It seems that we are continually hearing or reading more "bizarre" reports of people doing horrible things. More and more the story accompanies a statement of some sort that there most be a mental problem "for anyone to do that". Obviously there is a "mental" problem compared to most of us. But I wonder if we are not getting "the rest of the story" as a popular commentator used to say.
As I have mentioned here in the past, I was an LEO for 40+ years prior to my retirement. During those years I was directly and indirectly involved in investigations of close to 300 homicides/suicides and over a thousand fatal/serious injury auto wrecks. The situations of many, even most of those, created a question of the mental condition of the individuals involved. When the details were learned from investigation we often did learn a number of factors that seemed to be common in many of the cases, related to "mental condition".
Here in Colorado when investigating injury and fatal auto accidents, tests are conducted to determine the condition of the drivers, fatal or injured. A very large portion of the fatal/injury auto accidents involved drivers with alcohol content in their system. Also in those that I was involved with, up to 15 or more percent of the fatal drivers also tested positive with drugs, including a high proportion of them with Marijuana in their system, with and without alcohol combined. Marijuana was the most common drug found, of all drugs in those cases, perhaps for the reason that Marijuana "is not considered a dangerous drug" by its users, and more commonly used. Other drugs were also found involved in those accidents also, but Marijuana was the most common drug involved in auto accidents that were tested in our area over those years.
Those cases involving actual homicides/suicides that were especially "mental obvious" almost always involved a perpetrator who was high on drugs at the time of the incident, many times Meth, Heroin, Speed, etc., and often Marijuana, many times in combination. Even homicide/suicides that had other contributing reasons for other stresses, often involved alcohol and or drugs at the time of the incident.
In the past few years, after my retirement, I have often wondered how many of the "mental condition" of those who create horrific, "mental" crimes, including those that seem to get the most "political and or racial publicity", are not actually mentally deficient for the same reason the I used to find when I was on duty. Is it just not politically correct to cite drug use contributing to their "mental condition" today, or are we seeing mental cases committing crimes with drugs being the non reported culprit now while just calling it "Mental", and in some cases "racial"?
Obviously not all serious such cases involve drugs and or alcohol, but unless human nature has changed in my lifetime, I suspect that we are not getting "the rest of the story" in many of the almost daily news reports of the horrific incidents.
Not only auto and plane wrecks, but homicides with mothers killing babies and toddlers, spectacular suicides, "suicide by police" such as recent racial incidents, etc, surely have an explanation and I suspect that I have an idea of the explanation for many of them. Many I hear and read about today come close to matching those that I investigated when it was my job to do so in years past.
Just my thoughts and you all may have different points of view.
