The mother of the Roseburg, Oregon college shooter knew her son had severe mental issues, and would sometimes not take his medication. Yet, she made the decision to keep an arsenal of fourteen weapons in the home; including loaded assault rifles and a Glock handgun. “I keep two full mags in my Glock case. And the ARs & AKs all have loaded mags,” the mother once wrote.
As reported in the New York Times:
Alexis Jefferson, who worked with Ms. Harper [the shooter’s mother] at a Southern California subacute care center around 2010, said the gunman’s mother sometimes confided the difficulties she had in raising her son, including that she had placed Mr. Harper-Mercer in a psychiatric hospital when he did not take his medication.
“She said that ‘my son is a real big problem of mine,’” Ms. Jefferson said in a telephone interview. “She said: ‘He has some psychological problems. Sometimes he takes his medication, sometimes he doesn’t. And that’s where the big problem is, when he doesn’t take his medication.’”
Ms. Jefferson said Ms. Harper had described bringing her son to the Del Amo Behavioral Health System in Torrance, Calif., near where they had lived before moving to Oregon.
“He calls and says, ‘Take me out, take me out,’ ” Ms. Jefferson said, recalling her conversations with Ms. Harper. “She didn’t take him out until the doctor said he was ready to get out.”
