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Health & Fitness

Post-Partum Depression Results in a Death Sentence?

In this installment of 'A View From the Deck', J. Wiley Dumas gives his thoughts on Thursday's tragic events in Washington D.C., and the death of a young Connecticut woman

NOTE: The following is OPINION. It is the Point of View of the author, and he alone is responsible for the content therein.

No one knows exactly why Miriam Carey, 34, a dental hygienist from Stamford, CT., was in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. She had told friends and family that she was taking her daughter to a doctor’s appointment.

Miriam Carey was shot and killed, with her daughter in her car, by D.C. Police following Thursday’s high-speed chase between the White House and the Capitol Building after she tried to plow her car into a barricade at the White House, then led cops on a high-speed chase before being shot dead near the Capitol.

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No, we don’t her motives or reasoning. All we do know is she was unarmed, had her daughter in the car, and was shot dead.

Was this a justifiable method of ending the incident, which caused the nation’s lawmakers to cower in fear inside the Capitol, or was this a case of ‘Overreaction,’ by D.C. Police, in the shadow of last month’s shooting at the Washington Navy Yard?

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She was unarmed. She had her daughter in the car.

Miriam Carey’s apartment in Stamford was swarmed by the FBI and various law-enforcement agencies Thursday evening, with helicopters circling and a bomb squad ready, as they awaited a warrant to search the premises.

The initial portrait of Miriam Carey that has now emerged suggests a person unlikely to be found in the center of such an act of violence. Carey, according to public documents, friends and family members, had finished college and established a work history as a dental hygienist.

People who knew Carey described her as friendly and dedicated. Carey did not have many friends, one friend said, and could seem “arrogant. She could be sort of conceited, like she knew everything. But that was the most negative thing you could say about her.”

Miriam Carey was also said to be a good driver with a good sense of direction. “She wasn’t one to get all crossed up, she knew maps. I even recall saying that I hoped I became as good a driver as she was, since I can get lost in a box,” the friend said.

 “She was a really nice woman, we had [our] children at about the same time, we had pleasant conversation,” said a woman that knew her. “I am absolutely shocked that she could be implicated in this,” she said. “She was responsible financially, just a nice person, there’s nothing that would lead me to believe she would be capable of doing this.”

There are reports that Miriam Carey may have had a history of mental issues.

Miriam Carey's mother, Idella Carey, told ABC News that her daughter began suffering from post-partum depression after giving birth to her daughter, Erica, last August.

"She had post-partum depression after having the baby" she said. "A few months later, she got sick. She was depressed. ... She was hospitalized."

Idella Carey said her daughter had "no history of violence" and she didn't know why she was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. She said she thought Carey was taking Erica to a doctor's appointment in Connecticut.

Her boss, Dr. Steven Oken, described Carey as a person who was "always happy. I would never in a million years believe that she would do something like this," he said. "It's the furthest thing from anything I would think she would do, especially with her child in the car. I am floored that it would be her."

Former boss Dr. Barry J. Weiss told The New York Times that he and his partner fired Miriam Carey from their periodontics practice last year and cited her "temper" but would not go into detail.

D.C. Police confirmed that Miriam Carey was shot and killed after careening around the Capitol grounds and crashing at Second Street NE. There was no sign that she was armed, police said.

So, they shot her.

Video images showed a young child, her hair in braids, being carried by an officer to the back of a patrol car.

In a news conference, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the incident did not appear to be an accident, noting there was “a lengthy pursuit.” She also stated that it appeared to be an “Isolated incident.”

That last statement disturbs and angers me. Was the prevailing thought that this was an act of Terrorism? Granted, given that this did occur in ‘Wonderland on the Potomac,’ just outside the White House and Capitol Building, there would be some valid security concerns. But it was obvious from the plethora of videos being run by the news services that this was a case of a single adult in a car. A car that, having failed to breech the barricade, then attempted to leave the scene.

Sure rules out a car bomb, and cooler heads on-scene with guns drawn should have realized that, particularly those that noticed little Erica.

So, what we appear to have here is a case of a woman suffering Post-Partum Depression being shot dead by D.C. Police after trying to ram a barricade at the White House, injuring a Secret Service Agent, and then leading the police on a chase with her young daughter in the car.

Does this mean that all women suffering from PPD will now be seen by some as potential threats to society? Threats that the use of ‘Deadly Force’ is authorized for?

Will some lawmakers, those same lawmakers cowering in fear under their desks as this tragic incident unfolded outside, now push for stricter legislation on Black Sedans? Will they scream for little Erica, now motherless, to be charged as an accomplice?

I’m being facetious, of course, but only because I’m angry.

I’m angry that the first thought of many during this tragic incident ran to ‘Terrorism.’ I’m angry that the D.C. Police reacted so viciously when Miriam crashed her car and was getting out. I’m angry that they rushed to judgment and shot her dead in front of her child. I’m angry that the D.C. Police did not even attempt to try and bring about a peaceful, non-lethal resolution to this event.

I’m angry that little Erica is now motherless.

I’ve stated before that there are many within the law-enforcement community that fail to use good judgment regarding the use of firearms and justifiable ‘Deadly Force,’ as gun-control advocates scream for tighter, more infringing legislation on the rest of us.

But this incident demonstrates a lack of judgment on the part of the D.C. Police, who were all too willing to gun down a young woman who was obviously having a bad day. She was no ‘Terrorist.’ She had no ‘grand plan’ to do harm. She was simply suffering from Post-Partum Depression and lost it, for whatever reason.

No, I don’t have a fraking clue as to what Miriam Carey had going on in her life that drove her to commit this act. We may never know, but I guarantee that the media will pump out plenty of conjecture based on hearsay.

All I know is that Miriam Carey is dead, and her daughter is without a mother.

Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum

 

 

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