[Music]
PAM SIMON: I walked the schools with the young man who shot me in the chest for two years.
He wasn't mentally ill at that time.
He was a shy little boy who played the saxophone quite well.
[Music]
One in four families in America is affected by mental illness.
Everything from chronic depression to severe schizophrenia.
I think we all know people in our own lives, families, that are dealing with it.
It is a very very difficult issue because if a person is 18 or over, you have to go
through a very difficult court system to get them help if they don't choose to sign up
themselves, check themselves in.
Obviously people suffering from a variety of mental illnesses are not going to choose
to do that.
I know in the case of the Tucson shooter that his parents, though not sophisticated people
and not monied people, did in their own way reach out and it's an underfunded system.
In Arizona alone, in the year of 2011 there were severe cuts in the behavioral health
system especially with the downturn in the economy, there was an upturn in mental illness
domestic violence.
Education and mental health go hand in hand.
In Australia, the Australian education system takes on mental health in the same way that
we, the American education system, has taken on immunization.
You can't enroll in a school in America without having records of immunizations.
I really think we should examine whether we should also have the resources put into and
take on mental health so that children are screened throughout their educational process
and we work hand in hand with parents so that when we see problems, that they can be treated
early.
In the case, again, of the Tucson shooter, teachers—a dear friend of mine was his counselor
is high school, they began to see him spiral out of control.
All they can do legally—educators' hands are very very tied right now—they can express
concern to parents, they cannot do anything themselves as far as getting mental health
services for that child and so often when that happens later in their teenage years,
self-medication happens with drugs and alcohol which then gets them tossed out of school
and then literally on the streets.
So they're now out of everyone's control.
I would highly highly recommend that we look at the stop gaps that we have put in place
that keeps educators from working with mental health and law enforcement.
One of the biggest battles of dealing with mental health is the stigma.
Something that has been much talked about especially in Tucson after the January 8th
shooting and I really applaud many groups that tackling it both in the schools and through
the churches.
There is a program called mental health first aid that's being piloted around the country
and being offered in community centers as well as churches and synagogues and it's a
toolkit for the average citizen to be able to recognize signs of mental illness and again
like regular first aid, it doesn't turn you into a doctor, but it allows you to have some
tools and to know the resources.
So when you see the neighbor boy displaying certain signs, rather than trying to turn
away, you would know where to go.
When I stood in the courtroom for the sentencing for Jared Laufner that would put him in a
jail cell—in an institution—for the rest of his life with numerous life sentences back
to back and we each had the opportunity to address the judge or to the defendant and
several of the victims did.
I was one of the last people to speak and I turned so that I could address him and I
said to him, Jared, you did not choose this illness that caused us to all be in this courtroom
today.
And I ask him knowing that he wasn't going to be able to answer, do you remember at Tortelita
Middle School and I was there too.
You were just an ordinary kid that liked to play the saxophone.
And it his truly truly unfortunate that you didn't get the help that you needed then and
that you had the ability to get a weapon that caused so many heartache.
And when I went back to sit down at the seats, Gabby reached up with her working left hand
and pulled me down and said "thank you."
So I can only imagine in Gabby's limited ability to converse right now that I maybe said some
of the things that were also in her heart, so I'm hoping against hope that this horrific
experience will change the tide.
I'm Pamela Simon.
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