Fort Worth Business Press, June 2, 2014 Vol. 26, No. 21 | Page 38

opinion

38 June 2 - 8, 2014 | fwbusinesspress.com

Rodger rampage: Saw it coming, couldn’t stop it

(CNN) – Here we go again. Less than a year and a half
after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, a young
man with a history of chronic anger and mental illness
went on a rampage in California, killing six people and
injuring 13 others.
In the YouTube videos and 137-page depraved diatribe
he left behind, mass murderer Elliot Rodger made one
thing very clear: His miserable life was everyone else’s
fault and he planned to make innocent people pay.
He hated women and blamed them for rebuffing his
advances. He hated the “stuck up” college students who
didn’t accept him. He even planned to kill his 6-year-old
brother, whom he feared would be more popular with
women than he had been.
He made good on most of his threats.
He stabbed three men to death in his apartment before
taking his BMW to the streets of Santa Barbara, Calif.,
shooting and killing three more people and injuring 13
with firearms and his car. After a firefight, police found
Rodger dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the
head.
Afterward, many people argued that we should focus
efforts on eliminating misogyny. Cultural and institutional hatred of women is a major problem, but it’s not
the root cause of the rampage of a psycho who’s been
raging against the world since he was 8. Others blamed
gun laws. But even if we toughen up our gun laws and
work to eradicate misogyny, without fixing our mental health system first, we’ll never stop another Elliot
Rodger.
Under our current mental health laws, at every turn,
the adults did what the law specifies. The parents knew
their son had major mental health problems and had
him in treatment since he was in elementary school.
They increased that treatment when he got worse as a
teenager.
According to Rodger’s writings, multiple mental
health professionals were treating him and prescribed
him anti-psychotic drugs. The parents and the professionals were in contact with one another and notified
authorities after Rodger had exhibited some alarming
behavior. The police responded to requests from Rodger’s family to check on his well-being and found him
to be “apparently shy, timid, polite, well-spoken” and
did nothing, as mandated by the law.
California has tough gun laws, by U.S. standards.
The Santa Barbara sheriff’s office reports Rodger bought
his semi-automatic handguns legally. Only a criminal
record, treatment in a mental institution or an involuntary commitment would have prevented him from
buying weapons. None applied to him. Treatment for
mental illness, however, does not prevent anyone in
California from buying guns. That takes us back to
mental health laws.
How could someone as delusional, dangerous and
depraved as Rodger fly under the radar, avoid being put
in a hospital or involuntarily committed at some point
during his 14 years in therapy? Because mental health
laws allow patients the right to self-determination in
their treatment of mental illness. That means we have
a system of laws and policies that puts mental health

ap photo

n Mel Robbins

How could someone as
delusional, dangerous and
depraved as Rodger fly under
the radar, avoid being put in a
hospital or involuntarily committed at some point during
his 14 years in therapy?

A memorial service was held May 27 near Santa Barbara, California, for victims of Elliot Rodger’s rampage.

decisions in the hands of the
mentally ill.
Rodger was free under the
law to refuse to take his antipsychotic medications. His parents could call the police when
he made threats of violence
on YouTube, but unless he was
deemed an “immediate threat,”
Rodger
nothing could be done.
The police could show up and do a “welfare check,”
but they had no legal right to search his apartment and
belongings, run a check through the gun registry or take
his guns away without a warrant for probable cause.
And when Rodger told police it was all one big “misunderstanding,” his explanation determined whether
he was going to be committed for treatment – not the
words of his parents, his YouTube videos, nor the opinions of his mental health professionals.
That’s just plain stupid.
We have a system that puts the mentally ill in charge
of their mental health decisions. Come again?
Under Section 5150 of the California Welfare and
Institutions Code, you can only involuntarily commit
someone who is an “immediate threat to himself or
herself due to mental disorder” or “immediate threat to
someone else’s safety” – and then only for 72 hours.
Once the 72-hour hold is over, if the person is not
foaming at the mouth and threatening to harm someone, or expressing thoughts of suicide or homicide, he
or she is released.
Then there’s the other wrinkle: just how much – if
anything – medical insurance will pay out for services.
It makes no sense that a teenager who makes terrible
threats then dismisses them as a “misunderstanding”
gets a pass. I’ve heard friends with family members in
the mental health system describe it as a “revolving
door through hell.” In fact, 75 million American families deal with mental illness, and it can take a toll that
includes breaking up marriages and isolating people.

And then there’s the stigma. I suffer from anxiety.
While it’s not a “serious” illness, it gave me an insight
into the social forces that work against seeking treatment.
When my first child was born in 1999, I had a debilitating case of postpartum depression. Although I could
carry a polite conversation, I also had panic attacks and
“disassociation hallucinations.” The idea that I could
make medical decisions for myself in such a state is
absolutely absurd.
Luckily, I had a husband and extended family