LOS ANGELES - TelAve -- By CCHR International

When violent tragedies like mass shootings strike, media have quoted family members or friends who assert perpetrators were "schizophrenic" or "off medication." The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) says this inadvertently implies that psychiatric intervention could have prevented the acts, but psychiatrists themselves admit they cannot predict violent behavior. And psychiatric treatment—even involuntary hospitalization and drugging—often coincides with, or worsens, violent outcomes.

CCHR analyzed 132 acts of senseless violence between the 1980s and 2022. Of these, 43 perpetrators had been psychiatrically hospitalized—often involuntarily—and at least 106 were prescribed psychotropic drugs prior to or at the time of their crimes. The true number would be higher, CCHR says, since toxicology results and treatment histories are often withheld. One perpetrator, treated long-term before shooting and wounding 10 and injuring 19 others, admitted: "They made me worse. They made me more dangerous than anybody could f— imagine."

Recent case in point: Charlotte, North Carolina (August 2025). A 34-year-old man fatally stabbed a 23-year-old girl on a light rail train. Authorities described it as a "missed opportunity" for evaluation and medication. But the alleged perpetrator had already been involuntarily hospitalized, prescribed drugs, and cycled through prison, where psychiatric treatment is routine.[1]

Linking violence to "schizophrenia" reinforces a stereotype disproven by research.

• A National Institutes of Health-funded CATIE trial found that 19 of 20 people diagnosed with schizophrenia exhibited no violent behavior during two years of follow-up.[2]  
• People given the label are 14 times more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.[3]

CCHR stresses that the real risk comes not from an unproven illness, for which there are no medical tests to confirm, but from the powerful drugs or other therapies imposed to treat it. When headlines state a perpetrator "stopped taking medication," the implication is blame. But antipsychotics—literally "nerve-seizing" chemicals—can cause agitation, aggression, excitability, paranoia, diabetes, heart failure, and even brain shrinkage. Stopping is often a rational act of self-preservation.

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Clozapine, widely forced on inmates, can cause lethal blood disorders, seizures, irritability, confusion, weight gain, hallucinations, sexual dysfunction, heart arrhythmias, and irreversible movement disorders.[4] A review of six major antipsychotics found treatment failure or relapse rates up to 93%, with widespread harm to multiple body systems.[5]

Withdrawal itself poses dangers, causing agitation, psychosis, or suicidality that never existed before and are mistaken for relapse.[6] Psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff emphasizes that people who want to stop "should not be deemed irrational if they wish to try for a better quality of life free of the burdens of these drugs."[7]

The Tarasoff ruling (California, 1976) gave psychiatry a "duty to warn" of dangerous behavior. Yet a psychiatrist admitted, "Violence by an individual is almost impossible to predict," and the ruling demanded abilities "well beyond the professional powers of any therapist."[8]

Even the American Psychiatric Association admits its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) cannot establish mental disorder in relation to competency or criminal responsibility.[9] Yet, there are more than 200 "violence risk assessments" based on such unreliable tools. These can justify involuntary detention—raising serious concerns under the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which calls for an end to forced detainment and treatment.

Case Reports of Treatment Failure:

• Buffalo, NY (2022): An 18-year-old killed 10 and injured 3 after psychiatric hospitalization.[10]
• Houston, TX (2024): A perpetrator, 36, shot and injured two—including a child—after at least four involuntary commitments.[11]
• Duxbury, MA (2023): A mother strangled her 3 children after discharge from a psychiatric hospital and being prescribed 13 psychiatric drugs for eight months prior.[12] Her lawyer said the drugs caused homicidal and suicidal ideation.[13]

"Cases like these exemplify that the problem isn't early release or missed medication," said Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International. "The real issue is psychiatric incarceration and treatment itself often fails and worsens conditions. There should be a full review of this and the poor and dangerous outcomes."

U.S. taxpayers have poured billions into violence-prevention schemes rooted in psychiatry.

• Safe Schools Act (1994): promised violence-free schools by 2000.
• Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative (1999–2009): spent $2.1 billion.
• Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (2022): added over $2 billion for mental health in schools and nearly $190 million in DOJ safety grants.
• 2024 White House report detailed $1 billion to hire 14,000 school-based mental health staff, and $240 million for school-based programs.

Yet school shootings increased nearly 60% since the Safer Act's passage—rising from 52 in 2019 to 83 in 2024.[14]

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CCHR urges policymakers to confront that psychiatry's model of detainment and drugging has failed to protect society. "Involuntary commitment and psychiatric drugging are not safeguards—they are risks," Eastgate stated. "Psychiatrists admit they cannot predict violence, yet billions more are spent on programs built on a false promise that they can. It is time for accountability."

About CCHR: It was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz. CCHR is a nonprofit mental health watchdog exposing human rights abuses in psychiatry.

Sources:

[1] sfg.media/en/a/police-released-full-footage-of-iryna-zarutska-killing-in-the-us/; sfg.media/en/a/who-is-decarlos-brown-jr-and-why-was-he-free-after-14-arrests/; abcnews.go.com/US/mother-sister-charlotte-stabbing-suspect-describe-history-mental/story?id=125451590

[2] www.medpagetoday.com/resource-centers/mental-health-focus/predicting-violence-schizophrenia/2645

[3] pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3160236/

[4] www.drugs.com/sfx/clozapine-side-effects.html

[5] pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27864791/

[6] www.ijfmr.com/papers/2024/4/25984.pdf

[8] pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7338640/

[8] scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/tarasoff-v-regents-university-california-30278; "Once A Killer; A Gunman Convicted of Shooting Nine People and Killing Four of Them is Trying To Be Released from a Mental Hospital," CBS 48 Hours, July 12, 1999

[9] DSM Fourth Edition-TR (APA, 2000), p. xxxiii; Nancy Haydt, "The DSM-5 and Criminal Defense: When Does a Diagnosis Make a Difference?" Utah Law Review, Vol. 2015, Article 13

[10] apnews.com/article/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-government-and-politics-race-ethnicity-978bddfec22344fe73e30ca34f491784

[11] abcnews.go.com/US/suspected-lakewood-church-shooter-criminal-history-mental-health/story?id=107179259

[12] www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11728009/Lindsay-Clancy-psychiatrist-says-flat-board-wondering-whats-going-on.html

[13] www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11710075/Midwife-mother-strangled-three-children-death-overmedicated-prescription-drugs.html

[14] www.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg