Posted on 03/24/2005 7:09:06 AM PST by Nov3
Report: Accused School Shooter Was On Prozac
WEB EXTRA: Red Lake Coverage.
Mar 24, 2005 6:47 am US/Central Red Lake, Minn. (AP) The teenager accused of killing nine people and then himself on the Red Lake Indian Reservation was apparently struggling with depression.
A cultural coordinator at Red Lake Middle School told the Washington Post that Jeffrey Weise was taking the anti-depressant Prozac and was hospitalized for suicidal tendencies at least once.
A bus driver for a local health center told the paper he once drove Weise 60 miles to a psychiatric ward in Thief River Falls. The boy's grandmother also said he suffered from depression.
Students described Weise as a loner. He apparently posted messages on a neo-Nazi Web site, and a computer animation attributed to him shows a person shooting four people, blowing up a police car and committing suicide.
Well isn't that just great. He's on drugs and has access to a policeman's gun.
My wife has a balance problem called vascular loop for which she takes Neurontin. The doctor also keeps trying to put her on Prozac. The one time she was on Prozac, I was really afraid she was going to kill me or herself. I flushed the Prozac and after her mind cleared informed her what it was doing. She went back to the doctor and told him where to stuff his Prozac.
"This drug causes obsessive behavior. I have seen it with my own eyes. It is an incredibly powerful drug that helps some but the side effects have been hidden."
I was wondering on one of the previous threads what kind of meds he was on. Same thing at Columbine but I think it was Paxil. The docs push this stuff like candy. I went in for back pain and my doctor wanted to give me Wellbutrin for stress.
The New York Times, eh? A bleeding-heart liberal rag just trying to put the blame everywhere than where it belongs. My four year old knows that it's WRONG to kill or hurt someone!!
Journalism majors are so pathetic.
I agree, this kid had serious problems.
That said, look at this excerpt from a article written over five years ago.
Drugging kids and school violence
there are four million kids on Ritalin alone, one of the most powerful of the drugs now being given routinely to children in American schools.
snip
We know, for example, that Eric Harris, 18, who, with his friend Dylan Klebold, murdered his fellow students at Columbine, had been taking Luvox, one of the new antidepressant drugs approved in 1997 by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, among children under 18.
We also know that T. J. Solomon, 15, who shot and wounded six classmates at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., on May 20 was on Ritalin for depression. Shawn Cooper, 15, who fired two shotgun rounds, narrowly missing students and teachers at his high school in Notus, Idaho, was also on Ritalin, for bipolar disorder.
Kip Kinkel, 15, was on Ritalin and Prozac. He murdered his parents and then went on to school where he fired on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Also, we know that Mitchell Johnson, the 13-year-old student at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., who mowed down several children and a teacher with his friend Andrew Golden, 11, was on some sort of medication since he was being treated by a psychiatrist.
What is most disturbing, however, is the growing awareness that the increased violence among school children may have more to do with the drugs than with the guns they use to carry out their violence.
snip
The entire article can be found here: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=16165
No. But it is thhe only conclusion one can draw.
Miller Lite!!! No wonder you are such a grouch all the time. Try switching to Coors!
He's dead; he killed himself.
Miller Lite!!! No wonder you are such a grouch all the time. Try switching to Coors!
I speculated in post #4 on the original posting, that he was a ritalim kid. Damn, I hate to be so wrong.
The problem you have here is that this is anecdotal evidence and by no means can be tested to prove any causal relationship. You don't know if these kids would have done the exact same things having not taken the drugs.
My son took Ritalin and Adderall and he committed no crimes. I have taken Prozac and the worst thing that happened to me is that I gained weight.
The responsibility for the actions of these kids is with the kids themselves and their caretakers who failed to understand what they were capable of.
I don't know that Prozac was the first resort. He had also been moved from the high school into a home school plan.
I had atypical seizures misdiagonsoed as as depression.
Put on prozac equivalent.
Dangerous stuff.
I can see how it could lead to killing people.
Learning to spell prozac would lend more credence to your dismissal of its problems.
I don't disagree with your assessment of the NY Times, and I agree that too many times they imply that shirking responsibility is okay due to abuse, drugs, etc., every place except where it belongs. But let's look at that.
You are a responsible parent, since your four year old is being taught right from wrong. This should be the norm. However, both parents of this kid died in horrible circumstances when he was in grade school. He was sent floating.
Your reply to hearing the facts about this kid's troubled childhood emphasizes the difference nicely. Parents ~do~ matter, don't they?
Go to the doctor and tell him you aren't feeling well and are a little depressed and see what happens.
This kid was definitely troubled, but it is an addition to the long list of similar incidents. You know, when someone is stable and married for 40+ years and they stab their wife to death 2 weeks after being prescribed prozac for mild depression, something stinks. And some people will still maintain it was an underlying condition.
This drug is very powerful and must be treated as such. It should not be marketed for PMS!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.