The gunmen in many of the mass shootings in recent years – including last Sunday’s Sikh temple massacre in Oak Creek – shared a trait that offers a critical clue to abating future attacks.
Each showed clear signs of psychotic behavior and, had they been treated, the disasters might have been avoided, experts told the Journal Sentinel.
Wade Michael Page, who killed six Sikh worshippers before being shot by police and killing himself, was a heavy drinker who was so unstable after his girlfriend broke up with him years earlier that his friends feared he had committed suicide. A psychiatric nurse who lived downstairs from him in Cudahy said if one mental health professional had taken the time to examine him, “a gazillion red flags would have gone off.”