va. high school, peers describe him as &#39;loner&#39;

Maria Tchijov and Thomas Madrecki, Cavalier Daily Senior Writers

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Police identified Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, as the gunman responsible for killing 30 victims Monday in Virginia Tech&#39;s Norris Hall. Some who knew him described Cho as "a complete loner" and the author of "disturbing" and "excessively violent" plays.

Cho was found dead among the carnage that spanned four rooms and a nearby stairwell in Norris Hall.

Cho, a native of South Korea, was linked to the murder weapon through a fingerprint contained in immigration documents. Ballistics tests confirmed that one of the two guns found at Norris Hall was also used at the shooting that took place two hours earlier in West Ambler Johnston dormitory. While police said it is likely that the two shootings are related, the investigation is ongoing.

An ongoing investigation

Cho was an English major at the university from Centreville, Va. Peers from Cho&#39;s middle school in Centreville said he was quiet, shy and withdrawn.

"He was made fun of a lot by everybody," said Samuel Linton, a homeroom classmate of Cho&#39;s during seventh and eighth grade. "He was a complete loner, he never said a word ... he had no interaction with teachers -- he just stared like he wasn&#39;t paying attention."

David Gearheart, who also attended middle school with Cho, said he talked to Cho once or twice, but that talking to him was just that -- talking to somebody rather than with somebody.

"He had a lot of crazy writings in his notebook and stuff, how he hated Americans," Gearheart said.

Linton said Cho was once reported to the principal for writing down the names of people he was supposedly planning to kill.

"It was like a hit list," Linton said. "They found one in his locker."

Linton said people "constantly" talked about how Cho might be the type of person that would one day attempt to kill someone.

Officials at a press conference yesterday said they could not comment on allegations that Cho had a previous run-in with law enforcement officers in Blacksburg in 2005.

Authorities executed a search warrant yesterday of Cho&#39;s dorm room in Harper Hall and removed mostly documentary evidence, including his writings that were widely characterized as violent by peers and professors.

Stephanie Derry, a senior English student at Virginia Tech, said she knew Cho from a playwriting class. Derry described Cho&#39;s plays as "disturbing," but said nobody in the class took them as entirely serious.

"The plays were excessively violent," Derry said. "But you can&#39;t really assume that everything written is true or is going to be true."

The Associated Press reported that officials recovered a note in Cho&#39;s dorm that lambasted "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans."

Virginia State Police Superintendent Steve Flaherty said, however, there is no evidence of a suicide note.

Flaherty also announced that the handguns used by Cho in the massacre were purchased in accordance with Virginia law in March. Police have not yet determined whether Cho had an accomplice in the shootings.

Officials indicated that a person of interest from the first shooting is cooperating with police. That individual was an acquaintance of the female victim of the first shooting and was stopped by police and questioned by authorities at the time of the second shooting. As of press time, this individual was still considered a "person of interest."

Officials respond

Gov. Tim Kaine extended his condolences to the Virginia Tech community during a televised broadcast last night.

"Our hearts go out to the entire community, Kaine said. "This is the darkest day in the wonderful history of Virginia Tech."

Kaine also said he will commission an independent panel of law enforcement experts in the next 48 hours to examine the administration and law enforcement response to the events leading up to and immediately following Monday morning&#39;s shootings. The purview of this examination will include complaints about the university administration&#39;s delay in notifying students of danger immediately after the first shooting. That decision has been questioned publicly by some students and members of the media.

Kaine did not answer questions regarding policy changes.

"Before we talk about any policy changes we have to get our best assessment of what occurred," Kaine said.

Kaine added that families of the victims were the number one priority.

"This is not a crusade or something for a political campaign," Kaine said. "It&#39;s about comforting families ... and helping this community heal ... For those who want to make this into some kind of crusade I say take that elsewhere."

Officials said yesterday they are not releasing the names of the victims until they have identified all the remains and notified the next of kin. Several media sources, including the student newspaper at Tech, have released preliminary lists of the victims&#39; names.

Virginia Tech president Charles Steger said Virginia Tech will cancel classes for the remainder of the week. Further announcements about classes were expected today. Norris Hall will remain closed for the rest of the school year.

"As you can understand, we are still working to understand this terrible tragedy," Steger said. "It is very difficult for me to express how we feel."

-- Alex Sellinger and Stephanie Kassab contributed to this article

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Original Source: <a href= http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=30192&pid=1583>The Cavalier Daily - April 18, 2007</a>

Maria Tchijov and Thomas Madrecki

The Cavalier Daily

2007-07-31

Sara Hood

Meggie Bonner <meggiebonner@gmail.com>

eng

Thoughts About Media Coverage of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

posted 5.01.07

<a href="http://www.miwatch.org/about.htm#Wahl">Otto Wahl, Ph.D.</a>, University of Hartford

The tragic death of 33 students at Virginia Tech has shocked and saddened us all. Given the mental health aspects of the situation, it is not surprising that there has been much in the coverage about mental illnesses and their treatment. Unfortunately, the articles and editorials that followed the shootings have often been troubling in what they convey to the public about mental illnesses and mental health interventions.

One troubling aspect of the media coverage has been the frequent vilification and dehumanization of the troubled young man who perpetrated the killings. Appropriately sympathetic descriptions of the background and lives of the "32" victims were widespread, and such descriptions helped us to better appreciate the tragedy on a more personal level. However, descriptions of the 33rd person who died in the tragedy, Cho Seung-Hui, focused almost exclusively on his pathology, his anger, and his menacing manner. Some media sources characterized Cho as motivated by "meanness;" others labeled him as a "fiend," a "psychopath," or "just plain "evil." Such coverage ignored the fact that Cho&#39;s death—and much of his life—was also a tragedy. His alienation, isolation, anger, and ultimate suicide are probably not the life goals he set out for himself. Much of the media coverage did discuss Cho&#39;s mental health, but mostly without notable empathy for his difficulties.

Related is the mistaken implication in coverage of Cho&#39;s actions that mental illness and violence are synonymous. The widespread images of Cho brandishing weapons epitomized the already prevalent public image of the "menacing madman," and that image was underscored further by the fear-inducing labels Cho was given in many media accounts, such as "maniac" and "psycho" and worse. Likewise, the repeated discussions of the need to protect the college community—and the larger community—from such individuals served to reinforce unwarranted public fears of people with mental illnesses. The vast majority of people with mental illnesses, including severe mental illnesses, are neither violent nor criminal. The vast majority of students on campus who are living with mental illnesses are not threatening others, but working and studying to make better lives for themselves. I saw little discussion of this in media coverage.

The events at Virginia Tech were truly horrendous. The media, like the public, searched to make sense of the tragedy and to find clues as to how future tragedies could be prevented. However, there was a tendency to focus on mental illness as the sole or primary explanation for the horrific outcome at Virginia Tech. Many reporters and even mental health professionals seemed to commit what social scientists have dubbed the "fundamental attribution error." This term refers to our tendency to attribute the actions of others, particularly unacceptable actions, to their inner, psychological attributes and to neglect potential situational influences. If we succumb to this error and focus mainly on the possible internal causes of behavior, the mental health of Cho Seung-Hui in this case, we may overlook other potential contributors to the event and, thus, other potential and important avenues for prevention.

Often overlooked, then, were questions about how we engage or do not engage students on our college campuses or how we do or do not integrate diverse students to better create a sense of community, questions about what gaps in understanding and education about cultural differences might have contributed to Cho&#39;s apparent isolation and to the ultimate outcome, and questions about the extent to which stigma and negative attitudes about mental health problems could have contributed to Cho&#39;s apparent reluctance to accept counseling assistance despite the recommendations of Virginia Tech faculty.

Instead of looking at the factors above, many media reports implied—directly or indirectly—that the major preventive solution is the lessening of restrictions on involuntary hospitalization. After horrific events like the Virginia Tech deaths, it is easy to forget that the current criteria for involuntary psychiatric commitment result from a long history of indiscriminate and abusive use of forced hospitalization and from a belated recognition that the individual civil rights of people with mental illnesses need protection. Just as the tragic events of 9/11 should not have allowed us to dismantle the basic civil liberties on which our country is founded, a tragic event like Virginia Tech should not serve as justification for diminishing the hard won civil protections of the millions of people with mental illnesses. But it may, and some of the news coverage is suggesting that it should.

Also, it is not clear that involuntary commitment for Cho would have been the appropriate solution. Coerced treatment may have poorer long term outcomes than voluntary treatment if it creates trauma and fuels antagonism and poorer treatment compliance. For a person like Cho, who already felt persecuted and angry, this may have been likely. So hospitalization might have only postponed the tragic outcome. Outpatient treatment may have had a better chance of succeeding in helping Cho and preventing the lethal outcome. In hindsight, we know it was not successful, but we do not know that involuntary hospitalization would have had more success.

The events at Virginia Tech have led to calls for greater security on campuses and for a better ability of campus authorities to exclude people with serious mental illnesses from the campus. Again, this represents a troubling inclination to further restrict the rights and opportunities of people living with mental illnesses. Easier hospitalization and campus restrictions are not what is needed for preventing tragedies such as the one at Virginia Tech. Instead, we need better training of service providers to deal with individuals who are reluctant to accept treatment, and therapeutic alternatives that are more attractive, less aversive, and better funded. We also need reduced stigma for seeking and accepting treatment, along with greater outreach and prevention efforts.

I do not mean to suggest that there was no sensitive and appropriate media coverage of the events. Many stories were sympathetic to the needs of troubled youth on campuses, urging improvements and cautioning against attempts to exclude students. Former Rosalynn Carter Journalism Fellow, John Head, for example, wrote, in the <i><a href="http://www.ajc.com/search/content/opinion/stories/2007/04/20/edhead0420.html">Atlanta Journal Constitution</a></i>, "A policy that punishes students for enduring emotional and mental disturbances will only discourage them from seeking help." Articles and editorials have called for expanded suicide prevention programs and improvements in culturally competent services, as well. An article in the <i><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201190.html">Washington Post</a></i>, by another former Carter Fellow, Shankar Vedantam looked "beyond the shooter," to consider social factors that may have contributed to the fatal outcome. And there did emerge a number a number of pieces that looked more fully and sympathetically at the life of Cho Seung-Hui and at his family&#39;s pain and suffering.

Media coverage also brought to light the archaic and offensive language of the federal statutes for regulation of gun purchases. I am referring to the prohibition against selling guns to "mental defectives,&#39; a category which, for the federal government, apparently includes persons with mental illnesses. I am amazed that such a reference to mental illness—language that was discarded decades ago because of its pejorative nature and its connection to eugenics and Nazi cleansing—could still be the chosen terminology in the laws of our country.I can only hope that the wide exposure of this language in the press may lead to sufficient embarrassment and/or outrage as to generate an appropriate updating.

I am, however, cautiously optimistic. Despite the great deal of stigmatizing coverage that has surrounded the tragic loss of life at Virginia Tech, the discussions that are occurring have the potential to generate important changes. Chief among these are greater understanding of and improved responsiveness to mental health needs on campuses. I do not mean to suggest, as some media coverage has, that these are needed primarily to protect the student body from unstable shooters, but rather that they are needed so that universities can enhance their abilities to support the learning and accomplishment of all students, including the many who experience mental health problems.

--

Archived with permission of the author.

Original Source: MIWatch.org
<a href="http://www.miwatch.org/Wahl.htm">http://www.miwatch.org/Wahl.htm</a>

Otto Wahl

2007-07-17

Brent Jesiek

Otto Wahl (owahl@hartford.edu)

eng

Dangerous People?

By Ari Rabkin
Apr 26 2007

<i>Between the Lines</i>

One of the striking facts about the Virginia Tech shootings was how predictable the murderer&#39;s identity was. The authorities knew long before his rampage that Cho Seung-Hui was not merely "troubled," but dangerous. A court had ruled two years previously that he posed an "imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." As a result, he was civilly committed to an outpatient mental-health clinic. He checked out the next day, however, without being effectively treated.

In the wake of the shootings, many commentators have decried the gradual decline in involuntary commitment to mental health facilities. The courts, so the thinking goes, should have been more aggressive, and should have committed Cho to an inpatient facility, and not released him until he was judged to be no longer dangerous. But this sort of confinement poses awkward questions. The mentally ill are confined — locked up — not because they have done anything wrong, but because they might be dangerous in the future.

Sun Podcast: A podcast is available for this column. Click here to listen to or to download it.Sun Podcast: A podcast is available for this column. Click here to listen to or to download it.To lock people up, not because they are criminals, but because they are dangerous, subverts many of our normal notions of due process. To go free, a criminal defendant needs to rebut a factual allegation; he needs to show that he didn&#39;t commit a particular act. A prisoner confined for being dangerous, however, is in a much more precarious position. "Danger" cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of laymen, but can only be assessed by expert judgment.

To avoid making such judgments, American civil law does not have a general category of "dangerous persons" other than the mentally ill. Sane individuals can normally be imprisoned only after a criminal conviction, for a crime they have already committed. Civil confinement, as it is called, is restricted to those judged to be "mentally abnormal."

This category, in addition to violent psychotics and the like, includes repeat sex offenders, a group that society has become increasingly eager to keep off the streets. Many states now allow the government to confine serious sex offenders even after they have served their criminal sentence. Proponents of such "civil confinement" laws argue that these individuals have so strong a compulsion to sexually abuse others that it would be dangerous to release them, and that so long as they are a menace, they should be confined.

Enemy prisoners in wartime are yet another class of prisoners, held not as criminals, but as menaces. Unlike the mentally ill, they are held outside of the ordinary legal system entirely. The United States is currently holding hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and many others at detention sites in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. These detainees are not criminals, and often can be charged with no crimes, since American civilian courts do not have jurisdiction over acts committed by foreign nationals outside the United States. Altering the law to cover such cases is an unattractive option. Scooping up foreigners, and trying them before American civilian courts, for acts that were legal when and where they were committed, is a precedent that the government is rightly loathe to set.

Non-judicial detention is absolutely necessary. School shootings and suicide bombings have this in common: the perpetrators do not expect to survive, are prepared to go to great lengths to kill others and cannot be deterred. The normal criminal justice system is not designed or equipped to stop such acts. Stopping such acts requires preemptive confinement.

But on what terms should so extraordinary a confinement be imposed? There is a striking parallelism between the military&#39;s procedures for detaining enemy combatants, and our civil responses to mental illness. These parallels may help us understand each case by reference to the other.

In many states, the mentally ill can be confined after an administrative hearing, with no jury. The standard of proof is generally "clear and convincing evidence," not the proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for criminal conviction. Likewise, terror detainees are evaluated by military review boards, not civil juries. The standard of proof required to hold prisoners at Guantanamo is not precisely defined, but prisoners are routinely released as "no longer dangerous." Locking people away and forgetting them is, of course, abhorrent, and both the mentally ill and terror detainees, are reevaluated on a yearly or bi-yearly basis.

Preemptive confinement, while necessary, must not be overused, and the courts have created a number of limitations on its use domestically. Only the "mentally abnormal" may be confined, and only if they pose a substantial risk. Similarly, detention in wartime is constrained by the scope of the war. The prisoners held at Guantanamo are in our custody either because a government with jurisdiction over them turned them over, or because they were seized in an area of active combat operations. The U.S. does not have a general legal right to take prisoners from the soil of the United States or friendly powers.

The procedures appropriate for the mentally abnormal are obviously different from those suitable for handling enemy combatants in wartime. The threats posed by the two groups and our legal obligations to each are very different. In both cases, though, the normal mechanisms of reactive justice are insufficient, and society has a compelling interest in confining them, not as punishment, but as prevention. Likewise in both cases, we must balance the risk posed by a dangerous individual versus the rights of that individual, and the risk of confining the innocent.

There is no guarantee that a court would have found Cho to be "abnormal," or that harmless individuals will not be confined. Consequently, we owe ourselves, and our prisoners, a clear account as to when this sort of confinement is appropriate, and what standards of proof apply. We owe it to society to do our utmost to protect the innocent from those who, either from illness or malice, would do them harm.

<i>Ari Rabkin is a graduate student in Computer Science. He can be contacted at asr32­@­c­o­r­n­ell.edu. Between the Lines appears Thursdays.</i>

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Original Source: <a href=http://cornellsun.com/node/23174>Cornell Daily Sun - April 26, 2007</a>

Ari Rabkin

2007-07-10

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng

Idealism v. Cho

By Jeremy Siegman
Apr 27 2007
Cosmology on the Rocks

It always feels weird swallowing real-world events like the Virginia Tech massacre in the hazy cosmopolitanism of Uris Library. Cornell and its libraries, after all, are fleeing from the bustling Manhattans, from the culture of CNN and even the busy humming of our own town. It feels like fleeing from all that is extremist, religious or vulgar. And the Promised Land is the Hill, which, legend has it, is populated by a super-strong Atlas who can not only pick up the planet, but also stop it from warming too, and just foster utopia in general, all at the reasonable rate of only $40,000 a year (tax-free if you use Big Red Bucks!).

This detached cosmopolitan Cornell is proud, richly endowed, but can be shaken. When an English major murders 32 people at a university, our university shakes. Finally, something has hit home; but utopianism hits back. Our president responds in the eloquent universalism we know best: "We are one; one community, one people, one planet." This is me responding, stuck in Uris Library because it&#39;s raining outside; I&#39;m stuck, too, in this Skortonian universalism, as I consider the murderer, his condition and ours too.

"Three Pro-Gun Bills Pending in Nevada Legislature!" exclaims a headline from NRA.org. You should press your senators to pass them, urges this National Rifle Association writer, so people can have the freedom to not register their handguns! Gun activists argue that Cho Seung-Hui should have been lawfully prevented from buying his .22-caliber and 9mm guns because of his mental illness. They also argue that gun-control laws should be toned down! This is utterly strange, this exaltation of the Second Amendment at a time like this.

Considered in a vacuum, there&#39;s really nothing wrong with the right to bear arms. But when the bald eagle of America is made to hold rifles in its talons (the NRA logo) — a powerful symbol is crafted. It speaks loudly for a lot of Americans. The symbolic exaltation is poor form, with poor results: the nation that made Terminator I-III, Rambo, Quentin Tarantino and Cho too. Tarantino is not Cho — a talented artist, not a murderer. He doesn&#39;t shoot, he makes aesthetics. But what is his aesthetic? It is images of Cho and for Cho. Aesthetics broadcast culture, and culture affects people.

What Cho most needed was probably medication. But what he needed second most was a culture that says, "don&#39;t shoot." This he did not quite have; rather, he had Kill Bill. And he had a precedent of almost 20 school shootings in America in the past 10 years. Add this to the list of things in which we lead the world; Germany is a not-so-close second, with only three.

We have a cult of violence in this country. We also have a cult of hyper-individualism: the kind that cherishes individual rights like not having to register your gun. Violence could exist without this cult and so could mental illness; but I merely suggest some cultural change wouldn&#39;t be a bad thing.

Diversity within Cornell works because the lack of religious and ethnic unity is compensated for: the minute you get here you are hit over the head with Freshman Orientation. You are explicitly told, that despite the diverse backgrounds and different colors — we are all friends. You are showered with programs and people your age, with your interests, your intelligence ... But diversity in the real America is ugly at times — the same diversity is extant, but there&#39;s no Freshman Orientation. There&#39;s no one really saying we are all friends. (In fact, we compete with out neighbors for almost everything.) We lack, then, a common language with which to tell the school shooters, "don&#39;t shoot."

The American suicide murderer has no cause — unlike those who blew up themselves and 191 Iraqis in Baghdad just days after Virginia Tech. But perhaps what an American rebel with no cause needs is ... a cause. And a peaceful one to boot.

In America, everyone has a different moral code — from the Bible to Gandhi to Oprah. The only normative force we share is our secular law: don&#39;t shoot because you&#39;ll go to jail. But Americans feel oppositional towards the law anyway: the under-21 collegiate "elite" could proudly drink most baby boomers under the table. The law is not enough.

If there&#39;s anything that could work it might be Christianity; but America is no longer Christian. So why not just let each denomination speak its piece? A chorus of don&#39;t shoots in different languages and moralities? We already have this multiplicity, and Cho falls through the cracks.

To add to our diversity, we a need language more common, so widely held that it can be strong enough to speak to the next Cho.

If Americans are so different, it&#39;s only knowledge of each other that will bring that commonality. It&#39;s a university, or at least a good high school, that will bring that knowledge. It&#39;s getting everyone, even the poor, into those schools ...

Consider, then, our Cornellian cosmopolitanism — "We are one; one community, one people, one planet" — turning around with the Hokies and the citizenry and facing reality, facing Cho, facing his Columbine counterparts Dylan and Eric. Consider gathering the psychological knowledge of their sickness, the practical knowledge of how to make society safe and the moral knowledge that murder is wrong. Consider gathering all this and broadcasting it mercilessly on TV, alongside images of eagles with no rifles in their talons. This might take a really long time — culture does — and there will always be psychological violence. But if the relative peace of this campus on a Hill is any paradigm, then let&#39;s take the reigns of the real world.

Let&#39;s be powerful the way we know how. Let&#39;s create some ideology, disseminate it and brainwash everyone. If we&#39;re good enough at it, we&#39;ll even reach the next Cho: mental illness could resist even a culture of peace, but it&#39;d be quite a bit harder. Yes, we&#39;ll pick up where the sixties left off: we&#39;ll brainwash them into thinking we are all one. Maybe, in fact, we are.

<i>Jeremy Siegman is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at jas367@cornell.edu. Cosmology on the Rocks appears alternate Fridays.</i>

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Original Source:<a href=http://cornellsun.com/node/23214>Cornell Daily Sun - April 27, 2007</a>

Jeremy Siegman

Cornell Daily Sun

2007-07-10

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng