Why Emotionally/Mentally Disturbed Individuals Are Not Reported To School/Work Authorities
President Trump has encouraged people to report emotionally/mentally disturbed individuals to authorities. That seems a good idea except it rarely works. This musing will speak to school situations rather than work situations since I spent my productive years in Universities.
Individuals who commit mass shootings, bomb plants, vehicle crowd assaults, are rarely any surprise to those who know these individuals. I could list dozens of such individuals who were University/College students during the years I taught. Back then they were more likely to target a single individual or a small group of individuals, whereas today they are more likely to consider mass shootings.
I will start with a few personal examples. My first year at one university the Chairperson called my office and asked if I would advise a student for course registration and sign off on her course selections. So I said ok, and the gal showed up. The courses she wanted to take seemed appropriate except for a biochemistry course which she had already taken and gotten a B. “Why are you taking this course over?” “I want to get a better grade in the course”. “Well, why don’t you take courses you haven’t had and wait until your senior year to take any courses over.” “I want to do it now while the material is fresh in my mind.” So I signed her registration form. Several days later the Chairperson calls me and says “What the hell did you do? Why did you sign her up for Biochemistry, she has had the course”. “I didn’t know there was a rule against taking a course over and she was very insistent.”
“Look, she took that course last year and tried to shoot the Professor. I sent her to you so she would have a neutral advisor.” A student tries to shoot the Professor and she is still in the University. Seemed odd to me. And the solution was to give her a neutral advisor?
Another student, a bright and eager, ever with questions, student in my class started sitting way back in the corner and had no more endless questions. I called the student in my office and asked why he was sitting back in the corner and so quiet. Only with pressure did he confess he was scared some local gang members would try to kill him since he witnessed a brutal crime against someone by the gang. He sat in the back corner so no one could spot him from the window in the door. He feared if he reported it, they for sure would kill him or his mother or all the gang members would claim he committed the crime. I told him to give me a day and come back to talk again. No young person should be caught in a trap like that. The crime, whatever it be, was a done deal and I simply wanted the student out of a very unpredictable situation. He had an uncle in another state and I talked with him and arrangements were made for the student to transfer to that state to go to college. I did not report a thing since I, on purpose did not know exactly what the crime committed was, and my job, as his Professor, was to get him in a safe environment. Period. He was traumatized enough.
Another time a faculty member in another department, a nice middle aged female Professor, said that a student would sit in the front row of the classroom and expose himself to her. She was a nervous wreck over what she should do and feared the student might hurt her if she reported it. She wanted to know what I would suggest she do. We went through the possible choices. But in the end I told her she had to go to her Department Chairperson since any course of action I suggested, if she did it, and it didn’t work out, all the blame would be aimed at me since when did I suddenly become the person to deal with such matters? My job was to teach physiology. I really don’t know what happened since we rarely crossed paths and since I assume she went to her Chairperson, and it seemed inappropriate for me to stay involved. Maybe I am just a coward. But the reality was that no one would ever agree that I was the one to take matters into my own hand in this case. If we can’t win, we shouldn’t play.
The examples over the years are numerous, but I will now create a hypothetical but most common scenario. An instructor finds a very emotionally/mentally unstable person in their class. He/she acts out his disturbations (invented this word) and by every logical angle, the student needs to be reported. But, the student is like a junior, and no one else has reported him and the instructor does not want to end up being the target of this disturbed person’s mind. If the student is reported as dangerous to the Chairperson, the Chairperson will call the student in and who reported him become a matter of record. The Chairperson will be no more eager to be the target of this disturbed person than the Instructor, so the Chairperson will turn it over to the Dean. Somewhere along the line some kind of faculty committee will be formed, or attempted to be formed, but chances are no one will agree to be on such a committee. Perhaps the case will be turned over to law enforcement but, having no detailed account of specific acts committed, law enforcement is stymied. All they have is a vague suspicion with no individual willing to press charges. Then one day the student goes nuts and starts shooting others on campus with an assault rifle. All students who knew the student and all the faulty who did, will unanimously comment that “they are not surprised this student did something like this”.
I imagine workplaces are even worse where the deranged worker has the same bosses year after year. In a university a Professor just has to keep the deranged student from becoming unhitched during his/her time in their course for one semester.
I had a neat Chairperson. She would call me in and say, “You have student X enrolled in your course. He/She is an emotional time bomb, not a good match putting him/her and you in the same classroom.
So she would find, usually some local intimidating ghetto attired student another Professor was fretting about and switch sections for the students in question. There are not a lot of advantages being a bit off the wall with one’s personality, but in these cases it worked out well for me. Give me a ‘thug’ over a emotionally/mentally disturbed student any day. Trying to have a conversation with someone whose mind is such you have no idea how they will process what you are saying, is a very shaky situation. Reason or logic will not rule the day.
So when politicians demand others report these emotionally/ mentally disturbed people to authorities, they have no perception of what life with these people is like on the front lines. In almost all cases, those with the biggest titles and highest salaries are aware of these students or workers and their mental state. Let them turn in these people and personally make the case against them.
It is not going to happen. The bottom line—no one wants to be the one who becomes the target for any anger from the deranged suspect. Another problem, can we really commit someone who has never committed a serious crime before? The whole issue here is fraught with indecision and unpredictability.
So what is the solution? Maybe someone should get the military budget under control. Producing more bombs and amazing weapons of mass destruction is inane. We haven’t won a war since Korea (and that was a draw) with vastly superior weapons of mass destruction. We went from being somewhat more powerful militarily to becoming more powerful than all the other industrialized countries in the world. And yet we haven’t won a war since Korea. War has changed and victory is not won by uniformed soldiers on battlefields.
At any rate we need money for infrastructure rebuilding, and among other things, more money for treating mentally ill people instead of just leaving them loose in society until they snap. Perhaps all faculty and bosses, and workers should be required to turn in a secret ballot in which one question is asked about each student in a class or worker on a job as to whether they seem emotionally/mentally disturbed enough to snap and hurt a lot of people from their rage. When the flag hits a certain level the person is then given adequate mental health attention until they are safe to be out and about in society.
Do we really think that most instructors or bosses, with family of their own to support, are going to individually turn in an emotionally/mentally disturbed student or worker and thus play Russian roulette with their own lives? It doesn’t seem to happen too often does it? Most of us have known plenty of these emotionally or deranged individuals and how many of us take it upon ourselves to have them hauled in for questioning? How many deranged persons live in a building or work on a job or attend a school for years without anyone being willing to step forward and personally demand they be removed? No, we all tippy toe around, being polite as hell to the time bomb in question hoping someone else will put their foot down and get rid of them. More likely, the day will come and bam—the person in question snaps and kills/wounds one, two, or dozens of innocent people. Not a very good game we have going on here.
Of course the bigger question is: Why is this becoming so common around the world at this point in history? I am pondering this right now. If one likes to ponder matters, this current age is like endless Christmas presents.
