Parents of California victims angered by "broken" health, legal systems

Chicago Tribune ^ | 6-21-2014

[Citizen Zed]

The families of three college students stabbed to death by a 22-year-old before he gunned down three more victims said the U.S. health and legal systems valued the rights of the mentally ill over those who become their victims.

Police said Elliot Rodger, the son of a film director, stabbed the students in his apartment on May 23, before shooting and killing three more victims in the town of Isla Vista near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. He then shot himself.

"The system is clearly broken. It should have protected our sons, who were so innocent and trusting," Henry Hong, the father of Cheng Yuan "James" Hong, one of the victims, told the Washington Post in a joint interview with other victims' parents published on Thursday.

The parents are also angered over a lack of information released to them by police, by what they characterize as several missed opportunities for authorities to intervene, and expressed incredulity that Rodger could have overpowered their sons by himself, the newspaper reported.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department said in a statement it "owes it to the victim's families and to the public to not prematurely release information before we have all of the facts in this case."

[Citizen Zed]

What's the best way to defend yourself from crazy?

[RKBA Democrat]

Citizen Zed wrote:
What’s the best way to defend yourself from crazy?

With a gun. Unfortunately the state of californication doesn’t agree. Live and visit there at your own risk.

[TalBlack]

The families of three college students stabbed to death by a 22-year-old before he gunned down three more victims said the U.S. health and legal systems valued the rights of the mentally ill over those who become their victims.

‘Course it does. That’s how it proves that it is ‘compassionate’ and ‘fair’ and ‘inclusive’ and generally better than you and me.

[dalebert]

right. We lost a child because of a mentally ill person being sent home for a weekend. The person had a history of violence and no supervision..left alone with children. it was 30 years ago and things are much worse now. policicians and gov run agencies are too occupied with themselves to deal with it. bonuses and retirement packages are all that count, jut like VA.Gov workers have no business in unions and I am now beginning to think should not vote.

[jocon307]

“[they] expressed incredulity that Rodger could have overpowered their sons by himself...”

I have wondered and wondered about that myself.

Presumably he took them on one at a time by complete surprise, but it is still rather confounding.

He really was a stone cold killer to do what he did to those fellows, who were his friends.

[Chewbarkah]

I am not blaming the victims, but surely they knew better than anyone what a complete lunatic Elliot Rodger was. Self-preservation might not be PC in some circles, but it’s actually the right thing to do. When someone is obviously not right and getting worse, report to parents and police. If that doesn’t work, run away, move out, gang up.

[raybbr]

"The system is clearly broken. It should have protected our sons, who were so innocent and trusting,"

No, you should have taught your sons to protect themselves.

[miss marmelstein]

I wouldn’t allow a kid of mine to even bunk away at school. I was a day student travelling into NYC every day - exhausting - but it kept me away from the drug culture that was going on in the dorms at the time. All my friends were middle-class kids; not spoiled, bored rich kids.

[miss marmelstein]

So 3 murdered boys are at fault? Do we even know how this evil murderous creep got the drop on those boys?

[BobL]

If I posted on the Tribune site, I would have suggested that “maybe those parents should have thought harder about sending their kids to a ‘gun-free’ college”...just to taunt them a bit in their liberalism.

[MamaTexan]

When it's all done, the courts will say what they've always said:

The police are not liable for failing to protect you

---

Part of me feels so badly for these poor people, the other part just wants to scream at them for the blind belief that government has ever had ANY interest in them at all.

[catroina54]

media never got into the fact that elliot was living in a group home setting,set up for developmentally delayed etc.
Sure they were his “roommates” but not in the way people are thinking of roommate.

The 22-year-0ld was living with them at the Independent Living Institute in Santa Barbara, according to CBS. According to the site, it “serves handicapped, developmentally delayed, and under-educated individuals in the areas of independent living, academics and vocational skills.”

http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/05/25/elliot-rodger-roommates-names-police-identify/

have to search around for that one-

[ncalburt]

I am sorry to hear about your loss.
My father fought the AMA and state of Fl when they supported releasing the mentally ill back into the world with no supervision or limits .
He said the Dem party trial lawyers gave these people there bill of rights to sleep on in the street and a public unprepared for the ramifications of this reckless act.

[ncalburt]

Wow the Obama gun grabbing media has buried that fact.
Why wasn’t there an onsite supervisor.

[Carriage Hill]

“developmentally delayed”
???
“late bloomers”?

[TurboZamboni]

http://www.amazon.com/My-Brother-Ron-Personal-Deinstitutionalization/dp/1477667539/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1403359225&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=my+brother+ron

America started a grand experiment in the 1960s: deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. The consequences were very destructive: homelessness; a degradation of urban life; increases in violent crime rates; increasing death rates for the mentally ill. My Brother Ron tells the story of deinstitutionalization from two points of view: what happened to the author's older brother, part of the first generation of those who became mentally ill after deinstitutionalization, and a detailed history of how and why America went down this path. My Brother Ron examines the multiple strands that came together to create the perfect storm that was deinstitutionalization: a well-meaning concern about the poor conditions of many state mental hospitals; a giddy optimism by the psychiatric profession in the ability of new drugs to cure the mentally ill; a rigid ideological approach to due process that ignored that the beneficiaries would end up starving to death or dying of exposure.

I read this and was surprised how hard it is to get someone involuntaryily committed.(mostly thanks to the ACLU)

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Since the states don’t want the expense of having insane asylums, and nobody trusts the feds to do so, an alternative might be the creation of regional facilities.

Each state would pay only for the mental health care of patients it added to the system. And each state would also send its own physicians and nurses proportional to its inmates.

An important detail is that states could veto patients entering or leaving from other states. This would prevent one state from dumping all its problems there, and likewise prevent some liberal governor from letting all his states insane people go.

The facility itself would be set up with its largest section for the mentally incapacitated. Basically people whose needs are met but with no chance of recovery. It would be the section with the most visitors, possibly even having a light rail connection.

The next section would be for mentally incompetent but with possibility of recovery with treatment. More oriented to medical care and physical therapy.

The third section would be for criminal, but insane. A medium security facility as opposed to a prison sentence.

The fourth section is for violently criminally insane, who represent a threat to themselves and others. It is a maximum security facility. And there is no possibility of probation or parole.

[raybbr]

So 3 murdered boys are at fault? “””

Where did I say that? I was referring to the father blaming the system and abrogating his own responsibility to his son’s upbringing.

[DownInFlames]

CCW

[the OlLine Rebel]

One cannot defend oneself if one is asleep, or cannot hear because of showers, driers, etc.

When did this happen? At evening?

It is moot to have a gun if you cannot hear what is going on (hearing is underrated while vision is overrated).

Best is to have a good dog, which even asleep will hear things right away and alert. And often deter so there isn’t even any conflict. But I digress.

Just because someone might be caught in his sleep, or drunk, or whatever, doesn’t mean he did not know how to defend himself.

And there is nothing wrong with being mad at the lack of system, where no one is “marginalized” and humiliated by institutions.