Mom of George Washington Carver Arts & Technology Student Wants “Nemphos” Mental Health Records Revealed for Public Safety

A Baltimore mother, who has a child attending the school where the recent aborted mass-shooting plot by 16-year old Sash Nemphos was foiled, has contacted AbleChild. This mother’s concerns shine a light on the idiocy of Connecticut Governor Malloy and his Sandy Hook Advisory Commission’s latest recommendations targeting homeschoolers in the aftermath of Sandy Hook mass murder. Governor Malloy’s Commission wants “special education program teams,” to conduct mental health assessments on children homeschooled.

Rather than address, and make public, the specific mental health history of Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission intends to force the State’s ever-broadening mental health policies on the families of those who choose opt-out of the public school system to homeschool.

The Baltimore mother only recently returned her child to the Maryland public school system after years of homeschooling. Having been acutely aware of the recent school shootings, this mother rightly questions, whether the would-be school shooter’s intended actions in any way were precipitated by psychiatric drugs, prescribed to “treat” an alleged mental disorder?

This Baltimore mother’s call for the attempted shooter’s mental health records further support AbleChild’s belief that the mental health/medication history of school shooters is a public safety issue across the Country.

According to police reports, sophomore Nemphos had homemade explosive devices and had a gun at his home, intending to go to the Baltimore area George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology and use these weapons to kill. The planned attack only was uncovered by police officers when they stumbled upon the plot while investigating a series of auto break-ins.

This question is as relevant today for this Baltimore area mother as it was on December 14, 2012 for the parents of Newtown, where Adam Lanza carried out a brutal killing spree, taking the lives of 26 innocent people.

What is odd about the Commission’s decision to drag homeschoolers into the mental-health mix, like every other aspect of the Lanza investigation, is that, to date, no factual, supporting information has been provided to back up this recommended action. The Commission has not provided the public with any specific information about Lanza’s education history, including any specific information about the reported years Lanza was homeschooled.

The fact that the Commission has inserted homeschooling into the Sandy Hook mental health equation becomes even more bizarre when one considers that according to publicly available information, the only time Adam Lanza was “homeschooled” was for a few months in the fall of 2005 – seven years prior to the shooting incident. During this time, a psychiatrist, Paul Fox, saw Lanza. Between 2006 and 2007, mental health professionals at the Yale Child Study Center also saw Lanza. And, in 2006, Newtown High School psychologist, Michael Ridley, evaluated Lanza.

While the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission would like to suggest that because Lanza was homeschooled he, therefore, slipped through the mental health cracks, no information has been made publicly available to support these assertions.

The available information paints a very different picture. Lanza’s mental health issues were known throughout his public school years and accommodations were made by the public school system to help the family with Lanza’s reported deteriorating mental health.

The Baltimore mother who contacted AbleChild summed up what really is at the heart of the Sandy Hook tragedy when she wrote, “More now than ever, our children are being placed on psychiatric drugs, which carry warnings of psychosis, suicidal and homicidal thoughts and tendencies. Many of these kids will tell their parents that they don’t like the way these drugs make them feel, but are forced to take them anyway. For every one of these children who carries out an act of violence there are hundreds more screaming for help, but the only help they get is more drugs.”

This mother wants to know whether the would-be child killer in Baltimore was taking psychiatric drugs. Like AbleChild, she believes that it is a matter of public safety. The people of Connecticut have yet to learn the motive behind the Sandy Hook attack and, as the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission seems more interested in creating new victims of the mental health system at the expense of homeschoolers, it seems likely they never will. The Commission’s unwillingness to reveal Lanza’s mental health/medication history does nothing to ensure the public’s safety.