The 27-year-old man who police say shot and killed a California business owner over a Pride flag draped in her store appears to have had a yearslong history of posting disturbing — and often violent — anti-LGBTQ messages on social media.
The suspect, Travis Ikeguchi, gunned down Laura Ann Carleton, 66, on Friday, after confronting her and “yelling many homophobic slurs” over her clothing store’s Pride flag, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at a news conference Monday. Shortly after fleeing the store, Mag.Pi, Ikeguchi was killed in a shootout with law enforcement.
Long history of UNTREATED MENTAL ILLNESS.
Bigotry is not a mental illness, and actually mentally ill people are much more likely to be the victims of violence than to perpetrate it.
Please stop spreading this ableist excuse.
This guy killed someone because he was a violent hateful bigot, and is direct and not at all unexpected result of a violent hateful and bigoted society. That might not be an easy or comfortable reality to deal with, but that’s what it is. Stop scapegoating mentally ill people (who yes, deserve significantly more help and support than we get, but that doesn’t change the fact that society created this, and many other, killers, not mental illness).
No one is scapegoating mentally ill people by stating the fact that there is mental illness that can lead to dangerous and / or criminal behaviour. An estimated 30 to 70 % of all homicidal criminals have at least one mental illness.
It’s also not ableist because “mentally ill people” is not even close to a homogeneous group of people. There are thousands of different mental illnesses and more than 20 % of people in the USA are mentally ill.
No one is saying these people are all murderers.
Please stop trying to push this weird agenda of “some people are just born evil” or made evil or whatever it is you are trying to say. It’s a step forward to recognise how society can prevent criminal behaviour, for example by treating mental illness better. “Evil” does not exist. There is always a reason of why someone behaves the way they do.
No, these people literally need medical intervention and they’d very likely be better, more compassionate, healthier people.
Mental illness is chemical imbalance, inherited conditions and unresolved trauma. Science has answers and therapies, but this group is socially conditioned to avoid addressing their metal health and our society fails (largely in a broken loop full of the same conservatives denying funding) in not making access to care undeniably available, affordable/free and encouraged.
Honest question - where do we draw the line between mental illness and reactionary/far right politics? Noone of sound mind would believe the ludicrous conspiracism that the mainstream conservative media like Fox constantly spews forth - and that’s to say nothing of the more extreme OAN and Infowars.
Case in point - gay and trans people are inherently paedophiles (honestly wtf?)… A super-common talking point that begs the question what do we do about the people (the lunatics stupidly think are) raping our children?
We’ve reached the point in the medicalisation of everything where being an asshole must be a mental health problem because ‘no sane person would think that’. Being irrational and believing lies is not mental illness, it is normal human behaviour. Cruelty is normal human behaviour.
Of course they’re assholes, but that’s not the point - they’re brain-broken delusional, and victims of genuinely unhinged conspiracism. They’re not mutually exclusive.
Believing the transparent, self-contradictory nonsense is absolutely pathological… I assume you think someone that believes they’re Queen Victoria are delusional - where do you draw the line?
Unless this can be proven, it’s a bold claim to say it’s normal human behaviour to be cruel. Current research suggests the opposite. The majority of humans are born with empathy and the desire to help others and be nice.
I think the courts use the criteria that if they knew what they were doing would get them in trouble. Running away, hiding evidence, obscuring identity.
Having beliefs that don’t match the real world isn’t mental illness in of itself.
I’m curious why you jumped to the legal argument. If someone is unaware of the consequences of their actions, it becomes difficult to hold them legally or morally accountable. This is also the basis for an insanity defence.
While having beliefs that don’t match the real world isn’t inherently mental illness - it definitely is beyond a certain point. The clinical definition can be found in DSM5 297.1 (F22).
It’s the difference between “I believe Jesus is my personal lord and saviour” (delusional but understandable) and “I am Jesus… No I can’t swim, but watch me step off this boat and walk on water.” (delusional to a clinically relevant, harmful degree).