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KSFY
Just look at this freak. Like the VT killer Cho Seung-Hui, Hawkins didn't get the mental help he needed. Unlike Cho, Hawkins spent time in facilities, was actually declared a "ward of the State", but was released in August 2006. Here's the quote that really, really bothers me...

On Aug. 21, 2006, he was released from state custody.

Under state law, Landry said, wards are released when all sides - parents, courts, social workers - agree it is time for them to go. Once Hawkins was set free, he was entirely on his own. He was no longer under state supervision, and was not released into anyone's custody.

"When our role is ended, we try to step out," said Chris Peterson, director of the [Nebraska] state Department of Health and Human Services. (emboldenings mine)

So, you stepped away, Peterson, before the kid was 'healed'; you didn't look back. I'll bet you're gonna look back quite a bit in the next few years...

But I'm getting ahead of myself, here. I want to look closer at exactly what happened .

Wednesday, this sick punk steps off the 3rd floor of Von Maur department store in Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, and opens up with a stolen AK-47.

He steps off the elevator on the 3rd floor and randomly kills 6 employees and two customers...

The shoppers that Hawkins killed were Gary Scharf, 48, of Lincoln, and John McDonald, 65, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The employees killed were Angie Schuster, 36; Maggie Webb, 24; Janet Jorgensen, 66; Diane Trent, 53; Gary Joy, 56; and Beverly Flynn, 47, all of Omaha.

Also injured and wounded were five of whom were in critical condition (no word yet on whether they will live.)

Then the crazy son of a bitch shoots himself.

So, where are we going to go with this?

As I said after the Cho business, we have to make mental health more of a State issue. We have to make sure that anyone who threatens to kill others (Hawkins threatened to kill his stepmother) and/or him or herself gets sufficient dosage or treatment. Cho was prescribed treatment and drugs; he ignored both. This crazed f**cker spent four years in treatment, foster care, drug rehab, whatever, and was still released without any follow-up because "When our role is ended, we try to step out".

Step out, without finishing your work? Step away, and allow some crazed Psycho loony toon to randomly kill innocents in a Shopping Mall, right here at Christmas? When the economy is already in a bad mood?

There is no answer to this that's satisfying to me.

The kid left a note saying he was going to "die famously".

Well, I'll do my part to make sure his remembrance is anything but 'famous'.

Let the 'chops begin...