Fish Out of Water

'Asa Coon grew up in a family where violence seemed commonplace. His older brother, Stephen, was twice charged with both domestic violence and assault by the time he was 13. He was recently released from prison.
Court records show that his father's whereabouts are largely unknown....Asa's home detention officer also noted that the house Asa lived in on West 43rd Street was in a neighborhood plagued by drug trafficking and gangs. Less than a month after the suicide attempt-Asa, then a seventh-grader at Thomas Jefferson School-was suspended for attempting to hurt another student.
'He had issues,' a teacher who once worked at the school said yesterday. 'I was not surprised at all he was the shooter.''

Dagny:

He *wasn't* taking his meds at the time, and that's part of the problem. I don't disagree with what you're saying, but my point is that he had *asked* for help and they had ignored and neglected him.

while both of your viewpoints are valid, it must be recognized that any child who has a developing brain and body and who is taking powerful meds is in harm's way, on or off of them, physiologically. dss, child services, who knows, possibly should have removed him from that environment. too late now.

This case cries out for a common sense response. Several federal agencies are fighting a turf war because each wants its own funded program to trace gun ownership. The FBI program is (or was) called DRUG FIRE. Simple idea: when a gun is used in a crime the weapon is traced from the crime backward to the day it left the factory and thence throughout the chain of legal ownership. When the legal ownership sequence stops a criminal investigation begins. The idea is that all (most) guns first enter the market legally and at some point fall into the wrong hands through an illegal act...theft, unrecorded sale, improper storage, etc. In cases where the FBI program has followed its course individual guns have been tracked from legal manufacture to dealer purchase to a legitimate gun owner to subsequent sales/transfers and ultimately to the hands of a criminal or perhaps a deranged person with homicide/suicide on his mind. Even total gun control does not address this black market aspect. Let's get smart.

Peter, which federal agencies? the simple idea is clearly not working, although it should. how did asa coon get his arsenal of weapons and ammunition, and what is being done about it? why is there such a black market for weapons such as ak-47s in the u.s. that le feel the need to purchase in order to keep up with the 'hoods'?

Fillet:

You're right. There's no question this was a "worst case scenario:" A mentally ill young man with a history of violence in a completely inappropriate setting.

not worse case, epidemic:
'NORRISTOWN, Pa.-A troubled high school teenager accused of plotting a school attack built up a stash of weapons with the help of his mother, authorities said Friday. Michele Cossey, 46, was arrested Friday on charges of illegally buying her home-schooled son, Dillon, a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle with a laser scope. Dillon Cossey's arrest came the same day a 14-year-old in Ohio opened fire at his Cleveland high school, wounding four before killing himself. On his MySpace page, Cossey made frequent references to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and describes their 1999 massacre at Columbine High School as one of his interests. 'I am pretymuch,' he wrote in a badly spelled post, 'the posterboy for the person that rests upon the line between Geineus and Madman/Pycopath.' The boy's father also tried to buy his son a rifle in December 2005, but was not allowed to because he was a felon, according to court records. Frank Cossey, 56, had pleaded guilty in 1981 to manslaughter and spent about six years in prison.'

Yeah, I've been reading and watching the news on this one. You have to wonder what was in the woman's head who bought this kid the guns. Her defense so far was that she was trying to make her son happy.

I have heard the statistic is 30 - 50 % of our kids are on drugs. I think a lot of the behavior can be treated by teacher who have the ability to manage a classroom and administration who are adept at managing schools. It's unfortunate how many teachers don't have this skill. I think it's a lost art, not something you can read in a book.

It is so good to see you speak out FOR mental health treatment and against criminalization. If this boy had been helped (instead of armed!) before, so much pain would have been saved. Why are we so willing to pay for imprisonment and so unwilling to pay for mental health care?

Interesting post, Peter, and I like that quote from Bertrand Russell. Another of his, paraphrased - education is the progressive discovery of the extent of one's ignorance.

Thanks, Jack. Yeah, a couple of BR humdingers about education come to mind: "We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought" is one that made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it, in college. The other is "Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education." ;)

i just think it is so sad when we focus the attention on the kids, like they are the problem. I think when someone in their teens or early twenties acts out this way it's like an alarm on the pulse of the community.
He is crying for help, but it's not just about him needing help. Everyone should have caught on earlier. Overall, what a sad story.

WAKE UP AMERICA.....We treat our prisoners and criminals a lot better than we do our mentally ill. I have a son that is now missing. I have done everything in my power to get him help. We went so far as to have him committed to a mental hospital. They kept him 4 days and put him on a medication he has already been taken off of because of the adverse reaction it had caused. It made him very aggressive and violent. Please do not tell me that it has anything to do with the way they are brought up. He was a preacher before this horrendous disease hit him. He was a responsible young man that went to college on full scholarship, He was kind and gentle. I have tried in the five years he has had this disease to reach out to mental health facilities, police dept., churches, and much research on the internet. It has been a nightmare for everyone, including him. He is now out there somewhere wandering..I pray he does not hurt himself or anyone else..BUT if he does commit a crime THEN they will at least give him a place to sleep and food in his stomach>>>>How is that right?

That's not right at all jc. Maybe some kind of criminal charges should be brought against the pharma co. that produced that drug. And the people who gave it to your son. Bill Maher made a joke that "the govt.'s not your nanny, it's your dealer." big $$$ in pharma drugs...safe or not.
And maybe here's another big part of the problem; If you drive down Storrow drive in Boston, you will see a HUGE sign on a building that actually says, "We own your Congress and Senate. The NRA." Think they might be part of the problem too?
De-regulation of the mental institutions too.
Everything for the buck, and human beings suffer as a result. Hope this nightmare will end for all of you.And I totally agree that we in America need to wake the f up!