"Reclusive, Fanatical Parents to Blame for Massacre?"
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 01/10/2011 6:51:58 PM PST by kristinn
Reporting from Tucson — The parents of Jared Lee Loughner, accused of shooting Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people, were huddled in seclusion in their Tucson home Monday night, his father crying and his mother so shaken she could not get out of bed, a neighbor told The Times.
As the sun was beginning to set Monday, Randy Loughner called his neighbor, retired gasoline truck driver Wayne Smith, 70, to ask him to get their mail. Smith, who is not particularly close to the Loughners, grabbed the mail and was invited inside.
"They're in there now," Smith said in a subsequent interview with The Times. "They're both in there crying. He's crying and hanging on to me and she's not even out of bed."
Smith described the Loughners as very private and said they knew few people on their street, although they had lived in the neighborhood since before Jared, 22, was born. He said Jared was their only child. Smith said Loughner's mother, Amy, had a good job with good retirement and pay, and Randy was a stay-at-home dad who liked to work on cars.
"He worshipped the boy," Smith said.
SNIP
All three wept together outside on Saturday. "We stood right out there and cried for an hour. I'm a softie," Smith said. "A man needs compassion. He's broken up about his son, but also about all those people who died."
Smith said the family is intensely private. "The best way I can describe it, they're like a mountain man," he said. "They want to be alone."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Most criminals do
a) have parents
b) know what they are doing is wrong
I agree. The sins of the father should not be visited upon the son, but the sins of the son should also not be visited upon the father.
Then there are good routes and you have your carrier for years and years, and you never find a misdelivery.
Remember, the customers make a route a good route or a bad route ~ not the carriers.
So what are you guys saying?
To those of you unsympathetic, if indeed it is the case that he is a schizophrenic, which often evidences itself in the late teens and early 20’s, then I can describe for you what happened.
It starts with a loved one who is good, kind, caring, intelligent and respectful. You raised them as a child and you know who they are. Then, so gradually as to seem natural for a teenager becoming an adult, they start to be a little erratic, perhaps depressed. Things you think are normal for teenagers. It’s a phase.
The first thing that slips away is understanding. You don’t understand them as much as you thought, and they don’t seem to understand you as much. But still, you think it is just their becoming independent, learning how to make their own way in the world, on their own.
Sometimes they are argumentative, sometimes not, it’s just another thing. And things start to build up, but it’s okay, because you love them. Perhaps you worry that they might be using drugs, or hanging out with the wrong crowd.
You are too close to the problem. If they are in school, they start to have problems with learning and getting along. Maybe they just aren’t up for college, or even finishing high school. Perhaps they just have some growing up to do before they can finish their education.
The clinical problems, their isolation, irregular sleep patterns, too much or too little, general unhappiness, these are there, but you may not register them, or not want to register them.
To a stranger, it is obvious that something is very wrong. But to you, denial is easy. How can he be mentally ill and still so functional? He seems to understand. He isn’t violent with you, or not what you think is dangerously so.
This happens a lot. From .3 to .7% of the population, at some point, with 20% of them having it as a permanent condition. This means close to 20 million Americans have schizophrenia to varying degrees.
Perhaps 1 million have the most debilitating and destructive form of the disease, the onset of which is described above.
Almost invariably, their family is pushed to the point where they cannot take it anymore. Usually they kick out the schizophrenic, or the schizophrenic just leaves. This far along, their family writes them off as a tragedy. Most likely they will begin being arrested and released, over and over again, perhaps with some intermittent treatment, but nothing that lasts.
It is cruel as hell. A large percentage end up in prison, where they get little or no treatment, and abundant abuse. Their life is shortened by many years.
Interestingly, schizophrenics who smoke marijuana and/or do other drugs have a highly elevated risk for violence.
Half a fact is as bad as an error.
I don’t have words except I’m sorry.
Spot on post, silverleaf.
You said it much better than I did a few posts after yours.
I don't blame the parents, the schools or anyone other than the guy himself. We don't have any systems designed to protect ourselves from untreated schizophrenics.
There are dangerous sharks in the ocean and there are dangerous schizophrenics on the land. This is a free country and we're all on our own.
Yes. Thank you for saying that.
The attitudes being expressed toward these parents is just ugly and unworthy of FReepers.
"Reclusive, Fanatical Parents to Blame for Massacre?"
5.56mm
Their son was an adult. I feel for them and what he did is not their fault. They have my sympathy.
Yes.
Sounds like perhaps you’ve had personal experience, like I have, with someone close who desperately needs help and will not seek it voluntarily.
I hope that those making ignorant and uncharitable statements about these people never have to walk in their shoes.
The satanic face in that mug shot plus his inappropriate outbursts of laughter, rambling, red face and clenched fists in the class room make me think this monster needed an exorcist instead of a shrink.
No doubt there are precision serial numbers on these suckers so we can look 'em upon the internet and see who sold them (as if that would have any meaning unless maybe the local grocer is a cult leader)
Agreed. They’ll lose their child. I would want to see my child punish if he did something wicked and yet I cannot help but feel for my kid. He would still be my flesh and blood. Being a parent is the most demanding in the world and when you bring your kids up right and they do you honor, you feel like you did something right. When they go astray, you feel like a failure.
Every parent has felt like King David on the news of losing a child: “Oh my son, my son!”
Where did that come from, you ask?
Perhaps from, as the article states, spending time crying with the parents when they asked him for help. They talked, he listened and learned.
Most damning, he immediately knew what he had done was wrong and tried to flee prosecution. He’s screwed.
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