By: Mary Mostert, Analyst
It was an incredible week-end. I heard the first report on the shooting in the Capitol in my car when an announcer broke in with the words, "There has been a shooting in the Capitol building in Washington. All we know at this point is that 5-7 shots were fired and members of congress and their staffs are locked in there offices."
Before the full story was known, before the officers were pronounced dead, the incident was being used by the anti-gun lobby to push for stronger gun laws. In fact, at one point a somewhat testy Bernard Shaw on CNN snapped at a reporter on the lawn at the Capitol, who was relaying a Democrat Congressman's swipe at the Republicans for not "approving tougher gun laws."
"I don't want to hear political comments. Do you have any NEWS about what has actually happened?" That was an encouraging moment for me. It told me that at least one anchor at CNN knows the difference between news and political commentary.
Over the next two days, the story gradually unfolded. The officers had prevented the gunman from penetrating the Capitol building. They had, as Rep. Bill Thomas, a Republican from California, said on camera, "The officers gave their lives to protect three members of my staff." Three of Rep. Thomas' staff members were in the office when the gunman broke through security, shot Officer Chestnut, and ran about 10-15 feet to the door that Officer John Gibson was guarding. He had just told the staffers to "get down and not leave the office." As the gunman, schizophrenic Eugene Weston, Jr., tried to get into the suite of offices, which are the offices of the leaders, Gibson opened fire. Gibson was shot and died a few hours later at the hospital.
It is a story of incredible pathos. Even the commentators who never miss an opportunity to look for some person or group to condemn seemed to be having problems with this story. Everyone involved is a victim, even the gunman, who is a victim of a tragic mental disease.
And, there also is an abundance of heros. Certainly the two officers are heroic, and they deserve to be given a hero's honor in death. Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, a heart surgeon, is a hero. Hearing of the shootings, rushed to the scene to help. His patient, whom he kept alive with his expertise in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, turned out to be the gunman.
Scott D. Hatch, Majority Whip Tom DeLay's floor assistant, "is a real hero," the congressman told reporters. Hatch was working at his computer, when he was jolted by the sound of gunshots. He looked at Officer Gibson, scrambled out of his seat and rushed to the back office, ordering staff members to follow him along the way, shouting at them to lie flat on the floor. He was just in time. Eugene Weston was already inside. Gibson shouted at Joe Connolly, a 22-year-old systems' analyst, ordering him to duck for cover under his desk. Then he fired his weapon. Shots rang out, followed by a loud clunk on the desk. The gunman's weapon had hurtled from his hand and landed on top of Connolly's desk and Weston, bleeding profusely, lay wounded and bloody just inches away from the dying John Gibson.
When it was over, Congressman DeLay gathered his staff and said a prayer for Officer Gibson. Fighting back tears Congressman Delay told reporters that Gibson died to save the lives of members of his staff. Rep. Thomas, his voice breaking, praised Officer Gibson's quick and courageous action in protecting the lives of his staffers. He was asked immediately if security would be tightened at the Capitol responded firmly, "We will not cower in fear and shut down this Capitol."
And, what of the gunman? He is no less a tragic figure. A seemingly normal child, if quiet, the man who killed two police officers inside the United States Capitol suffered developed schizophrenia in adulthood. He had driven 700 miles from his parents' Illinois farm town to Washngton. The Chicago Sun-Times Sunday tried to find a story in the fact that, although he had been in a state mental hospital in Montana, over verbalized threats to the President, he was dubbed a "low level threat" by the Secret Service two years ago and released. He had even been given an Illinois Firearm Ownership Identification card, in spite of his mental problems in Montana.
Illinois law requires State Police to deny a Firearm Ownership Identification card to anybody who has been an in-patient in a mental institution in the last five years. But, they didn't know about the Montana hospitalization.
But, what difference did all that conjecture make? He didn't BUY a firearm. He stole them. Immediately the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence saw a publicity opportunity and told the Sun Times that more laws are needed "to rectify" the problem. They want a nationwide medical identification scheme.
Rather than identify and address the problem we clearly are having, that of seriously mentally ill people not being cared for, we seem determined to abandon liberty for the entire nation in search of some mythical utopia that imprisons the majority while allowing dangerous members of society to wander about freely
Severe mental illnesses affects some five million American adults, according to recent statistics. Overall, one in ten Americans experience "some disability from a diagnosable mental illness in the course of any given year." If that figure is accurate, it means approximately twenty six MILLION Americans each year would be affected by mental illness. In 1959, with a population of 177 million, compared with today's 267 million Americans, there were only one half million people in mental institutions – and homelessness was not a problem.
Where are all these mentally ill people in America and how do they survive? They are living on the public dole, largely. The United States spends more than $150 billion each year for treatment, for the costs of social service and disability payments made to patients, and for lost productivity and premature mortality. Schizophrenia alone costs the Nation some $30 billion annually.
How did Eugene Weston get the money for the truck and the gasoline to drive from Montana to Illinois to Washington? Probably from his disability check.
E. Fuller Torrey, MD, wrote in the Harvard Medical School Mental Health Letter of August 1989, "The homeless mentally ill are a product of the best of intentions followed by the worst of operations. They are the result of deinstitutionalization, the policy which evolved in the 1950s and '60s to shift care of the seriously mentally ill from state mental hospitals to community facilities. The policy is reasonable in theory, but in practice has proved to be a disgrace to the mental health professions and a national tragedy.
"In most studies, about a third of the homeless are judged to be mentally ill; another third have alcohol or drug problems or both; and the rest are homeless for economic reasons. (These categories overlap somewhat, especially the first two.) Almost all the mentally ill homeless are suffering from either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, although many have other disorders as well."
Eugene Weston, like Ted Kaczynski, lived in a shack in the Montana woods. In 1955 both men would have been in mental hospitals, which then had 550,000 residents. "With the introduction of antipsychotic drugs, it became feasible to discharge many of these patients and admit fewer new ones," Dr. Torrey wrote. "By 1985 the total population had decreased 80 percent, to 110,000. The connection between this policy and homelessness is now clear; for example, a recent study of 132 patients discharged from state mental hospitals in Ohio found that within 6 months, 36 percent of them were living on the streets or in public shelters.
"The failure of deinstitutionalization has many causes. One is the misuse of federally funded community mental health centers (CMHCs). They were originally conceived as alternatives to state mental hospitals for the treatment of the seriously mentally ill. A few of the 789 CMHCs accepted that responsibility, but most evolved into counseling and psychotherapy centers for people with much less serious problems. Counseling is an infinitely expansible need with a high capacity for diverting public resources.
"Another cause of homelessness is the states' attempt to shift their costs to the federal government. In 1955 the federal government paid for 2 percent of the care of the seriously mentally ill; in 1985, it paid 38 percent. This increase has come about through the extension of such programs as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). States now have a strong incentive to reduce the capacity of their own mental hospitals and try to place patients on the psychiatric wards of general hospitals where Medicaid pays most of the cost. Many general hospitals do not want these patients, however, so not enough beds are provided for them."
Since this was written, the problem has multiplied. While the actual numbers of mentally ill appears to have multiplied by ten, have about one-tenth the beds for mentally ill people we have forty years ago. Is it surprising that we are experiencing one killing after another – not all of them by guns – by mentally deranged people? We live in a society which no longer wants to take the responsibility for actually caring about the sick, the mentally retarded, the helpless. We have become a society that confuses compassion with passing some bill or other to get elected. We no longer care enough to actually try to help them. Every social problem today now is "solved," whatever it is, by appropriating more and more tax money to pay "professionals" salaries, while allowing seriously mentally ill or retarded patients to sleep on sidewalks and back alleys.
"Finally," Dr. Torrey concluded, "mental health professionals, both as individuals and in their professional societies, have failed the mentally ill homeless. Only a few professionals contribute pro bono services to this neediest group of patients; the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Association of Social Workers have confined their efforts mostly to public statements of concern and periodic ceremonial hand-wringing."
We have become a nation of ceremonial hand wringers who confuse talking about a problem with DOING something about a problem. Forty years ago the mentally ill population was less than 1% of the population, and we had 550,000 hospital bed occupied by mentally ill. Today the "experts" are saying it is nearly 10% of our population, 26.7 million people, are mentally ill and we have 110,000 mental hospital beds? Perhaps paying people to do nothing but collect paychecks as long as they are labeled "mentally ill," while depriving the rest of the population of guns with which to defend themselves when they become violent is not working?
The mentally ill need our concern and help – and they need to work for their upkeep when in a rational state. Anyone capable of doing what Weston and Kaczynski were able to do in surviving in the woods, could have worked at something, if allowed to do so, and supervised in their living arrangements at night, could been contributing members of society. The big problem with schizophrenics, I learned as a volunteer for my Church at a State mental hospital, is that, unsupervised, they almost invariably fail to take their medicine which allows them to live normal lives. What good does it do them if medicines exist to help them, but they are too mentally disturbed to take their medicines regularly without supervision? They either are being allowed to roam the countryside, spending their entitlement checks, or they are locked up in a jail, prison or hospital for the criminally insane.
The great tragedy of the Capitol gunman is simply: Surely we as a society can do better than this. As Dr. Torrey says, we have to care more for our fellow man than to allow this sort of thing to continue.
To comment: mmostert@waveshift.com