[livius]

He dropped out of school about that time.

I think he was probably a typical late-adolescent onset schizophrenic, but that said, I think he may have had OWS or Islamic connections that pushed him into real violence. Paranoid schizophrenics often see themselves as warriors for a cause, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see some outside influences in his life that gave him some way of justifying his insanity.

[absalom01]

Bingo. Clayton Cramer did his usual brilliant job discussing exactly this issue in his latest book "My Brother Bill". People want to know "why he did it", but the answer "He's a paranoid Schizophrenic" doesn't seem to satisfy because that answer is basicaly "There was no reason at all involved."

There were almost certainly additional outside influences that exacerbated his psychosis: probably some drug use, and certainly any association with the violent, but garden-variety neurotics in OWS wouldn't have helped.