How to Prevent the Next Mass Killing: Stop Abusing Our Boys 

Mass killings in our society are becoming more and more common. We all deal with the trauma in our own ways. Writing helps me. In 2012 I wrote an article for the Huffington Post about 20 year-old Adam Lanza who killed 26 people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Violence by young men seems to be escalating and getting closer. It recently came to my home town.

When I first heard that Talen Barton had killed his best friend Teo Palmieri and Teo’s father Coleman Palmieri I was stunned. When I learned that he had nearly killed Coleman’s wife, Cindy, and her brother, Theodore, in the rampage I was shaken to my core. I worked with Cindy, a medical doctor at Long Valley Health Center in Laytonville, and remember when she and Coleman first moved to the area. I knew that they had taken Talen to live with them a number of years ago and treated him as one of the family. After mourning the loss of life, I needed to understand how this tragedy had happened.

The headline in the Ukiah Daily Journal on October 6, 2015 summarized the outcome:

Barton handed 71-year sentence in Laytonville stabbings, likely off to San Quentin

Men and women who work in law enforcement see too many killers like Talen Barton.

One detective said he was encountering “pure evil,” that Barton was an “absolute monster.”

Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster, prosecuting on behalf of the people, summarized the way we treat killers under our present system:

“He’s going to go to a warehouse where the forgotten go.”

We Must Be Willing to Go Deeper

If we are going to prevent more killings we have to go deeper to understand how Talen Barton became a killer. Talen Barton is 19 years old. Most mass murderers are young men who were once innocent little boys.

I’ve been a therapist for more than 40 years. I’ve worked in mental health settings as well as jails and prisons. I’ve seen many young men in prison who appear to be cold, heartless killers, pure evil. But I’ve learned to look deeper and what I’ve found is this:

Every mass killer was once an abused, neglected, or abandoned child.

What Happened to Talen Barton?

Talen was born in Phoenix, Arizona, May 17, 1996, at 12:04 AM. His unmarried mother was 18 years old and addicted to methamphetamine.  She had a history of heroin and cocaine abuse. She gave birth at age 16 to Talen’s older brother, Royal, who was named after the father. He left shortly after Talen’s birth and the two boys spent their early years being raised by their drug addicted mother and a succession of abusive boyfriends.

When Talen was 8 years old, he and his brother went to live with a couple in Palo Cedro, in Shasta County. According to a report by KRCR TV, a former legal guardian of Talen Barton, said of Talen, “He had a heart of gold, I mean he couldn’t do enough. He was a pleaser. He would do anything he could to please somebody.” But even as an 8-year-old, it was clear that the previous seven years had been horrific.

Talen’s former guardian continued his remembrance with the KRCR reporter. “He said he heard stories from Talen that he and his brother would spend nights trapped in a closet, bound at their hands and feet by duct tape. In another story, the boys said they would line up against a wall while their mom’s boyfriend would throw knives at them.” There were also reports that Talen had been sexually abused.

Try and imagine spending the first seven years of your life subjected to this kind of abuse. I can only imagine the helplessness and rage of a 7-year-old boy, terrorized by a man, who binds him, hands and feet, and repeatedly locks him in a dark closet. I can’t even imagine the degradation and anguish of a seven year-old child being sexually abused so early in life. I can only speculate at the trauma of being lined up against a wall while a man throws knives at you and how it may relate to killing his foster father and brother with a knife twelve years later.

Talen Barton in His Own Words

I’ve seen many young men in custody. They are generally terrified, but cover their feelings with a cool, uncaring exterior. It’s only when they trust enough to open up that we get a glimpse into what is really going on inside. Interviewed by the probation officer in jail Talen said, “It was really fucked up what I did. I deserve to be in jail for the rest of my life.”

In a letter to a friend written from jail, Talen shared rather openly, his understanding about why he did what he did.

“You have great faith in me when you say you don’t believe I did my deeds in a sane frame of mind. I’m sorry to say I did. As unfortunate as this whole situation is, it’s one caused 110% by me, while rational. What was my motive? Truly, simply, hatred. A lot of it was due to a fermenting hatred for Teo caused by strife and petty squabbles. More than that though, it came about due to a deep self-loathing brought about by years of mistakes and lies made mostly by me but also by others.”

It isn’t difficult to imagine that the source of his anger wasn’t “strife and petty squabbles” with Teo and his family, but the cauldron of suppressed rage at the men who abused him, the mother who failed to protect him, and perhaps the brother who shared his degradation. Talen was depressed at the time he attacked the Palmieri family, a depression brought about by rage precipitated by the abuse, neglect, and abandonment he experienced as a child.

What We Can Do to Prevent Future Violence

Here are some of things I take from these tragic events:

1. If we only focus on the last act of violence we’ll never truly understand what turns someone into a killer.

When we read the stories in the newspaper it’s easy to conclude that the person who committed such horrendous acts of violence must be “pure evil,” a “monster,” someone who should be punished, warehoused, and forgotten. But that perception is based on what we see on the surface, the last straw. We need to have the courage to look more deeply.

2. There are better ways to protect society than sending Talen to San Quentin for 71 years.

As a society, we have become fearful of young males. When they commit crimes our own rage is triggered and we want to punish them severely. We want to hide them away. We fool ourselves if we think that warehousing and forgetting this young man will make us more secure in our homes. Talen (and all angry young men) needed love, compassion, and protection as a child. He still needs our love and support now.

3. We must understand violence as a response to violence.

I certainly don’t condone what Talen did. I still have nightmares seeing Cindy and her family being brutally attacked by this 19 year-old killer. But, seeing the full picture, I also see 7 year-old Talen growing up in a household where he was abused, neglected, and abandoned, where he was bound and locked in closets, and had knives thrown at him. We can’t understand his last act of violence without understanding the violence perpetrated on him as a child.

4. It’s time we ended the cycle of abuse and violence.

One of the things that prompted me to write this was how little most people know about child abuse, neglect, and abandonment, particularly with boys. We want to be tough on crime, which usually means tough on young males, but fail to look at the roots of violence in abusive families.

When an abused woman “snaps” and kills the man who has abused her, we understand her response and offer compassion and support. We need to offer the same compassion and support for young men who become violent following years of abuse.

5. We need a new approach for preventing violence.

Some believe that better mental health services might have prevented these killings. Although better supported mental health services are vital, we need a whole different understanding of violence and mental health treatment. Talen wasn’t mentally ill the way most people think of mental illness. He wasn’t hearing voices. He wasn’t delusional. He didn’t act “crazy.”

He was an abused child whose first seven years were horrendously traumatic, so much so that even having a great deal of love and support in later years couldn’t reverse the damage.

We need a new kind of prevention and treatment that is trauma-based, that seeks to understand these early childhood experiences and how they impact our lives now and forever. I highly recommend the book, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, which offers the latest research finding on the impact of early trauma on later health and well-being. We all can learn and benefit from being aware of ways our adverse childhood experiences can impact our adult lives.

Join me on Twitter for more conversation: @MenAliveNow