Apr 05
Binghamton Shooter - No Surprise to Those That Knew Him.
Jiverly Wong, 41, blocked the back door of the American Civic Association in Binghamton with his car. Then he entered the front door and shot the two receptionists.When the shooting spree was over, 14 people were dead and several more were injusred.
61-year-old Shirley DeLucia was the second receptionist. Shot in the stomach, she laid on the floor and played dead until Wong left the room. Then, from under a desk, she called 911. They were there in less than 3 minutes.
Bleeding and seriously wounded, the receptionist stayed on the phone for over 90 minutes, feeding information to the police.
Was this a case of ridicule that pushed a man over the edge? Police said “We picked up that … apparently people were making fun of him. He felt that he was being degraded because, from what we get is, of his inability to speak English. And he was upset about that.”
Yet, here’s the part that gets me. Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said “From the people close to him, the actions that he took were not a surprise to them.”
Those words are haunting. People who knew him weren’t surprised. It makes me wonder…. Did anyone try to do anything to intervene? Could anyone have made a difference?
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I’ve heard this reaction tens of times by acquaintances as well as people honestly not involved as much as they claim prior in the ‘naturalized’ citizenry.
But I’ve also seen circles that are pretty tight lipped within many international immigrants of numerous lands. A family seeking to settle in the United States either having a direct relative such as this or connected to someone nearby out of necessity…whether able to provide income, translation, or simply protection from outsiders or their own people that would take advantage of them.
I remember the amounts of people experiencing homelessness with both diagnosed and undiagnosed; but very apparent; mental disorders…case managers not being able to push the issue due to denial of the clients.
Add to this the definite language barrier of immigrating clients…I’ve never myself EVER seen anyone other than English primary languagers (outside of a few recovering/immigrating pre-Soviets) getting recommended for intake, screening, therapy, or medication management.
I can say though that it wasn’t being ridiculed that was the cause…learned behavior develops over time.
This tragedy was simply a time bomb going off. He could very well have done the same thing immediately before, after, days even.
Chances are in the next ten years we’ll start seeing more increased screening for mental health during intake/inprocessing of immigrants that coincides with America’s approach to both mental health services and protecting our borders.
Didn’t mean to go ‘all deep’ on the comment, Linda. Your entry was just very thought provoking to me in what I’ve witnessed my own immigrating friends from China go through.
Best
No need to apologize for going deep on the comment, I appreciate the insights in your reply. I’ve known a handful of people like this in my life; the kind of people about whom strangers would say “never would have expected it” but the people closest to them say “yup, didn’t surprise me…” — and those scenarios always make me think. You know?
Like, why didn’t anyone say anything? Why didn’t anyone try get some help? Or maybe they tried and the system failed them? I have experienced the latter.
I hope you’re right. I hope that in the next decade, we’ll see better screening for mental health during the intake process for immigrants. But I wonder how long it will take before there’s better screening for people who aren’t immigrants. Maybe that day will never come. I don’t know.
The system fails a lot of people. We’ve become so worried about depriving people of their ‘rights’ that we’ve forgotten that at the very core, they should have a right to be treated for what ails them. For example, if a bloke is happily walking down the street and gets hit by a vehicle and is unconscious… we don’t not treat them for their injuries because ‘they’ haven’t consented… we accept consent from someone else. Yet… someone mentally ill isn’t treated unless ‘they’ allow treatment, even though in many cases, they aren’t able to realize they even need treatment.
By worrying about depriving them of one kind of ‘right’ we deprive them of another. It’s quite assinine… given that as a result, others are often deprived of their rights and even their lives.
But I know you don’t need to be told this Linda… you know what I mean.
And I’ve often had the same thoughts as you when watching the news.
I heard from former FBI negotiator that these shooters were denied citizenship. What do you think? thanks..