FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The times we live in are stressful and we've seen enough research articles indicating that too many students are in serious need of mental health services. Schools have attempted to meet the challenge, but they do expect to work in concert with parents of kids who are experiencing a great need for support and treatment.

It doesn't always work out that way and the situation in Oxford, Michigan where a young boy took a lethal handgun to his high school and began killing fellow students is an example. Unfortunately, he is only the latest school shooter. Too many instances have plagued our communities all over the United States. No community is free from troubled kids or adults.

Now that the parents of Ethan Crumbley have been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and their son with multiple criminal charges, what questions are we asking?

 Needless to say, many of us expected that schools were implementing both physical protection, training, and bumping up their counseling services. We don't want schools to become armored institutions, but we do need protection against weapons. Metal detectors are one way.

The case of this young student in Michigan wasn't, it seems, something where no indications of possible lethal actions could be foreseen. Information coming out indicates notes and drawings he made were clearly indicative of a cry for help and an intention of "blood everywhere." When someone says their life is "worthless," it's time to begin acting.

No one has to be a psychologist to notice the gravity of this doodling which is anything but nonsense. It is clear that loopholes in the system existed and facilitated the tragedy.

I've seen parents who not only failed to take appropriate action with a child who exhibited strange, often bizarre behavior. They don't want to believe it can't be handled in the home and some of them are concerned about what their neighbors will think. Unconscionable? Yes.

While on overnight emergency outreach years ago, I received a call that a young man was outside his home nailing the windows of the home shut. The mother, on the phone with me speaking in a whisper, refused to follow my directions to call 911 and leave immediately. "I don't want him to hear me," she said. Finally, she hung up and our service called the local police for some assistance. He was picked up, we got a judge to order admission to the psych ward of the local hospital and no one was hurt.

Another mother called and I went out to her home accompanied by a counselor who was skilled in martial arts. For two hours we sat and talked to her in her almost empty living room, trying to obtain information to make a decision about hospitalization. Where was her son? Hiding himself between the insulation in the wall in the attic. Finally, she asked us to leave because she refused to have him hospitalized. This wasn't an isolated case where a parent refuses to act.

One mother had her house set on fire by her adult son who had a psychiatric history. He was arrested for arson, placed on a psych unit and, in short order through the intervention of a judge by a pleading mother, released. The judge told me, "Ok, I'll do it, but he's going to do it again, no matter what she says." He was right.

Mental illnesses are sad, painful disorders and often may require steps no parent wants to take. But, when lives may be at risk, should the parents have the ultimate responsibility? Do schools have a major responsibility in some of these cases? Many factors and many individuals are forces that contribute to tragedy.

Drawings and journals may be indicative of serious thought disorders and should not be ignored, neither should notes, posts or phone conversations. That isn't to say that children should be watched over as though they are prisoners in their home and school. But there is more to raising a child than teaching them to read. Communication is one of our best tools with which to help and all of us need to learn how to have effective skills in this area.

Ethan Crumbley is now a boy/murderer; it didn't have to be this way. Charged with adult crimes, he may be sent to a psychiatric hospital rather than prison. In New Jersey, these are called Krol cases after the mental health commissioner and the case that created NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity).

But he will still have to live with the killings and that is no easy matter whatever his diagnosis may be and his parents will carry that guilt with them, too.