In 1999 Todd Cameron Smith was the fellow who murdered a pastor's son and injured another student after being expelled from school.
Five years later, he walked away from a half-way home in Toronto, only to turn himself in the next day.
Yet the demons which haunt him even today began in Grade One in Taber, AB when he was bullied and teased by his fellow students.
His only crime prior to the tragic shooting was being born into poverty.
For that he was teased to the breaking point when he shot Jason Lang to death on April 28, 1999.
And the town of Taber, AB, has to live with the aftermath of that tragedy to this day.
IMHO society has the potential to create a new Todd Cameron Smith just as much as it had to create the dozens of wonderful people of Taber, AB.
As long as society continues to judge the poor, and to ignore bullying and teasing in school and in the workplace, the manufacture of mental illness will go on, unchecked.
1 comment:
For society has the potential to manufacture either mental illness or mental health, and the key factor is the poverty line.
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