Posted on 10/04/2015 3:26:21 AM PDT by tired&retired
A darker picture emerged Friday of slain Umpqua Community College shooter Chris Harper-Mercer as a deeply troubled, anti-religion, anti-government recluse obsessed with guns.
The U.S. Army discharged him just five weeks into basic training in 2008. Records indicate he graduated in 2009 from a high school catering to troubled and special-needs students. Multiple media sources reported Friday he left behind an angry note that is now in the hands of investigators.
The Los Angeles Times said Harper-Mercer's note was several pages long and talked about his anger and depression.
Sofia Camarena of Long Beach, California, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she used to date Harper-Mercer's father."I used to change Chris' diapers when he was a baby," she said, upset after learning that he was the shooter in Thursday's massacre and was himself dead. "He was born with problems. He was hard to discipline. If you told him 'no,' he would scream like you had just hit him."
Camarena said that she had heard Harper-Mercer's mother was having "a hard time" with him and that he attended a special school.
Camarena said she last saw Harper-Mercer when he was 18 and she had asked him how he was doing. "He said he was doing good," said Camarena, whose son went on to marry Harper-Mercer's step-sister.
There are a number of indications that Harper-Mercer had mental health or behavioral issues. His screen name on some social media sites was "lithium love." Lithium is used as a psychiatric medication.
The U.S. Army confirmed Friday it discharged Harper-Mercer just halfway through his 10 weeks of basic training in 2008. "A review of Army records indicate that Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer was in service at Ft. Jackson, S.C., from 5 November-11 December 2008 but discharged for failing to meet the minimum administrative standards to serve in the U.S. Army," said Lt. Col. Ben Garrett.
Garrett declined to elaborate on what those "minimum administrative standards" were.
Amid the dysfunction, there were also hints of normalcy. Harper-Mercer found a home of sorts at the Umpqua Community College Theater Arts Department. He worked as a set designer for the department's spring musical. He took a theater class this summer, confirmed Dr. Rita Cavin, Umpqua Community College interim president, and was listed among the set crew for the department's fall production of Blithe Spirit.
Harper-Mercer was born in the United Kingdom, stepsister Carmen Nesnick told CBS Los Angeles, moving to the United States when he was very young. He grew up in the Torrance area. His parents, Ian Bernard Mercer and Laurel Margaret Harper, divorced in 2006.
Not saying his name is kind of childish. Describing him as another useless POS when mentioning his name would have a bigger impact.
The issue isn’t his name it’s the 24/7 news about what happened for a week that’s the problem.
Good catch! He’s gotta be gay!
See my post 7.
His gofundme account is not at $710K
https://www.gofundme.com/s75ge9y4
Of course, the trolls come out to post and there are the people who are looking for some of that money, too, with their sad story..but for the most part..the comments are supportive.
Now every story about the family of these defective humans is how normal they were, just a nice cuople who loved thier “babe”, they were doting parents who went overboard to love thier child. Im sick, these cretans saw the problems and avoided it, dealt with it, hid it from the outside world. They’re just as much to blame
Since most of these killers have been so crazy that they they couldn't hold a job, there is a high probability that they were receiving SSI payments.
(One exception was Nidal Hasan, who demonstrated that he was bat**** crazy in front of an entire room of psychiatrists at Grand Rounds. The Army's response? Promote him to Major and transfer him! Another was Dylann Roof, who had a felony drug arrest, but the arrest wasn't entered into the system)
If someone is so crazy that he can't hold a job and needs to take my tax dollars to survive, I think it is not unreasonable to tell him that he can't buy a gun. Why aren't individuals who collect SSI disability payments because they are mentally ill included in the NICS data base?
The government has all the information that it needs to prevent the majority of bat**** crazy people from buying guns.
The question is why it doesn't use this information.
I think the point of not mentioning his name is to not encourage other psycho losets like him to seek their own “fame” through a mass killing.
You have a good point. If you are so mentally ill that you can get SSI then you shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun.
A parent gets involved...gets lawyerd-up....screams discrimination......law officers don’t want to get involved in that tar baby.
In a weird twist of fate, Mintz son has autism.
The people I served as an attendant weren’t arrested.....they were COMMITED! Certain people need to be COMMITTED!!! If you acted real odd in HS or at work. Someone might notice it....pass it on to the authorities and if you were really that odd.....they committed you. I do not know who should be responsible to do that.....it could have nasty political overtones.....but certain people don’t belong in society PERIOD
It was the left wingers who demanded that lunatics should be allowed to roam free.....to say it is part of the commie plot is an understatement.
Deja-Newtown
Newtown killer had used the guns registered to his mother.
And getting elected to public office...DeBlasio, H. Clinton, Bill Clinton, Guiterrez...
Prior to de-institutionalization a major degree aberrant behavior resulted in commitment to a psychiatric hospital. The mentally ill were dealt with humanely and their sickness was treated, maybe not as well as it might have been, but it was treated. Now, aberrant behavior continues and if the mentally ill aren't living in cardboard boxes and urinating in the streets, they often end up in jails and prisons. Or dead. Right, the mentally ill are much more "free" today than they were in 1963.
Except that they aren't.
Everyone is a "precious little snowflake". No. Some people are truly evil, and some people are bat**** crazy.
And mommy tonight him to shoot
IMO, mother is as much to blame for the killings as the kid.
Red flags were everywhere. For years. But when you have money.....these things are easier to hide.
IIRC Lanza did try buying a gun himself, but had a panic attack and couldn't complete the transaction. But I don't think he was registered as a prohibited individual with NICS.
I think Lanza should have been included -- and mom would have then needed to make a "straw purchase" of firearms for him. She's dead, of course, but the fact that she was committing a felony with a possible sentence of ten years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000 might have given her pause.
I realize that aspect is one part of it.
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