1 Boring Old Man

I just watched the evening news where NBC was criticized for airing the material from Cho. And I got a comment here and on email about my supporting their airing. So I’ll just elaborate on why I, at least, would support making it public. First, the objections are that it’s playing into the killer’s wishes, that it may stimulate copy-cats, and that it’s insensitive to the families. Those are all good points, and I’ll not try to argue with them.

My immediate reaction was that this was the work of a severly mentally ill person. That was because of my career as a Psychiatrist. I "smelled" it out of familiarity with chronic psychosis and paranoia. I’m sure other mental illness professionals felt the same way. But the general population did not smell it for very understandable reasons.

So I think showing those tapes has two positive and important functions. First, people need to know that illness when they see it, and they need to know why it is so dangerous. Second, the Cho’s of America are underserved by our mental health systems. We treat mental illness in the community, not in hospitals. But there are a small group of people who need to be hospitalized for a long time because they don’t respond. They may not be eminently dangerous, but they are as potentially as dangerous as Cho. Such people need to be followed closely for their own sake and the sake of others. I want the public to know about the "hole" in our systems of care and to become a force in addressing solutions.

Finally, when something like this happens, our fantasies of what’s in the mind of the perpetrator are often modelled on the versions from Grade B movies – some evil "fiend." Cho was something else – a desparately ill, internally tortured person who needed to be in an environment where he was safely contained, respected, and offered treatment that might have helped him. I don’t think that showing what Cho really was is worse than our projections of what we thought he was.

And yet, were I the parent of one of those kids, I might be mad that those tapes were released. I wouldn’t want to be confronted with my child’s killer until I was ready and made that choice myself. I actually wish NBC had consulted the parents, not to ask them to make the decision, but as a way of honoring their grief – perhaps allowing them to participate in deciding when, and in what format, the information should be released.