Roy Exum: We Must Learn To Tell

  • Friday, October 9, 2015
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

On July 4th of this year, FBI agents – acting on a tip -- arrested Alexander Ciccolo, a 23-year-old with known mental problems, as he carried a duffle bag full of automatic attack weapons. Moments before, he had bought the illegal firearms from an undercover informant outside of Boston. As agents later scoured his apartment, they found bomb-making equipment including a pressure cooker, a variety of chemicals, an alarm clock, “attack planning papers” and “jihad” paperwork. Also found were two machetes, a long curved sword, two more automatic assault rifles and two automatic pistols.

Oddly, the loner Ciccolo had only recently begun using the name of Abu Ali al-Amriki and was seen by neighbors wearing Muslim-type clothing.

After his arrest, he was being medically screened when he suddenly grabbed a ball-point pen and, in form, stabbed a nurse in the head. At a preliminary hearing last week he apologized for stabbing the nurse – while pleading not guilty for it – and will go before the federal court again in December facing probable terrorist charges

Now read this very carefully: As noted, Ciccolo was arrested after the FBI received a tip. You need to know who ratted him out to the feds – his own daddy. Boston police Captain Robert Ciccolo has served with Boston’s finest for 27 years. He was a highly-praised first responder at the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013. Yet nothing can compare with the pain and the despair of turning in your own son.

Think about that … could the Charleston shootings have been stopped if the family or Facebook friends of the twisted Dylann Roof had blown the whistle? How much did they know? I can’t believe this evil began in just one day.  In Oregon, Christopher Harper-Mercer, who just killed nine college students, had many psychotic indicators that revealed he was markedly unsteady yet his mother allowed guns to be left all over the house.

It has been said those who know you best are “the most blind.” In early August, Vincente David Montano, age 29, walked into a movie theater in Antioch, Tenn., wearing a surgical mask. He was carrying a hatchet and what appeared to be an automatic pistol. Yet officers weren’t dispatched until shots were fired. Hello? This isn’t about “profiling,” it is about how aware each of us should be that sometimes mass murders can be aborted. If I see a guy carrying a hatchet into a movie theater while wearing a surgical mask, darn right I’m dialing 9-1-1.

I loved what Rev. Jesse Jackson said earlier this week at the funeral of slain Kevin Albert. “Somebody knows who killed Kevin. They may be in this room. And if you know, tell it! If you know, and you don’t tell it, blood is on your hands.”

I hardly want to incite a witch-hunt, but innocent people are dying across America because too many family members and associates don’t want to get involved. They prefer to look the other way, or are “ashamed” that their “weird” second cousin has taken an Arabic name, or is trying to contact ISIS. A mother may well poo-poo her son’s irrational behavior, certain he would never do anything rash, but she may also have no idea her child needs intensive psychiatric help to allow the demons he hears at night to release his soul.

Documents that were unsealed in Alexander Ciccolo’s hearing read, "The defendant told [an operative] that the attack would be concentrated in the college dorms and cafeteria and would include executions of students broadcast live via the internet."

Further, there was a video introduced by the U.S. Attorney General’s office where the young Ciccolo says, “They (the ISIS) are freeing people from oppression. Wherever they go, they're changing things. The people you see being executed, they're criminals. They're the lowest of the low,"

It has been reported that Chattanooga has about half as many psychiatrists as we really need. Yesterday was National Depression Screening Day – if that happened to get past you – and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tell us that over a half-million people (548,000) call in sick every day due to mental issues. That’s stunning, particularly when you consider it costs our economy 200 million workdays – not hours, days -- every year.

Mental illness is a horrible problem. I believe any mass murderer is mentally ill. Yet Tennessee – if not all of America – is guilty of depleting our resources and our responsibility in meeting the needs of people who are suffering. Over 20 percent of those incarcerated in the Hamilton County Jail are taking anti-psychotic drugs. That’s terrible. Erlanger Hospital has mental illness diagnosed in its emergency room every single day and then it takes “many more days” to get these people to an appropriate facility. When are we going to say that is unacceptable in today’s society?

The state legislature, as well as county and city government through increased law enforcement allocations, must recognize our mental illness needs are staggering and join hands in funding more solutions. Everybody wrings their hands over the number of homicides in Chicago, but, to be brutally honest, that’s small potatoes.

In 2012 – the latest figures available – 64 percent of all gun deaths in the United States were suicides … that’s a 2-1 margin over murders. In 2010 the CDC announced we had 38,207 suicides and it is much worse now although the figures have yet to be recorded.

Look at today’s news – we have these strutting liberal roosters in Congress who are all a-flap over 11 people murdered in Oregon, and demanded gun control, but the much greater need is to curb the 112 Americans who commit suicide every day, one every 12.8 minutes. But, whoa, we can’t talk about that – mental illness is off the table.

The media’s catch-line right now is “mass murder du jour,” as in the soup of the day. Until we get some type of grip, the way to prevent murder, whether mass havoc or gang-style “hits,” is that someone needs to tell law enforcement officials before the mayhem ever occurs. Turning his own son into the FBI must have broken Police Captain Robert Ciccolo’s heart but probably saved lives. We can do the same thing.

When FBI agents combed through Alexander’s apartment, they happened across a strange concoction. Asked the purpose of such an oddity, Ciccolo, a.k.a Abu Ali al-Amriki, readily explained how it can damage an innocent human being.

Yes, that’s sick. Alexander Ciccolo is also real sick. Right now, the best way to stop this insanity is to warn the cops before the same officers have to call some mother and tell her that her daughter has just been horribly burned to death in the college cafeteria.

Refuse to let the blood be on your hands.

royexum@aol.com

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