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Prospective Fact Check on Monsey Machete Attack
There has already been plenty of finger pointing over the attempted massacre of a group of Orthodox Jewish men in Monsey, New York. The FBI is now on the case. Whatever explanations are offered up, by whatever source, check them against the map and what we have been told about the location of the attack and the attacker’s life.
We are told that the attacker lives in Greenwood Lake and the attack occurred in Monsey, New York. This was not a resident of the same town, rather the attacker had to drive over 20 miles just to get from town to town. Further, we are given that the particular residence, the home of an Orthodox rabbi, was situated in the heart of an Orthodox community. So, the attacker, an outsider from a town 20 miles away, had to somehow know to bypass a number of other homes and to target this home before turning to the more obvious religious building next door.
As to the attacker, we are told by the New York Post that Grafton Thomas lived with his mother, that he had long term mental problems apparently starting in adulthood; that he had rambling hand-written notes and a hand-written resume that was loosely connected with reality. So, how does this fellow end up charging through the rabbi’s door swinging a machete? This is not on the same level as young black men or women accosting people on the street who wear identifiably Jewish garb.
The FBI is on this case, so Attorney General Barr is accountable for the outcome of the investigation. We should expect that he will not accept a coverup; whatever the facts may be, he should insist they be clearly told.
Published in Domestic Policy
I mean holding Black Americans to the same standards we hold everyone else. Have you ever seen video of a reporter trying to get a member of the Congressional Black Caucus to condemn Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism? It’s harder than pulling teeth.
Right. I’m not saying that early and sustained treatment for bona fide mentally ill persons—of which the New York guy appears to have been one—would be guaranteed to prevent any given mentally ill person from engaging in violence, only that it would be my first priority, given the alternatives.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere, by their own admission up to 40% of the black “martyrs” to “police violence” were diagnosed mentally ill at the time of their demise. I think there’s a strong possibility that Michael Brown was psychotic when he met with Officer Darren Wilson.
And I know, from familial experience, that it is difficult to access good mental healthcare for seriously mentally ill patients even when these have access to resources (knowledge, money, determined, loving, well-informed advocates).
I also know that mental illnesses are, statistically speaking, unlikely to lead to violence but very likely to cause significant suffering to those afflicted. Therefore, making the long-overdue major improvements to the availability and accessibility of adequate treatment would have multiple beneficial effects for our mentally-ill fellow-citizens, their families, communities and country, among which could be that random violence would decrease.
Not vanish altogether. Just decrease. Had Mr. Thomas (machete-guy) been adequately treated for his illness, five human beings would not be badly injured, and a whole bunch of others would not be traumatized. Which would be much better.
I am not, by the way, talking about locking up people like Grafton Thomas for the rest of his life: it is not a crime to be sick. It is a crime to attack strangers with a machete and so now that’s exactly what will happen. Mr. Thomas has now —at last—been admitted to the only fully-funded public institutions presently providing long-term mental healthcare, where he will remain forever, at considerable expense to taxpayers and at the cost of the well-being of an entire community.
At least based on what I know now—which may not be nearly enough to be as certain as I know I sound!—the killer at the White Settlement Church of Christ wasn’t diagnosed with schizophrenia, or bipolar, or schizo-affective disorder and thus a better system for treating the severely mentally ill wouldn’t have done much in his case. It’s hard to imagine what would have stopped him other than what, eventually, did.
By the way, if it isn’t obvious, I would prefer that our corrections system be far more assertive when it comes to so-called “minor” or “quality of life” crimes, especially when these are committed by the young. A kid who knocks the hat off a stranger may not, inevitably, be headed for worse and more violent crimes: his arrest presents an opportunity for intervention and re-direction as well as providing a sense of at least temporary safety and minimal justice for his victim.
That New York is moving in the opposite direction—routinely spitting even violent people out within hours of arrest—is, well, crazy.
And mystifying; people who live in New York must certainly be aware of the dangers that surround them – how popular can this new ‘policy’ be?
People get the government they vote for, or fail to vote against.
I’m 100% of the opinion that any government solution will only make this worse.
Cultural solutions can be influenced & exacerbated by government but not changed (for the better) by government.
There are many government “solutions” that we can point to that helped exacerbate the many family & social issues in the black community but the only way back from this in my opinion is to help them reestablish the social & Familial leadership necessary to channel peoples passions in productive & unhateful directions. I don’t mean to single out the Black community i think this is the answer for school shooters & White supremacists etc.