Daily Grind Changeup

This morning I wake up to 3 UIC emails with the subject of "Urgent Official Announcement." Usually they're warning us about some mugging that happened recently. And it's always a useful suspect description of 5'8"-5'10" black male in his early 20s weighing 150-170lbs wearing dark jeans and a white T shirt. Racist? Not on purpose. That's seriously the description for 90% of those muggings.

Anyway, as you're guessing from the setup, muggings weren't the point of those emails. Instead, they all said something to this effect: "Chicago police remain at the scene of a barricade situation at the Westside VA Medical Center. UIC police say to avoid Damen between Polk and Taylor."

Guess where I'm working? Apparently, some guy killed his parents and then showed up to the VA ER around 1 AM. He then proceeded to shoot the ceiling, point the gun at himself, and then ask for help. The situation went on for another seven or eight hours, until he was finally talked down and taken in. Here's the news story.

Selfishly, traffic was a disaster on all the local roads. My five minute commute turned into 30 minutes. CPD, SWAT, and all sorts of media were buzzing around the hospital. On getting to the hospital, cops were understandably redirecting everyone around the ER. Amazingly (to me), the rest of the hospital carried on as usual.

Since I'm working with psychiatry, I got to talking to some of the other residents. Apparently the resident on call was about two minutes away from heading down to the ER to see a psych patient around the time this guy went off. Eesh. That obviously would've blown for the resident and the attached med student. Regardless, it had to have been shitty for anyone caught in that ER.

Anyway, no real point to this anecdote. Just a little deviation and excitement in my daily psych routine. Out of curiosity and since I'm finishing up psychiatry, I'd like to hear this guy's story - I think it'd be kinda interesting. Who kills their parents and then goes to an ER?