Active Shooter in HS in Parkland, Florida

[jrbfishn]

Locking up people because they feel like doing something?
Why not lock up people because of how someone feels about them? Not much difference.
If I got locked up every time I felt the world would be better off if someone were to be to be shot, I would spend a lot of time in the looney bin.
Feelings are not a crime.

Yet.

Sent by an idjit coffeeholic from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[Big Dipper]

According to the Sherrif’s press conference, “-- 2:19 p.m. The Uber car drops **** [I will not use the turd’s name ] off. **** entered the east stairwell of the 1200 building and pulled the rifle out of the case.”

How the hell, after all that has happened in the last 19 years, does someone just “enter” a high school??!!

 

[deemus]

According to the Sherrif’s press conference, “-- 2:19 p.m. The Uber car drops **** [I will not use the turd’s name ] off. **** entered the east stairwell of the 1200 building and pulled the rifle out of the case.”

How the hell, after all that has happened in the last 19 years, does someone just “enter” a high school??!!

My kids schools were locked up except for the front entrance, which had a monitor, and you had to provide a drivers license to the desk and be checked in.

Unless somebody had exited, and he went in before the door locked behind them.

 

[Wildcat Diva]

"Duty to warn" is complex, varies by state, and brings with it lots of unintended consequences. Like mandated reporters of suspected child abuse, a bad report can lead innocent people into a world of hurt while a good report can save lives.

I think you're right, btw, but I wanted to point out that it's a very difficult area and there's already quite a bit of law about it around these United States.

In Texas, for example, Tex. [Health and Safety] Code Ann. §611.004 provides that (I believe this verbiage from the link above is a paraphrase) "A mental health professional may disclose information only to medical or law enforcement personnel if the professional determines that there is a probability of imminent physical injury by the patient to the patient or others or there is a probability of immediate mental or emotional injury to the patient."

Note the word "imminent." If someone says "I feel sure that my patient is going to murder someone someday" that doesn't rise to the standard of imminent physical injury. If a mental health professional can say "My patient revealed a plan to shoot up a particular school during lunch tomorrow" then that standard has clearly been met.

In between is a vast, grey area.

HAS to be imminent and specific danger for me to act and break confidentiality. Even if I just thought a kid I was treating was generally off his rocker, who am I really gonna tell and what are they
Gonna do about it?


I have so many children/adolescents I have treated over the years who could become this shooter. Honestly, most of them just drop out of services because they are flaky. That’s not a funding issue. Throwing more money at mental health isn’t gonna make clients stay in services.

If they are court ordered, that’s one thing, but that is SO RARE. And just because they come to see me in services this doesn’t mean they are open to benefit from those services.

If you see something, say something really isn’t going to work. Most people don’t know what they are looking at. Most people who are so ignorant about gun culture would find some of my own gun loving children’s social posts “disturbing.”

My eldest son is in a metalcore band that references goth/horror/shock pop culture. I’m sure many would find his social media posts “disturbing” (his own grandpa did, because he doesn’t get the pop culture).


From what I saw at these press conferences, seems they want us to report about anything that we see that could be construed as odd.

I’m sorry, as someone “odd” herself, I have some strong opposition to this trend.

 

[Wildcat Diva]

Mental health profession is SHIT at predicting acting on violence. You know how many kids a day I see who have violent thoughts and impulses?

A damn lot of them. More than 99 percent go on to manage themselves and do jack shit with those violent thoughts and impulses.

How are we supposed to predict this stuff? Throwing more money at the mental health profession is not gonna help.

 

[LOCKHART]

Well, they would have been warned. Whatever the cops did or didn't after that would have been them, wouldn't it? And Deemus, just because a few people got screwed by business partners, or family, are you really serious that we should then let ALL the nutty bastards out?? That seems to be what your saying.

 

[deemus]

Pretty sure there are already laws on the books that provide the authority to report potentially violent people. What the thresholds are? No clue. But there needs to be a standard.

The guy who shot up the Texas church was one who should have been reported IMO. But he was not.

 

[Wildcat Diva]

Who gets to decide who is getting reported and what is our criteria for “mental illness” to the point that someone with “it”, “shouldn’t have access to a gun.” That Florida Governer at the press conference really pissed me off.

As a mental health professional, I’m not “ready to have a conversation” about this. The people generally I see talking on the news about this stuff are too stupid.

 

[LOCKHART]

And remember, until 1975 all homosexuals were considered MENTALL ILL! Then suddenly they WEREN'T! I still consider ALL of em as sick ass bastards!

 

[Wildcat Diva]

Pretty sure there are already laws on the books that provide the authority to report potentially violent people. What the thresholds are? No clue. But there needs to be a standard.

The guy who shot up the Texas church was one who should have been reported IMO. But he was not.

I’m pretty sure I know what those standards are as I am a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas.

It’s imminent and specific danger.

 

[Wildcat Diva]

Well, they would have been warned. Whatever the cops did or didn't after that would have been them, wouldn't it? And Deemus, just because a few people got screwed by business partners, or family, are you really serious that we should then let ALL the nutty bastards out?? That seems to be what your saying.

No one is really “in” any more. Very very few. Maybe one kid a year I even know about (not treated) makes it into Austin State hospital for a few months, and that’s usually due to extensive and severe danger to self.

Because we have so many more options with psychotropic medications the past few decades, many of the symptoms that used to keep people institutionalized are able to be managed on an outpatient basis.

And, remember, unless someone has “lost it” and are out of control of themselves and a clear and imminent danger to self or others... they have the right to refuse treatment.

 

[deemus]

Well, they would have been warned. Whatever the cops did or didn't after that would have been them, wouldn't it? And Deemus, just because a few people got screwed by business partners, or family, are you really serious that we should then let ALL the nutty bastards out?? That seems to be what your saying.

Let them out? You need to work on your reading comprehension. You had to make a really far leap to even think I hinted at that. I said nothing that came even close to that. If anything, I think it should be easier to get someone put away.

You seem to infer that it was perfectly OK for a man to have his wife committed, whose only issue was being depressed over her cheating husband. The husband then, divorces the wife, who has been committed. She is therefore unable to make decisions for herself, who (lucky for her) has an attorney who her soon to be ex-husband hired to sign the divorce papers giving the husband all the millions they had. It happened.

The old law was bad. Really bad. But it doesn't have to be either / or. I think you can protect people that have zero emotional / violent tendencies from bad people who want to put them away for selfish reasons. And I think you should be able to get the real nuts put away.

The current law does the first thing well. It does not do the last thing well.

I had a family member who needed to be put away for his own safety, and possibly others. We tried several times, to no avail. It took him asking a cop if he could borrow a gun so he could deal with his problem neighbor. That was his ticket to the looney bin for life. And he needed to be there.

The homeless you keep referring to are another issue. And in my opinion, a much smaller group of the nutjobs out there. Many of those fall in the same category as my family member. Some need to go away. Fortunately they dont have the funds to be a mass shooter.

 

[LOCKHART]

Well, Charles Whitman told HIS mental health counselor that he felt like going up on top of the UT tower and shooting people! Should that counselor get off? (He did!) I mean what the hell does it take for these "counselors" to take this seriously? Damn!

 

[Wildcat Diva]

Well, I’m one of those “counselors”, literally, and it ain’t that damn easy. You’d be making a call every day and feel like Chicken Little and with good reason.

 

[LOCKHART]

Deemus, all you have to do is sit down with most of the "homeless" ( I call em BUMS!) to see that most of them don't have elevators that go all the way to the top! Believe me, old fat Ted didn't do the majority of us any good!

 

[Wildcat Diva]

So so so many of my clients have used the “I want to blow up my school” line. It’s commonplace. How am I supposed to know who can take that to the next level or not?

I’m supposed to report them all? Guess how many of those kids are gonna clam up the next session and tell me jack shit and then never open up to another mental health professional EVER again? 100 percent.

 

[LOCKHART]

Wildcat, how would you feel if Charles Whitman had told YOU that, and you did NOTHING?? And weeks later he does EXACTLY what he told you he wanted to do??

 

[Wildcat Diva]

Feel probably about how I felt when a client I didn’t think would kill themselves actually did it ... times a thousand.

But what’s the point? Report everybody even when you don’t think it’s gonna happen? That’s not possible. You have to believe it’s gonna happen or you’re not gonna destroy your therapeutic relationship over a snowball’s chance, if that’s what you gauge it as

And...If you set the rules ahead of time (during informed consent before starting therapy): “if you say these kinds of words no matter what, You will be reported”... ain’t nobody gonna say those words. They gonna stay inside.

 

[LOCKHART]

Report every nutty bastid that says stuff like that? Hell yeah!

 

[AustinN4]

How are we supposed to predict this stuff? Throwing more money at the mental health profession is not gonna help.

Appreciate your post. What then is the solution?