Family and neighbors have told media outlets Maria had a restraining order against him because he allegedly had been harassing her. Her uncle posted a statement on Facebook that the driver had allegedly followed his niece to her home for months and the police were notified, but nothing was done.
Other articles have indicated that he later live-streamed a statement about the murders on his gaming stream with tens of thousands of followers. He reportedly made comments about one of the girls on his livestream, targeting her for making disrespectful comments about Charlie Kirk.
The alleged killer is the son of a police officer and related to a local police chief, which some have claimed contributed to the lack of police action against his months long stalking.
Prison is not a suitable environment for people with mental health issues anyway. It’s simultaneously both a criminal issue and a health issue. They should be in a mental hospital, getting medical treatment until they are either safe to release, or indefinitely if they are not. We don’t ask doctors to decide if convicts are safe to release, and we shouldn’t rely solely on judges to decide when someone has a dangerous mental condition.
While involuntary treatment is an awful thing to have to consider and historically mental institutions have been awful places, so are prisons. And if we don’t like that they are awful places, we should work to make it so that people have better support for mental and parenting issues before they reach the level of becoming criminals, so that fewer people need to be sent there, and also work to make them not-so-awful places, instead of simply deciding we will never send people there, which does not solve either problem. Because there is a legitimate need for these institutions for people of all ages, when we as a society fail at preventing people from falling into these mentally unhealthy conditions without support or treatment.
Prison can mean many things. Whatever way this is, they need to be removed from the general public and placed into a location to protect us from them. I don’t think this should be with convicted criminals, but a facility properly run to provide for these people. That’s a whole other conversation though—and it doesn’t matter because it will never happen in the US. This is as good as it will ever get. It’s all down from here.
I share your pessimism, but I still think it’s important to try, and to educate. Even if all we’re doing is softening the fall by the tiniest amount, and maybe laying a new foundation for something better to come after it.
I can’t argue with that, but I do think there are significantly more important things to worry about.