In the wake of the tragedies of the Colorado shootings that occurred at the midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" last Friday, I felt the need to write a blog on the subject in what I hope will shed light on the importance of identifying mental illness in order to address the dangers that can stem from it. When things like this happen, I like to read the comments in order to get the viewpoints of the masses. Whenever there is a murder like the ones we just witnessed in CO., one thing is very clear to me with the responses that a lot of people have made: Most are driven by emotional anger and fear. James Holmes was a "normal" person according to his neighbors. We can all agree that what he did was not "normal."
At 24 years of age, a college student pursuing his PHD in neuroscience, on paper he seemed to be destined for a promising career as a scientist. That is until he dropped out. Those who knew him said that he didn't give them anything that would suggest that Holmes suffered with any sort of mental issues. That means he wasn't on anyone's radar. Jackie Mitchell, a local resident who claims he drinks with Holmes on Tuesday nights at a bar not far from his home said that "Holmes gave no sign of being distressed or violent." One report from Yahoo News read:
Experts say it's possible Holmes had an underlying mental illness that was triggered by the stress of failure.
"All of those things could actually make dormant schizophrenia come out, and come out relatively quickly," said Marisa Randazzo, a psychologist who studies targeted violence.
With emotions running high in light of the tragedy of what transpired at the midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, CO, what gets lost in translation is the finding the real answer in how to properly address incidents like this. If you travel throughout the blogosphere and read the comments left by the masses, as far a solution to the problem you won't see a difference between the mentality of the commenters and Holmes himself. People want to see this man get everything from going to the Electric chair to death by firing squad. While that approach might appease the angry, and hurt, it won't solve the problem. This country has a long history of all kinds of psychotic individuals who have done some of the most heinous acts against mankind we have ever seen or heard of. What's scary, is that there is probably another 10-15 "James Holmes," "Jeffrey Dahmers," and "Ted Bundys" out there who haven't "snapped" yet. Sending people like Holmes to the electric chair or jail won't stop the other mentally disturbed individuals who are still out there. Educating ourselves on how to properly identify and address mental illness before it gets out of hand in those who suffer from it will.
The events of july 20th, 2012 didn't have to happen. The deaths of 12 people inside a CO movie theater could have been avoided if this approach had been taken long before the escalation of events had a chance to occur. I know it's hard for people to have any sympathy for a man like Holmes, but when you are dealing with someone who has a mental imbalance such as he does, what you have to realize is that people who suffer from mental chemical imbalances are no different than children. They don't know the difference between right and wrong. That's why they feel no remorse for their crimes of murder. Once we get to a level of understanding that, we can move forward much quicker to finding a solution to making sure crimes like what we witnessed never happen again.
