Charles H. “Chuck” Ramsey is a retired law-enforcement professional of unusual distinction. At 71, he has won praise for his service as the commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, as chief of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police, and as a young officer in the Chicago police department. In 2017 he joined CNN as a commentator, where he has earned acclaim as a blunt and fearless truthteller.
All of which makes it especially painful to report that on Tuesday, Commissioner Ramsey deepened a grievous gulf of ignorance in America’s concept of mental illness. He opined in an on-air discussion that it was “totally unacceptable” for Al Aliwi Alissa Ahmad, the suspect in Monday’s massacre of ten people in a Boulder, Colorado, to have gone and done that. No excuse for it! And no forgiveness!
No kidding!
Ramsey made his declaration in an interview with the CNN news host Brooke Baldwin. Here is what he said, in full, on the topic of “forgiveness.”
“I mean, I feel no empathy for this guy at all, so forgive me [sic] for that, but I just absolutely don’t. No, no forgiveness needed. There is no excuse to go and kill people. There are many people who suffer from mental illness. They don’t do this kind of thing. I mean, that’s just—it’s just totally unacceptable. So, I don’t go for it. Not for a second.”
Charles Ramsey
The cluelessness, the beside-the-pointedness, of this little tirade are—well, they are totally unacceptable. As was the glazed reaction of Brooke Baldwin, the “Peabody Award finalist” who did not bother herself with a follow-up question such as—oh—“Commissioner Ramsey, would you give us your definition of ‘mental illness’?” Or, “Why do you think that some psychotic people ‘do this thing’ while others, many others, don’t?”
Baldwin, by the way, opened the show by confiding to her fans that she would soon vamoose to promote her new book about “women unlocking their collective power.” A grateful nation holds its breath.
Do I sound peevish? Very well, I sound peevish. Clarity and precision are essential in discussion of mental illness, and clarity/precision were exactly what neither Ramsey nor Baldwin provided their viewers in this soiree. Their careless self-absorption is typical for much of what passes for media and political wisdom in the wake of an atrocity such as Boulder. And Atlanta. And Springfield, Missouri. And Midland, and Odessa, and . . .
What am I getting at? I’m getting at this: both the pontificating Ramsey and the passive Baldwin seemed content to agree that killing people is a very bad thing to do, just a totally unacceptable thing, and shame on the wussies and sob-sisters who would garland the killer in forgiveness. Killing while mentally ill? Boo hoo. Full stop.
Here are some generally accepted facts, simple to understand: facts that would reduce fatuous and inept declarations by public figures and combat the toxic, ingrained superstition that “mentally ill” equates to “monster in need of chains”:
Fact One: The seriously mentally ill (schizophrenia sufferers and others with chronic brain diseases) are statistically no more prone to violence than the general population.
Fact Two: “Forgiveness” or its absence is irrelevant in the cases of psychotic killers. Their affliction has robbed them of impulse control and any grasp of moral responsibility. They’re not “bad.” They’re mad.
Fact Three: There is a remedy, or a partial remedy: Professional treatment. Professional treatment (diagnosis, a medication regime, and ongoing therapy, commenced as soon as possible after psychotic symptoms appear) can stabilize the chronically disordered mind and greatly reduce the impulse to harm oneself or others.
Fact Four: Contrary to a destructive myth just now making the rounds, the evidence that Al Aliwi Alissa Ahmad was able to plot his rampage is not proof that he was sane, and therefore not entitled to supervised hospital care instead of criminal incarceration. Insanity is not a form of stupidity. People in psychosis are often ingenious in tossing their medications, covering up their symptoms, and plotting their lethal agendas. Thus, proof of insanity remains an uphill battle in the courts. In Colorado law as in other states, “Every defendant is presumed sane. The defendant carries the burden of introducing evidence of insanity. Once such evidence is introduced, the burden is on the prosecution to prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt.”
(I am in debt, for the insights above and several others, in part to the pre-eminent California advocates C.J. Hanson and her sister Linda Privatte.)
Fact Five: Despite massive efforts, America remains mired in mental-illness illiteracy. Few people like to think about it, much less learn about it. The consequences—to public health, to those caught in the criminal-justice system, to families, and to the national treasure—are enormous. If someone at the pinnacle of law enforcement—a Charles H. Ramsey—can publicly demonize a killer ensnared in psychosis, just imagine the destructive ignorance throughout the echelons below him.
The country needs to be educated in mental illness. Its leaders and spokespeople need to educate themselves.
