Political Quotes

“Yesterday, in a terrible attack, over 200 people were killed across these United States. This headline should lead every TV news show, hit the front pages, and generate outrage from across the country, but it did not appear. This is not make-believe. The news is real, but no one reported it. We lose more than 80,000 people a year now to suicide and drug addiction overdose. That is over 200 people a day. Where is the news? Now, these are the sudden and tragic deaths. Then there are the slow- motion deaths which we can't even count, those who have a mental illness and ended up homeless, or have a co-occurring chronic illness, such as diabetes or heart disease, and face that slow-motion death sentence. In fact, people with serious mental illness tend to die 25 years earlier than their cohorts. And then there are the mentally ill who are victims of attacks. Last week, The Washington Post revealed how, in the first 6 months of this year, a person who was in mental health crisis was shot and killed every 36 hours by police. The vast majority were armed, but, in most cases, the police officers who shot them were not responding to reports of a crime. More often, they were called by relatives, neighbors, or other bystanders, worried that a mentally fragile person was behaving erratically. The crisis built, and it ended in death. Further, the mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of violence, robberies, beatings, rape, and other crimes.…”