Earl Ofari Hutchinson
I’m standing now in South Los Angeles in front of the Kedron Community Health Center. Mental health. Let me mention right off the top and pay homage to victims of Shane Tamura’s murderous rampage.
They were the victims of a heinous act and there’s no other way to describe it. A heinous murderous act by Shane Tamura gunned down New York City again. Another one of the many, many we’ve experienced in America. Mass murders. And that’s what it was, a rampage.
CTE Shane Tamura from Los Angele played football, high school football. Here is the note he left. I’m suffering from CTE, the brain condition and it was referenced by him in the midtown Manhattan shooting. CTE Commonly football players or anyone that’s engaged in the contact sport statistics do show that high school football players in studies, about 30 to 35% of them to one degree or another have experienced CTE.
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Let’s be clear. The victims in the midtown Manhattan shooting, they have nothing to do with that. CTE or any other excuse for mass murder is no excuse. We must be clear about that. However, we do have to be cognizant of this.
This is the note that was left by Shane Tamura football game.
Football gave me CTI and number one calls me to drink a gallon of antifreeze. You call and then he goes on. In other words, he’s saying CTE and blaming that. While there is the speculation about CTE again, again, I cited before the numbers of high school players and professional athletes that of course have CTE half and have committed acts usually against themselves, not someone else, thankfully. All right, so having said that, it does something else.
The tragedy. And that’s what it is by any name and definition that happened in midtown Manhattan. Again, propagated by Shane Tamora, not a victim. In this case, the victims were the four people gunned down. It cast an ugly glare once again on the mental health challenges among African Americans and in African American communities, especially poor black communities.
About 20% of African Americans suffer some mental health challenge. That’s from a national survey on drug use and health in 2024. But even more critical, young African American males like Shane Tamura. The figures stagger. Their numbers are double in terms of the men health challenges and crisis.
And the problem is there are no facilities or underfunded facilities like a Kedren mental health facility to take care of, to meet the challenge to provide services, to provide counseling, to provide medication, to provide all the things needed when you’re dealing with the mental and emergency services, with a mental health challenge and crisis that slams African Americans and especially African American youths like Tamura. Again, there’s no apologizing there. There’s no trying to shift blame. What he did with the heinous act. And the victims are the four people I name and their families and associates.
They’re the ones that suffered because of that. But the community suffers too, day in and day out, because of the lack or underfunding or just absence really of mental health facilities, outlets, services and means to take care of those that do suffer mental health challenges. By any definition, Shane Timur is certainly qualified for that. So, the call and the challenge are to public officials, to health professionals, especially those involved in the mental health field, and political officials at the highest level, federal, state, county, city funding. More services, more engagement, more getting ahead of the curve on the individuals walking time bombs like Shane tomorrow and the Shane Tamura’s of the world.
We don’t want to see this repeated, what happened in midtown Manhattan repeated and again. The challenge is there. The crisis is there. The call is there. The need is there.
Again, Tamura left a note, in a sense, pleading for help. An outreach that unfortunately and tragically is not yet. But we can do that. We can get ahead of the curve. We can, with that call that’s been made, will increase everything from services funding to attention to the challenge, particularly among men and women like the Shane Timur’s of the world.
I’m Earl Ofari Hutchinson again on location in front of the Kedron Community Health Services Center, a major outlet in South LA for mental health services. We need more of them, many more of them, funded all the way up the food chain to make sure the Tamuras of the world do not exist again.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is Trump for Sale (Middle Passage Press) He is the author of multiple books on race and politics in America. His weekly The Hutchinson Report is streamed on Facebook Livestream. He is the publisher of the news and op-ed website thehutchinsonreport.net.