Even then, psychiatrists do not come forward to discuss the psychiatric aspects of color-aroused rage and hatred. Note that few if any stories about this case and the case below quote a psychiatrist about the color-aroused nature of the crime. Yet, if eight people had died simultaneously of heart attacks, medical doctors would certainly be contacted to offer their expertise.
The Washington Post reports today:
Woman says Conn. shooter complained of race bias
MANCHESTER, Conn. -- A woman who knows the driver who fatally shot at least eight co-workers and himself at a Connecticut beer distribution company says he had complained of racial harassment at work.
Joanne Hannah says her daughter dated Omar Thornton for the past eight years. She says her daughter had no indication he planned anything violent Tuesday morning after he was asked to resign from Hartford Distributors and refused.
Hannah says Thornton, a black man, had complained to his superiors about a picture of a noose and a racial epithet in a bathroom at the distributor. Her daughter told her the supervisors did not respond to his complaints.
Hannah says Thornton called his own mother after the rampage "to say goodbye and that he loved everybody."
This case reminds me of the case of Doug Williams, a Lockheed/Martin employee who shot and killed several of his colleagues on the same morning when he was to participate in yet another "sensitivity training." The New York Times reported on August 10, 2003:
Factory Killer Had a Known History of Anger and Racial Taunts
MERIDIAN, Miss., July 9— When he overheard a black man complimenting a white woman a couple of years ago on the factory floor, Doug Williams stepped up to the man and, using a racial slur, angrily told him blacks had no business being with blond women, witnesses recalled today.
When a black colleague complained last month that the white protective shoe-covering Mr. Williams was wearing on his head looked like a Ku Klux Klansman's pointy hood, and his boss at the Lockheed Martin aircraft parts plant a few miles outside of Meridian told him to take the bootie off his head or go home, Mr. Williams went home, company officials said today
On Monday, Mr. Williams, 48, told his father he was ticked off that he would have to attend an ethics and sensitivity training course the next morning, the authorities say. A few minutes after it began, Mr. Williams left the room, returned from his pickup truck armed to the teeth, and began blasting away at close range at people who had known him, and known of his quick temper and simmering hatred, for years.
Is sensitivity training really the only possible intervention for people who present clearly demonstrated that they present a danger to themselves and others? Yes, without the intervention of the medical profession, only "sensitivity training" will be available to those who are armed and planning to murder their co-workers.
'Medicalizing the intent to kill co-workers would obviously force color-aroused people into counseling, even before they killed anyone. We should be careful,' saith I ironically, 'not to medicalize mass killers, calling them "sick", lest everyone who is potentially a mass killer find themselves labeled and painted with the same "I need help with color-aroused anger" brush. At least that's the mentality that reigns in such decisions about treating a color-aroused worker and his color-aroused co-workers.
I wonder why the one-day "sensitivity training", if there was one for him and his co-workers, was unable to prevent a deeply troubled man from commiting a deeply troubled color-aroused act? I guess one-day trainings might not be sufficient for those who are armed and would like to slauhgter their co-worker.
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