Jabari Dean, Laquan McDonald

My thinking is that Everyone Needs Therapy is out of control. Not that I'll stop blogging there, because it isn't necessarily a bad thing, writing endlessly about things that matter mostly to me, but maybe I'll blog here, too.

See, lately the news is so disturbing I think (I feel) it deserves a whole new place for discussion. We can't just watch TV and ignore what's going on. Supergirl will not solve our problems. Let's bring them over here, spin like we used to in the old days.

University of Chicago shuts down, violence threat

 Moving costs are minimal.

For example, the University of Chicago shut down Monday. Why?

A year ago, on October 20, 2014, Chicago police officer, Jason Van Dyke put 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald (17) killing the teenager. The city immediately paid the McDonald family five million dollars, but didn't release the gruesome video of the murder until last week.

As if this could go away, a video like that.

It is an egregious crime, and Chicagoans are looking for retribution. Heads must roll, and already Police Chief Garry McCarthy has lost his job, despite reducing crime in Chicago.


This week an engineering student, Jabari Dean (21), studying at University of Illinois at Chicago, angry about Laquan's murder, posted on social media that for every bullet Jason Van Dyke discharged into Laquan McDonald, one student at University of Chicago would be shot. That would be 16 murders.

Laquan McDonald and Jason Van Dyke

The examiner lists the 16 wounds one by one: left scalp, neck, chest, elbow, arms, legs, hand, back. Nine of the gunshots entered from the back.

Mr. Dean took the post down, but not before someone reported it to the FBI.

A judge ruled that he get a psychiatric evaluation and released him to the custody of his mother, house arrest. Neither he or his mother are allowed to have a gun. He can go to class, but can't use the Internet.

That psychiatric evaluation and hopefully treatment, whether in or out of prison, better do a yeoman's job.

This is exactly the intersection we've been talking about, the place where people with mental illness who have a history with mental health professionals, somehow get lost, nobody follows up, and then, one day, at a movie theater or a school, people are shot.

It could be that Jabari merely meant to say, In a perfect world. . . one bullet in an innocent black student should be grounds for one bullet in an innocent white student, which in and of itself is a terrible thought, an unjust, irrational form of retribution. But it isn't a threat, and it isn't specific. I heard that Jabari had a specific plan, wrote that at 10:00 am this would happen, a mass murder at the University of Chicago.

Now someone is in custody. Maybe we'll learn more about his problems, maybe there will be follow through on that evaluation. Maybe he'll serve time. Chances are he's ruined his life by spouting off on social media.

therapydoc