-- As the country reels from yet another mass school shooting, the mental health industry watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International urges a review of the country’s mental and behavioral programs and curricula in schools since the Columbine high school shooting in 1999. CCHR shares in the nation’s condolences to the students tragically lost in the Oxford High School, Michigan shooting, and to their families, other students and teachers. It sees the need for an investigation into what happened at the school where the perpetrator had behavioral meetings before and on the day of the shootings, yet returned to school.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said there was a “very strong possibility” the alleged teen perpetrator had the weapon on him during the meeting.[1] Yet, Oxford Community Schools Superintendent Tim Throne acknowledged: “At no time did counselors believe the student might harm others based on his behavior, responses and demeanor, which appeared calm.” Yet, “counselors asked specific probing questions regarding the potential for self-harm or harm to others,” Throne said.[2] Experts say psychological and psychiatric assessments unscientific and unreliable.
CCHR is concerned that since the Columbine school massacre 22 years ago, it is estimated that many millions of dollars have been invested in adding school psychologists, behavioral services and psychological curricula in schools, yet heinous acts of violence continue. It reported similar concerns in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, that left 17 dead and some 15 injured, after the teenager responsible had spent years attending a behavioral clinic. Police were called to his home 36 times, yet a therapist with the center opined the teen “to be no threat to anyone or himself” in 2016.[3]
“There is no instrument that is specifically useful or validated for identifying potential school shooters or mass murderers,” according to Stephen D. Hart, a psychologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, quoted in The Washington Post in 2013. Even the American Psychiatric Association has admitted, “Psychiatric expertise in the prediction of ‘dangerousness’ is not established….”[4] Yet, taxpayer funds continue to be funneled into such evaluations and programs.
CCHR has researched and documented the impact of psychological programming entering the school curricula since the mid-20th century with students being referred to an influx of school psychologists and outside psychiatrists. Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Foundation said psychologically based school programs have harmed children: “It’s mind control from womb to tomb.”[5]
For example, “death education,” a psychological experiment in schools since the 1970s, required children to discuss suicide, and write their own wills and epitaphs. Parents and educators cite the Columbine high school teen shooters as examples of the failure of “anger management” and “death education.” The two boys had attended court-ordered psychological counseling, including “anger management.” In his death education class, the ringleader was told to imagine and write about his own death. His essay was about he and his friend going on a shooting rampage in a shopping center. After turning the story in, the teens acted it out by killing a teacher, their classmates and themselves.[6]
One was also taking an antidepressant, fluvoxamine, that can cause violent mania. In a clinical trial of the drug, 4% treated with fluvoxamine experienced manic reactions, compared to none of the placebo patients.[7] Mania is described as a “form of psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur…and overproduction of ideas.”[8] And all of this while being indoctrinated with bizarre “death education” in school.
CCHR says the behavior modification and mind-altering drugs are not an excuse for committing a crime—and there can be other factors involved as investigations into the most recent massacre may determine—but when evaluating the increasing acts of violence in the school system, it is imperative to also look at what programs or “reforms” may be in use and whether the perpetrator was a participant in these. Regardless, such programs need to be held to account for reducing crime, not increasing it.
David Kirschner, Ph.D., a New York forensic psychologist who has tested and/or evaluated thirty teenage and young adult murderers, pointed out that “almost all of them had been in some kind of ‘treatment,’ usually short term and psychoactive drug-oriented, before they killed.”[9]
Four years ago, another Oxford High School student was charged in a mass shooting. The school implemented a mental health program for students which they considered helpful, and it was a voluntary avenue through which they could share their concerns.[10]
CCHR said this may have been helpful, but too many invasive b being used and have not proven to be effective in reducing violence. This prompted the group’s 64-page report, Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence and Suicide, which urges educational and legislative policy makers to read. “We cannot keep pouring money into systems that don’t work,” CCHR summates.
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[1] Matt Mcnulty, “Prosecutor reveals boy, 15, who shot four dead at Michigan high school had gun in his bag during meeting about his behavior with his parents and teachers just before the massacre and questions why he was allowed to go back to class,” Daily Mail, 3 Dec. 2021, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10270625/Michigan-school-shooter-15-gun-bag-meeting-teachers-parents.html
[2] www.thetruthaboutguns.com/an-independent-investigator-will-probe-schools-role-in-the-oxford-high-school-shooting/
[3] “Psychotropic Drugs Create Violence & Suicide,” CCHR International, pp. 2, 18, www.cchrint.org/pdfs/violence-report.pdf; “Florida School Shooter: Timeline on Mental Health System’s Behavioral and Drug Treatment Failure to Prevent Senseless Violence,” CCHR International, www.cchrint.org/florida-school-shooter-timeline/
[4] “Psychotropic Drugs Create Violence & Suicide,” CCHR International, p. 18
[5] Thomas A. DeWeese, Press Statement for the American Policy Foundation, 21 June 1995
[6] Richard Restak, “The ‘inner child, the ‘true self’ and the wacky map of Eupsychia,” The Washington Times, 18 Aug. 2002, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2002/aug/18/20020818-040825-5515r/
[7] www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007/021519lbl.pdf
[8] Arianna Huffington, “Antidepressants—As Dangerous as Guns?” The New York Post, May 8, 1999
[9] “Mass Murderers and Psychiatric Drugs,” Behaviorism and Mental Health, 22 Sept. 2014, behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2014/09/22/mass-murderers-and-psychiatric-drugs/.
[10] “Oxford High earned national media attention for its mental health program a few years before it became the scene of a mass shooting,” Netscope, 2 Dec. 2021, www.businessinsider.com/oxford-high-school-shooting-mental-health-program-michigan-2021-12?op=1
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