'While the knife was in her little heart, he made the sign of the cross'

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-woman-girl-stabbed-critically-injured-in-skokie-20111026,0,90112.story

By Carlos Sadovi and Brian Cox

5:07 p.m. CDT, October 27, 2011

Prosecutors today described a horrific scene inside a Skokie home where a man killed his 18-year-old daughter and 2-year-old granddaughter, with the child hitting him with a toy to make him stop.

As his daughter Cynthia lay dying on the living floor, Miguel Renteria grabbed a second knife and turned on his granddaughter Jeiloni, stabbing her 10 times, authorities said.

“While the knife was in her little heart, he made the sign of the cross,” Cook County Assistant State’s Atty. Diann Sheridan said, quoting from his confession.

His hands covered with blood, Renteria then called 911 and told police he had just killed his daughter and granddaughter, authorities said.

[MichiganVote]

1. Because we just don't need mental health institutions anymore....

Fucking Reagan.

[MindandSoul]

2. You got it right! Reagan ruined the mental health community because mental health

hospitals were "too expensive!" And he released people who needed help, some dangerous people to the street, without ANY mental health support.

Since then, the Mental health community has tried to fill the gap. . .but there is NEVER enough funding to support all the needs of people with severe mental health diagnosis, much less to provide diagnosis for NEW people with mental health needs!

[hedgehog]

6. To be fair, part of the problem is a set of laws endorsed by liberals

that make it very, very difficult to force a person into treatment for mental illness. It's a one-two punch - even if the facilities are available and affordable, patients can refuse treatment. Many families are left helpless as a son or daughter with schizophrenia takes to the streets.

[MichiganVote]

7. Uh hold on there partner..I work in the field of mental health and 1.

Liberals have nothing to do with the fact that all individuals are afforded civil rights under the law--even those with a mental illness.

2. It is possible and it is necessary to go to the courts to remove individuals to specific locations when they present a danger to themselves or others. The key is that the problem must be immediate. In the world of the mentally ill--most are harmless and most do not require hospitalization. HOWEVER--the law does permit the petition to the court for that circumstance.

3. Going further--the problem is that there are not enough beds, not enough people who can and do recognize the signals of suicide/homicide evident and not enough courts available to make the case move. Liberals? Hardly. The problem is far more pernicious than that.

4. Cost of care. There is no medical care cost for the mentally ill adult. No floor of mandated services. Families can apply for SSI and they can apply for adult sized Medicaid. Most families haven't the ability to cut through the huge numbers of barriers that exist. Turn around? At least 6 months to a year--depending upon the state. Liberals? If only.

5. Never mind. And never mind 6.7. or 8. If you are willing to dismiss the total collapse of services in this "society" for the severely mentally ill on a nebulous thing called, "liberals", frankly, you need to get educated.

[WinkyDink]

8. To be fair, you need to read up on then-Gov. Reagan.

[BanzaiBonnie]

9. Liberal bashing? Really?

The system has been taken apart piece by piece beginning with Reagan. No liberal. He was saving money. And he explained he was doing out of concern for the mentally ill. At least that's the way I remember it.

[hedgehog]

18. It was a perfect storm of liberal good intentions meeting conservatives trying to cut costs:

ther had been a long history of people being committed involuntarily for not meeting family expectations rather than for actual mental illness. In the late 60's and early 70's, liberals worked to ensure that no one would be committed improperly. SOme did not believe in the concept of mental illness. As a result of legal reform, a person can not be committed to care today unless there is an immediate danger he will harm himself or others. Living on the streets in all weather with no means of support is not considered an immediate danger to life and limb.

The liberal expectation was that government run warehousing of the sick and inconvenient would be eliminated and that the truly ill would be able to avail themselves of community treatment centers. The conservatives eagerly closed the hospitals, but didn't follow through on community care. I think everyone underestimated the number of mentally ill people who don't realize they have a problem and who refuse care even when it's offered.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I wonder if he was also a follower of Santa muerte

On top of mental issues. It would not shock me.

[Poll_Blind]

4. Sometimes I avoid reading articles like this once I see the headline. Sometimes, I read the...

...articles anyway, maybe thinking I'll learn something about human nature- I dunno, maybe just for the sensationalism of it. A modern zebra looking back from the herd at the member the lions caught up with. I just don't know. Articles like this elicit a profound sadness and something that goes beyond the merely horrific...I mean....stabbing a child?

My girlfriend, she can't stomach things like this. She can't even bear to know things like this happen. I tell her it's ugly but sometimes we shouldn't turn away because awful things go on and if we pretend like they don't happen we're...it's like we're the people who didn't call the police while Kitty Genovese was being murdered. Like, at least in some small way there was some duty to at least be aware peripherally of what goes on in this world.

But I don't feel any wiser after reading this. I don't feel like I've done anything good, protected any Kitty Genoveses. I don't feel like I've learned a thing.

I just feel sorry for that little girl and her mother. I'm an atheist. In my world view, as much as I like romanticize otherwise, the unique nature of that little girl and her mother have been extinguished forever except for what harmonic of them is left reverberating with those who loved them. I grope for greater meaning and come up wanting.

What a terrible thing. May there one day be an end to such things. May the sun rise in the sky and shine, just once, on a world free of these horrors. It once did, long ago. Perhaps as distant in the past as its re-occurrence in the future.

PB

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. One of my patients was a ten year old stabbed multiple times

By his fifteen year old order. Da did not prosecute older brother was loony as a toon. My pt survived...his brother went to the mental hospital and it was a tragedy.

[Selatius]

10. With a completely corrupt and broken health care system, the mental patients are on the street. nt

[MrMickeysMom]

12. Indeed.... plus a million tears

:cry:

[Mimosa]

11. 1975, O'Connor v Donaldson case

Here is info re: the case which shut down mental health facilities:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson

http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/legal/survive-safely-oconnor-donaldson.html

Now the mentally/emotionally ill are incarcerated in prisons. President Reagan had next to nothing to do with the states closing down mental health hospitals. It happened in many states before 1980.

[krispos42]

13. Jesus.

:-(

[TheMadMonk]

14. Premeditation trumps mental illness. NEVER TO BE RELEASED. /nt

[athenasatanjesus]

15. I felt a knife in my heart reading this article.

[Canuckistanian]

16. Religion is such a comfort. n/t

[Odin2005]

17. OMG!!!

:cry: