The murder-suicide on the UCLA campus Wednesday fits a wider, disturbing pattern of behavior that is not likely to go away soon, according to one expert. Forensic and behavioral expert Clint Van Zandt spoke with 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning Show and said the mental health issue represents a stubborn challenge for law enforcement.
“Even though there are multiple-type reasons, we see a handgun used, and for many of us, there are almost two categories you’ve got to consider … realizing that last year, we had 42,000 suicides in the United States and we had half a million people attempt suicide and probably millions who thought about doing it. Suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, suicides are at the highest level in about 30 years, right now in this country.”
The problem is, says Van Zandt, we are all getting too used to this sort of tragedy.
“The more times we see somebody commit suicide, like a suicide or a mass murder, the more times we see it, the more times we hear it, we become more and more desensitized. For some people, suicide becomes almost an acceptable way out of whatever situation they’re into. Suicide is the tenth-leading cause of death in the United States. We’ve got about a 115 people every day in this country commit suicide. So we’ve got that mental health issue that obviously we’re not dealing with if it’s at epidemic levels.”
Van Zandt says the UCLA shooting was the 186th shooting on a U.S. campus since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.
“So these two incidents, the gun violence incident and the suicide incident are major challenges for this country and it appears that we’re really not dealing with them very well.”
Van Zandt says these types of incidents can lead other deeply troubled individuals to consider committing the same kind of acts.
“There is the fringe of the fringe – people who sit on the edge of the psychological abyss wondering how they can go out in a big fashion and one of the ways, by witnessing something like that, (is to think) ‘I too can be a famous or an infamous-type person by creating that same level of disturbance.’ ”
Van Zandt was a guest on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning Show with Doug McIntyre and Terri-Rae Elmer.
By Sandy Wells
KABC News