Monday, February 17, 2025 was a horrific day in Crozet. When I heard the news about the shootings and deaths in the Harris Teeter parking lot, I stopped cold in shock, fear, and deep sadness. My heart goes out to the families and friends of Diane Spangler and Peter Martin, as well as to the law enforcement officer who stopped the shooter from affecting further violence. And I stand in deep sympathy with the family of Justin Barbour. Family members of Barbour, the mentally ill young man who perpetrated the shootings, had been aware of his suffering, his symptoms and the risk he might pose to the community and had desperately tried to get him help.
The March edition of the Crozet Gazette includes a beautiful and loving remembrance and tribute to Diane Spangler written by Raven Cypress Wood, a close friend. Ms. Wood also extends words of support and caring for the other victims: Peter Martin, the Barbour family, and the affected community.
Also in the March Crozet Gazette, the family of Peter Martin portrays him in vivid wonderful detail, mourning his loss, “a devoted father, loving husband and a person of exceptional character.” The Martin family also addresses the “failure in the mental health system and public safety systems,” which may have contributed to this tragedy. Nothing I write here could articulate these issues better than the Martin family letter. I do want to highlight a few of their points.
As I wrote in a previous Gazette column, most people with mental illness are not violent. However, some forms of mental illness do increase violence risk, including psychotic symptoms such as paranoid delusions and/or hearing voices telling the person to hurt someone (what are called “command auditory hallucinations”). Paranoid delusions are strong false beliefs that you are in danger, someone is out to get you, people are conspiring against you, and you need to protect yourself. Delusions and hallucinations can be symptoms of severe illnesses such as schizophrenia.
These brain illnesses often involve a lack of “insight,” meaning that the person does not recognize that they are ill and need help. (“Anosognosia,” when a brain illness prevents a person from recognizing their health condition, is common in schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.) Therefore, sometimes people require involuntary treatment for their own welfare and/or the safety of the community, whether that be hospitalization, medications, or outpatient care.
Justin Barbour’s family was rightly very concerned when he began to develop paranoid delusions and concerning behavioral changes. According to his sister Tekaiya, “He was paranoid (maybe even schizophrenic). He thought people were following him, targeting him and just out to hurt him. More times than not he had his phone off because he thought he was being listened to and tracked.” And “The daily battles that he was fighting were beyond us all but were absolutely real to him and made life so much harder. Multiple times, we tried to get him the help that he needed.” The Barbour family went through the correct channels to try to get him hospitalized, assessed and treated, including trying to get an Emergency Custody Order (ECO), which needs to be issued by a magistrate. The family also recognized the danger posed by his access to firearms and pleaded with authorities to remove his guns.
In 2013, Virginia state Senator Creigh Deeds’ son, in the throes of a psychotic episode related to bipolar disorder, attacked the senator with a knife and then killed himself with a firearm. Before and since this family tragedy, Senator Deeds has spent years advocating for mental health care reform, trying to make it easier for people to receive care, including involuntary commitment if needed. (For example, one change to the law allows a magistrate to consider a person’s more complete mental health history and recent behaviors when assessing for risk vs. only considering a point in time.) In response to the Crozet shooting, according to the Daily Progress, Senator Deeds stated, “He could get an assault weapon before he could get the help, and there’s tragedy in that.”
Virginia’s “red flag law,” enacted in 2020, enables the court to temporarily prohibit a person from purchasing firearms, and to confiscate existing firearms, “upon a finding that there is probable cause to believe that a person poses a substantial risk of personal injury to himself or others in the near future by such person’s possession or acquisition of a firearm.” In Virginia, law enforcement officers need to petition the court for these orders. There is ongoing exploration as to why this did not occur in Barbour’s case, considering the information his family shared with police.
Firearms and serious mental illness are a potentially dangerous mix. In addition to the risk posed to others, firearms are the #1 method of suicide in the U.S. In 2023, suicides accounted for the majority of gun deaths in this country. Having guns in the home significantly increases the risk of suicide; this is especially relevant for struggling adolescents.
As many are acutely aware, our mental health “system” (or lack thereof) is clearly inadequate and underfunded and has been for a long time. In tragic irony, according to the Martin family letter, Peter’s wife has worked in the public health sphere, advocating for mental health reforms and access to care. With Peter’s death, the family is determined to “continue fighting for common sense mental health and gun safety measures…”.
Providing accessible and affordable quality mental health care is not generally a financially profitable enterprise. This is one reason for the insufficient number of hospital beds and affordable outpatient treatment slots. And yet, we ALL suffer when ill people are unable to get the treatment they need. None of us are immune. Even those of us with health insurance often have difficulty finding an affordable provider or specific treatment. Broad access to mental health care is a public good, benefiting society as a whole in multiple ways, including our quality of life, our economy and public safety. It is therefore vital that we as a county acknowledge these realities and summon the political will to provide adequate public support and funding to address the mental health crisis we are facing.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 9-8-8 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.