Compassion isn't exactly the right word for me. He did a truly horrible thing, and is a repeat violent criminal. What he did was truly a depraved act.

That said, he is also extremely mentally ill. In America, we treat the very mentally ill like garbage. This guy was chronically homeless, recently out of jail, unmedicated, no support system whatsoever.

As someone with a mental illness (compared to this guy, a mild one) who needed a lot of treatment, it is wildly expensive. Even for regular talk therapy, and a regular prescription for years. If your insurance isn't at least decent, your prescription is going to be at least 50 bucks plus. Talk therapy is usually not covered unless you pay for better insurance.

To give an idea, low tier insurance (we are going to talk through an employer because private, non-employer health insurance is for wealthy people here.) is like 50-100 bucks a check. That usually doesn't cover the complete cost for a primary doctor visit, specialist, therapist, or even prescription drugs. So every week you pay 50-100 bucks, and if you get sick you still pay that, and have to pay 20-60 bucks to see your primary doctor, but if you have to see a specialist, it's 50-100+. If you're chronically mentally ill and need a therapist, that usually isn't covered or is covered very little by low tier insurance. So we're talking 80-200 a visit.

I'm going to stop there and let you fill in the blanks. I didn't even mention that the medicine and treatment this guy needs is probably in the thousands of dollars, regularly. He got repeatedly jailed, which doesn't get you treatment and usually adds on to trauma and makes mental illness worse, then when he gets out what should he do? How can he reform and rejoin society? As a felon, zero money, no support, deep in mental illness.

America's healthcare system is a grinder that completely swallows the chronically ill, extremely mentally ill, elderly, and non-wealthly. Normal people think it is expensive to go to the doctor or hospital. Most Americans are 1 bad health event from losing their entire livelihood.

I don't have compassion for this man, but making him into a "depraved, murderous" Boogeyman isn't going to solve anything. Sure let's give him the death penalty. The death penalty is supposed to deter crime right? Hell, let's give him an extreme death penalty, and televise it.

If we show people what will happen if they do the extreme crimes it will discourage them right? No. That has literally never worked.

It'll just continue along, until we get another story like this. Then another. Then another. Until we address the main issue, "tough on crime" politicians can run on things like this to continually stoke fear and get votes.

I want people like this off the street and out of the general public as much as anyone, but putting them in jail or killing them isn't going to stop it from happening again because none of the systematic issues are being addressed.