Quote:
Originally Posted by jg13
It's such an uneasy feeling I can't really put it into words..
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Understanding this is all still speculative, the most unease I have right now is that based on everything that has come out so far about the suspect, he actually sounds like he could have just been a normal dude who posted on cpuck. Parents sound normal, dad is a veteran cop who sits on a few community boards in a leadership role, guy sounds like he had a bunch of friends. He successfully navigated undergrad and was successful enough to allegedly get accepted to u of c law, which is not an easy feat by any measure.
If this all turns out to be the case, and it turns out that there is an element of of mental illness at play, and especially if it's something that has recently developed, then I'm pretty terrified at how flawed our ability as a society is to detect the symptoms of mental illness and respond accordingly. It also puts me at odds with what I assume is a fairly normal emotional reaction, which is "this guy needs to be taken away from society forever, ASAP". That's all fine and good, but if the reality is that one day this could be someone I know and like with an undiagnosed mental disorder, then suddenly I'm a lot more conflicted.
Again, this whole post is based on the tidbits of info that have come out and is speculative, but this guy seemed to be in the best possible position anyone could hope for if he was to develop some early adult onset mental illness like schizophrenia. He's surrounded by peers at university studying the mind and mental disorders, he's likely got a good or at least decent support network to have the tools available to successfully study for and get a high LSAT score and get the grades to be accepted to law school (again, speculative but statistically true), he's got a job and would interact with co-workers, and if he had any relationship with his parents which we don't know yet, one would think his dad would have some experience with mental illness having policed for 30 years. In short, if the tidbits that have come out so far paint an accurate picture, it sounds like he's apparently not some isolated recluse who never interacted with anyone.
If all of that is true, then honestly I'm all on board with being subjected to a really prolonged and heavy education campaign on mental illness and symptoms to watch for if the professional medical psych community thinks that would help. Not to negate what this guy did or shift blame, or even suggest that anyone should have picked up on him if he was indeed afflicted with some sort of illness, but the alternative answer, which is that some people just break and suck and we learn to live with that, terrifies me.
Maybe the speculation coming out is way off base and this will end up being some totally competant person who managed to fool everyone and is actually just a horrible human being. I dunno.
Either way, there are 5 dead young adults who didn't deserve this. What an awful situation. I feel for anyone personally affected by this - I honestly don't know how you could even begin to start dealing with it.