Murder-suicide and the warning signs of domestic violence | COMMENTARY

Baltimore Sun - 12/14/2021

A 44-year-old Anne Arundel County man reportedly guns down his ex-girlfriend in her home in South Baltimore on Saturday before driving to Columbia to fatally shoot his ex-wife streaming a portion of his rampage on Facebook Live. Just two days later, Baltimore County police are called to a home in Timonium where an estranged married couple is found dead, the 49-year-old husband having returned to the home to fatally shoot his 40-year-old wife before turning the handgun on himself, investigators have concluded.

For neighbors, friends and family, these are stunning tragedies — but then surely they are for all of us. In a season that is supposed to be about good cheer, about comfort and joy, about hope and love, we are forced to confront one of the most terrible realities of the human condition: our seemingly inexhaustible capacity to inflict terrible harm to others, to ourselves, to those around us.

The circumstances of these cases are cruel by any standard imaginable, and the difficult questions surrounding them will linger.

In the Saturday attack, the perpetrator and both his victims were health care professionals, nurse anesthetists to be exact, yet those who knew Rajaee Black within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs failed to sense the danger he posed (he had prior to June 2020 been fired from a University of Maryland Medical System job, according to a federal lawsuit he filed alleging wrongful termination). In the Monday morning attack, John Williams somehow acquired a handgun, allegedly stolen from a friend’s car. Had he previously been seen as a threat? Could others have recognized the danger both men posed to themselves and others?

It is obvious we live in a time of uncertainty and fear. The side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have included both great stress — on nurses and other frontline workers, particularly — and extended periods of isolation. Authorities have warned about the challenge teens have faced with more admitting to feeling depressed or anxious and emergency rooms treating more for suspected suicide attempts. But adults are surely at risk as well. It has been estimated that one in four women in the United States experience intimate partner physical violence, and that was prior to the coronavirus outbreak. Adding stressors such as a job loss or perhaps a painful custody dispute are likely to make matters worse.

But while more needs to be known about these specific cases before drawing too many conclusions, it’s not difficult to recognize that there’s a serious domestic violence problem in this country and we need to be exploring all the options to address it. Is there adequate access to appropriate mental health treatment in Maryland? Do potential victims (most often women) have the resources they need from legal advice to shelter space to protect themselves? And might there be better ways to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals with serious mental health issues or, perhaps, to hold accountable those who provide guns to such individuals?

That’s the government policy side. We also must recognize the burden each of us carries to look out for the welfare of each other in a civil society. Checking on the well-being of family, friends and neighbors isn’t just a good thing to do, it’s an essential function in any community that wishes to be safe and sound. Few of us are experts on domestic violence and mental illness, of course. But there are resources available. One might start with the list of warning signs and an outline of the dynamics of abuse posted on the House of Ruth Maryland website, hruth.org. The explanation of the abuser’s mindset is informative; the 24-hour hotline (410-889-RUTH) could prove lifesaving.

Make no mistake, this is not just a city problem, nor a suburban problem. It crosses lines of race, class and religion. And it’s not somebody else’s concern, it has to be everyone’s problem. As is often mentioned with Baltimore’s high homicide rate, police can’t anticipate a crime before it happens and then jump out of a closet to apprehend the offender. Real life doesn’t work that way. But there are hundreds of other potential interventions that can be taken — by co-workers, by friends, by family, and yes, by policymakers — that can surely reduce the likelihood of more such horrifying events.

Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.