More on Isaac Zamora
Shooting-rampage suspect described as deeply troubled
Here are some more of the tragic details, excerpted from the above story:
Then, when Zamora was about 14, the family home burned down and they lost everything. They struggled both financially and emotionally.
“It’s all we can do to keep the electricity on,” Dennise Zamora wrote as part of the family’s bankruptcy petition.
A doctor diagnosed Zamora as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and said that his problems would likely subside after puberty.
“By the time he got to be 18,” Dennise Zamora said, “we thought, ‘He’s gone past the junction here.’ He was never the same.”
…
Still, [ex-girlfriend Connie] Hickman said, he had a lot of promise. “He was kind,” she said. “He was easy to talk to, easy to get along with.”
But every so often, signs of trouble popped up. He would make threats and start fights over “things that never happened,” Hickman said. Initially, she attributed it to Zamora’s drinking and drug use — he has arrests for cocaine and marijuana possession.
Zamora attempted suicide several times and told her at one point he was hearing voices. Hickman said Zamora was diagnosed over the years with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Okay, here’s something that bothers me. This kid was initially diagnosed with PTSD after a family tragedy. Makes sense. But the longer the symptoms continued, and the more drugs he did, the more the other diagnoses piled up. Why? Because the mental health system finds it easier to slap a schizophrenia diagnosis on someone, medicate them, and move on. It’s much more complicated to say that Zamora had PTSD, it was never treated, he became a drug user, which exacerbated trauma-related symtpoms, etc., and something needs to be done now that’s of a complex treatment modality. He probably should’ve had intensive therapy for his PTSD immediately after the fire.
In 2003, Hickman and Dennise Zamora took him to a Whatcom County hospital, saying they feared for their safety. People with mentally ill family members say it’s often difficult to meet the threshold for involuntary psychiatric treatment. Washington law says that to hold someone, an imminent threat of harm must exist. What constitutes imminent danger, however, is open to interpretation.
This time, he qualified and was held for a few weeks. But the treatment wasn’t quite enough, Hickman said.
“The night after he was released, he called me and said, ‘I want to go back,’ ” she recalled. But when he showed up again at the hospital, it declined to admit him.
Sound familiar? Look back at every high-profile case that involves violence and a person with mental health issues, and you’ll see the same pattern.
Eventually, Zamora was admitted to another hospital. During that stay, court records show that he bit an orderly who was trying to restrain him. Criminal charges were filed, then dropped for reasons that are unclear.
“The next day, they discharged him,” Hickman recalled. “How could they put him out on the streets when it was obvious the man had some issues?”
One word: insurance.
Zamora took his medication in the hospital, but when he was released he stopped, Hickman said, partly because “he didn’t have a job so he couldn’t pay for medication.”
Hey, everyone out there who doesn’t believe in universal healthcare: This one’s for you!
Over the years, said Dennise Zamora, the family tried everything they could think of to get him to agree to ongoing treatment. “We’ve all tried to influence him, to threaten him,” she said.
And Zamora’s troubles with the law continued: malicious mischief, drugs, theft.
On May 15, he signed a guilty plea and agreed not to possess or own firearms, although neighbors said at some point he had a collection of six or seven guns. He was released on Aug. 6 and the Department of Corrections (DOC) said he checked in regularly and passed two drug tests.
A spokesman for the DOC said the agency is scouring its records to see what else it could have done.
Honestly? I know a good deal about DOCs and the criminal justice system in general, and there isn’t much more that can be done. What’s required of an offender with Zamora’s criminal history is that he show up to meet with his PO and pass the drug tests. If there were more staffing and this were a different world, POs would visit their charges at home. But that doesn’t happen. It’s just not part of the system. Under current guidelines, I’m guessing the DOC will be indemnified. That’s just a guess because I don’t know Washington State, but we’ll see.
Dennise Zamora isn’t making excuses: “I’m not one of those people who say he’s not guilty by reason of insanity. He is guilty by insanity.”
liz | 11:40 AM | Uncategorized
Perhaps he was misdiagnosed in the first place. From what I’ve read, untreated PTSD doesn’t lead to psychosis. Anxiety disorders are on the opposite end of the spectrum from things like schizophrenia.
Although, the fire could have been the traumatic event that triggered his psychosis.
The misdiagnosed in the first place argument is a popular one and it’s impossible to disprove since both diagnoses are subjective. Psychosis, however, is part of the diagnostic criteria of ptsd. When people suffer trauma they are devastated and if not treated with compassion can be mentally destroyed. Compassion however can always heal. Still it seems this guy should be in prison for life. Many violent criminals have tragic pasts. Very sad story and your coverage is very good. Thanks
“Because the mental health system finds it easier to slap a schizophrenia diagnosis on someone, medicate them, and move on.” Tragically, the mental health system despite assertions that it has adopted a recovery based approach which builds upon individual strengths and addresses individual needs, too rarely considers anything but schizophrenia. Persons who suffer from other mental illnesses often find that an antipsychotic(s) is prescribed adjunctively, that they must ape the same word persons dealing with schizophrenia are sadly required to do to refute any assertions of anosognosia, take countless “med ed” classes where the subject is schizophrenia, and find that medication compliance is treated as a virtue of the highest order even where the medications are doing nothing for the consumer.
No one is well served by the existing paradigm and the consequences can be tragic.
I live in Seattle and I have depression and PTSD (that was thought to be bipolar – long and ranting commentary on public mental health). What’s seldom – if ever – mentioned in the news articles about what happened with Zamora is that not only does Washington have some truly bizarre rules that make it almost impossible to get someone involuntarily treated when it truly *is* necessary, but our “Public Mental Health system” is appalling. It’s based on Regional Support Networks that lump together seemingly random geographic areas, then farms the actual provision of care out to subcontractor agencies. Finding out who actually provides care under public mental health almost requires a detective. Then you have to have our version of Medicaid, Medicare or perhaps related programs like WA’s Basic Health to actually access the services – only to find out that ON AVERAGE they’re so backed up it’s a wait of 10 or more weeks to get an intake and up to that long again to see someone for medication. Plus many providers in our public mental health system have serious issues with ethics, professionalism, or even basic competence. I even had a case manager/counselor who had a weird license that’s available here in Washington for about $40 and having it’s either sat through a class or watched a video (sorry, I forget which). Not that anyone wants to hear from the patients that there are problems. No, they’ll wait till it’s something they hear as the result of some (potentially preventable) public tragedy or of the injury, disability or death of a patient due to the quality of care they provide and they’re hearing from an attorney representing the patient’s survivors. It’s almost impossible to get even passably OK care in this state without GOOD insurance.
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