Enough is Enough!

The last several days have been odd. I had a discouraging telephone call with my long- time editor during which he told me that the only nonfiction books that have been selling lately are partisan political attacks on the opposition or memoirs. He rejected a fabulous true crime idea that I had proposed and said “no”  when I mentioned a possible book about a spy. He already had rejected a book that I wanted to write about homelessness and one that I had proposed about successful programs that are helping persons with mental illnesses.

As you can imagine, since all of my books have been about true crime, spies, or mental illness, it was a depressing conversation that left me wondering if I should have taken my mother’s advice and stuck around at the Washington Post .

And then —

My very talented agent, David Vigliano,  one of New York’s most resourceful literary forces, sold the true crime book that my editor had rejected. I will be writing it for a different editor and different publisher. The next day, a friend of mine from the CIA called and asked me to speak to a group of students about American spies, John A. Walker Jr., and Aldrich Ames, and SVR defector, Sergei Tretyakov.  His class was a blast and asked great questions. And the Washington Post accepted the Op Ed piece  that I had written about the shooting death of David Masters. (See Where is the Community Outrage!)

Which goes to show you that none of us knows what is going to happen tomorrow.

I was feeling pretty smug and then I heard that a young man with mental illness living in my old neighborhood had become psychotic and threatening. His mother and sister had run from the house. His father was out of town on business. The mother called the Fairfax police for help.  After a  brief standoff, the police went inside, confronted and shot the man. (You can read about it here.)

This is a nightmare for all of us with a loved oned who has a mental disorder. I remember how  terrified I was when Mike became psychotic and  I called the police. An officer ended up shooting my son with a taser.  Fortunately, there were no weapons in our house, otherwise, who knows how that encounter might have ended.

Because of the blizzard that struck the East Coast, the news story about the young man was buried in the back pages. I have not seen a follow up story telling us what happened to him because I am on the road,

This is the second shooting of a person with a mental illness here in Fairfax County in the past couple of months.

My friend, Major Sam Cochran, who often is referred to as the father of CIT  (Crisis Intervention Training) for police, told me  that no police department believes it needs CIT until someone dies.  Which makes me wonder how many persons have to be wounded or die before a community looks at its mental health system and  its criminal justice system, and decides that the two need to begin working together to stop preventable tragedies.

A couple of years ago, an untreated young man with mental illness fired automatic weapons at our local police substation and murdered my friend, Detective Vicky Armel, a young wife and mother.  (See story here.) Another  officer, Michael Garbino, also was shot to death before the gunman was killed.  That’s two Fairfax police officers who died needlessly and one person with mental illness named Michael Kennedy.  

 David Masters was shot to death by the police a few months ago and now another young man has been shot. When you also consider that the Va. Tech shooter, who caused the most deadly attack ever on a college campus, came from Fairfax County, you got to ask yourself  :When will the residents of Fairfax County realize its time to pull together and say  “enough is enough.”

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