The Best Tribute for a Fallen Officer

It's been a sad week here in the Eugene, Oregon area.  Last Friday, April 22, motorcycle officer Chris Kilcullen was headed home along highway 126 when a beat up red Buick Skylark tailgated him, according to a witness.  The Buick then tried to pass Officer Kilcullen, and at one point swerved dangerously into his lane, almost hitting him.  Kilcullen then turned on his lights, and the Buick suddenly raced off, with Kilcullen in pursuit.  The chase left Eugene and headed into Springfield.  Finally, at a busy crossroad, the motorist pulled over to the side of the road.  Kilcullen pulled his motorcycle up to the driver's side door, at which point the driver pulled out a .38 revolver and shot Kilcullen once in the side, just above his body armor.  Kilcullen fell off his bike and slumped against the wheel of a neighboring big rig.  The Buick then sped off, with officers in pursuit.  It eventually wound up way down near Lowell and onto some Forest Service roads until it hit a dead end.  Officers began a long negotiation and eventually arrested the suspect.

Eugene Police Officer Chris Kilcullen

The shooter turned out to be 56 year-old Cheryl Kidd, a developmentally disabled woman with a long history of schizophrenia and erratic behavior.  In her schizophrenic mind, she had thought the police had been following her prior to the incident, and had trouble focusing during the interrogation after being caught.

Officer Chris Kilcullen died soon after, at the hospital.  Kilcullen is the third officer to be shot in the line of duty in Oregon in the short 4 months of this year, and the second to die as a result.  And in the city of Eugene, this is the third officer to die while on the force this year (the first accidentally shot himself at a shooting range, the second had a heart attack).

The entire week, our city experienced a unified sadness and outpouring of grief at the death of this 12-year veteran of the police force.  A father and husband.  A man who volunteered with local non-profits.  A man resoundingly loved by his fellow officers.  Blue lights were being put into porches as a sign of support.  The legislature is considering a bill to erect signs to commemorate a stretch of highway for him.  There are even online murmurs of renaming the entire highway after him.  On Friday, April 29, a procession of around 400 emergency vehicles from all over the state and surrounding states, and even Canada, drove a long route past the point of the shooting, through downtown Eugene, and to the new Knight arena where a memorial service was held.  Thousands showed up to pay their respect.  Flags are still being flown at half mast, by order of the governor. 

Wow.  This is an amazing tribute to a fallen officer.  And well-deserved, I'd say.  Our law enforcement officers take their life in their hands every day, with every traffic stop, to protect and to serve.  They are all heroes.  I could only wish that my passing could be so marked.

And yet, despite all of this outpouring, what, if anything, is being done to keep it from happening again?

How did this woman, who had such a long history of severe neurological problems, get a handgun?  Did she steal it?  Did she buy it on the black market?  No.  It turns out she went down to Mazama's Sporting Goods store at the local mall a year ago and purchased it like anyone else can.  After a 5-minute background check, which she cleared, she walked out with it, ready to do as she pleased, schizophrenic or not.

But wait!  Don't background checks look for mental illness already?  Yes, but you can only be entered into the NICS background check database, and rejected for gun sale, if you have been ruled as mentally ill in a court of law or been committed to a mental institution.  Neither of these are the case with Kidd.  Nor was she a convicted felon, abuser, or on parole.  In short, despite her long illness and reduced mental capacity, there is NOTHING that kept her or anyone like her from purchasing or possessing a firearm. 

Nor for Michael Thomas Mason, who suffered from severe PTSD and last December shot randomly at cars in the parking lot of the same mall where Kidd got her weapon (less than 50 yards away, in fact) and was subsequently shot by police and made a paraplegic.  Nor for a mentally ill man who had a shootout with police in Eugene in 2006.  Nor for untold numbers of other shooters elsewhere in the U.S., such as Jerod Lee Laughner of the 2011 Tucson shooting, or Seung-Hui Cho of the 2007 Virginia Tech University shooting.

So what can be done?  Certainly not everyone who is mentally ill is a danger to himself or others, so you can't just remove the second amendment right for all mentally ill or mentally handicapped individuals, right?  But clearly something must be done to keep those who are dangerous to themselves and others, or have reduced mental capacity to understand when it is right or wrong to pull the trigger, from being able to possess guns.  Even the father of the slain officer Chris Kilcullen agrees.

As a result of this tragedy, at last Oregon lawmakers are considering this loophole. 

It is my opinion that there should be a clear mechanism where a mental health professional, believing a subject to be a danger to himself or others, should be able to put that patient on a list for a temporary suspension of gun rights, subsequent to consideration by a panel of mental health experts to put the subject into the NICS database for a longer period, there to stay until the subject can get that panel to judge him or her reasonably cured of the illness.

So, while it was nice to have the memorial service, flags at half mast, blue lights on porches, a 400-vehicle procession, and the potential naming of a highway as honors for this fallen officer, wouldn't it be a more fitting tribute to keep it from happening again?  Let's make a new trajectory for our communities and do better at adding dangerously mentally ill people to the background check databases.

(Post-script:  only 3 days after Officer Kilcullen was shot by Cheryl Kidd, a well-to-do doctor purchased a gun and ammo, came home and, after scaring his wife by leaving some ammo and the receipt for his new gun on the kitchen table, shot up the neighborhood  and then killed himself.  The news report is sketchy, but I happen to know a neighbor of the shooter, who told me about the terror of that day and some information about the shooter and his family.  Severe depression is just as deadly as other mental health disorders, and should also be grounds for temporary suspension of gun rights if diagnosed).

UPDATE (5/2/11):  http://www.kval.com/news/local/121111569.html  A psychiatric evaluation showed the suspect, Cheryl Kidd, to be diagnosed with "schizophrenia, grossly disorganized thinking, extreme paranoid delusions and the inability to differentiate the past from the present."  Also, "In January, Kidd's primary health care provider sent her to the emergency room for a mental health evaluation."  In her delusion she thought the police had fired at her a couple times in the past, and that officer Kilcullen had shot out her window.  Too bad there wasn't a mechanism to stop her from possessing a gun back in January.

(image taken from HERE)