Editorial : Tucson shooting should remind campus to look out for troubled peers
On Jan. 8, authorities arrested 22-year-old Jared Loughner for shooting more than a dozen people at a political rally for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz. The massacre resulted in six deaths and many more injuries.
Since the shootings, a number of Loughner’s peers and faculty at Pima Community College came forward with stories and descriptions of a young man who they believed to be deeply troubled and potentially violent. The tragic event should be a reminder to Syracuse University students, faculty and staff to speak up and help those who show worrisome signs.
It took multiple outbursts and a threatening YouTube video posted by Loughner to get PCC officials to take action and order him to get help. Troubling signs shouldn’t escalate to threatening or dangerous behavior before peers or professors care enough to speak up.
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates 5 percent of Americans have a ‘serious mental illness,’ and mental illness is especially prevalent in young adults. SU provides numerous outlets — the SU Counseling Center, the Rape Advocacy, Prevention and Education Center, Hendricks Chapel — to seek personal help or advice on helping another.
College students may be busy and at times self-involved, but the shootings are a reminder that a campus like SU or a city like Tucson is a community that will suffer when people are apathetic about the signs of mental illness. Members of this campus have an obligation to look out for one another so that people can receive help early and find a path to get better.
It is also prudent to remember that no formal diagnosis of Loughner has been released. And while experts say it is almost certain he suffers from a form of paranoid schizophrenia, they have also been fast to remind the public that this young man is a very rare case.
Violence is a symptom of only a handful of mental illnesses. When discussing the shooting, people and the media should be wary of reinforcing a stigma that mental illness should be feared. Rather, the massacre should act as a catalyst for more accessible help for the mentally ill.
