It's a terrible way to begin a new year -- an attempted assassination of Congresswoman, Gabrielle Gifford, and death of six people. It appears the suspect has been behaving oddly for some time and posted incoherent rantings on the internet. According to this New York Times article, those around the suspect, Jared L Loughner, have noticed that his behavior had become increasingly odd. So much so, the community college would not allow him to return to college without a mental health evaluation.
The media, politicians, and others reflected today that if the political discourse were less acid, this might not have happened. Perhaps.
I add another reflection. Maybe when community members do notice increased odd behaviors of someone, our society should allow someone to actually take action instead of turning away from the person. Jared L. Loughner's odd behaviors led to isolation, but free, because people turned away from him. Perhaps if the community college made him take a mental evaluation test and forced help/therapy, he may not have been free to attempt such tragedy. Or perhaps it could have been friends or family that forced him to be evaluated and treatment. It seems that even when people recognized that someone seemed like they need help, our society wasn't (and still isn't) set up to force help on that person... which led to harm. Perhaps that's something we could think about too as we reflect what happened on January 8, 2011.
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