A few days ago, a 26-year-old man attacked a kindergarten in the Ulyanovsk region. The victims were the teacher’s assistant (she survived the injury), the teacher herself, and two children. Many people ask: why did the target of the shooter become a kindergarten? Does he have an injury related to this institution? Could something have provoked him? According to the expert, this is the wrong direction for thinking — the cause of the tragedy must be sought elsewhere.
Did the killer have a specific motive? Is the choice of children as victims a cold calculation or a tragic accident? And why do doctors and the shooter’s family bear special responsibility? About it talked to psychiatrist Alina Evdokimova.
Arrow motif
According to the expert, in this case, one should not talk about some kind of motive, but about the psychological illness of the killer — this is the reason why he committed the crime. And it’s most likely schizophrenia.
“The fact that the victims were two children and a nanny is a tragic accident,” emphasizes the psychiatrist. — Children and the garden have nothing to do with it, you should not look for a relationship. When a patient has a crazy idea in his head, he is guided by voices, and he is not aware of his actions.
This means that both the place and the victims of the tragedy were chosen without any purpose. The shooter did not want to «convey» or «say» anything with his act — and he could well have attacked a grocery store or a movie theater that happened to be in his way.
Who is responsible for what happened
If a person took up arms and attacked others, is he not to blame? Undoubtedly. But what if he is sick and cannot control his behavior? In this case, the responsibility lies with the doctors and his family.
According to the mother of the shooter, after the 8th grade he withdrew into himself: he stopped communicating with others, switched to home schooling and was observed in a psychiatric hospital. And when he grew up, he stopped being observed. Yes, according to the papers, the man visited a psychiatrist three times last year — in July, August and September. But in fact, as his mother admits, he has not addressed anyone for a long time.
What does it say? The fact that the observation of the patient was formal, and from two sides. On the one hand, the employees of the medical institution, most likely, were negligent in their work. Monitoring the patient, according to Alina Evdokimova, is the primary prevention of committing socially dangerous actions. With schizophrenia, a man had to visit a doctor at least once a month, as well as take pills or give injections. In reality, he was apparently ticked off to attend even when he was not undergoing treatment.
On the other hand, the course of the disease and whether the patient is being treated or not should have been monitored by relatives.
After all, the fact that a man needs help, his mother should have understood from his behavior a long time ago — when she had to register her son with a psychiatrist as a teenager. But for some reason she decided not to acknowledge or ignore the diagnosis. And, as a result, did not begin to help with treatment.
Unfortunately, as the expert notes, such behavior is not uncommon. In such tragedies, most parents claim that they did not suspect that something was wrong with their son or daughter — although they note a change in behavior. And this is the main problem.
“In 70% of cases, relatives deny mental disorders in their loved ones and prevent their observation in the dispensary. It is with this that we need to work — so that the relatives of the mentally ill talk about their condition, seek treatment on time, stop being ashamed and hide their heads in the sand. And then, perhaps, the number of crimes committed by mentally ill people will decrease.”
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