Woman denied food stamps kills self, shoots children

[The Straight Story]

Woman denied food stamps kills self, shoots children

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A woman in the border city of Laredo, Texas who was angry because she had been denied food stamps killed herself and shot and critically wounded her two children late on Monday, authorities said on Tuesday.

The 38-year-old woman entered the Texas Health and Human Services Commission office in downtown Laredo on Monday afternoon and demanded to speak to a supervisor, said investigator Joe Baeza of the Laredo Police Department.

The woman, whom he declined to identify, pulled out a handgun and started walking through the office, threatening several employees, he said.

"She had issues and felt that she had been let down by social services in general," Baeza told Reuters on Tuesday. "She was making all sorts of outlandish claims."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/woman-denied-food-stamps-kills-self-shoots-children-181629410.html

Cross posted to DU 3: http://www.democraticunderground.com/du3/101644

[rfranklin]

1. Maybe she really did need help?

Sounds like she might not have bee "faking it."

[me b zola]

14. Right. Her fake desperation lead her to suicide

Maybe she is faking being dead too.

[Myrina]

17. Have you ever had to deal with 'welfare workers' ??

Undereducated, low paid, overworked, and generally not the brightest & most organized crayons in the box.

Having been a welfare mom for a year after a car accident that left me unable to walk/work, I can attest to the frustration that leads you to go on a rage and want to blow some of these pencil pushers' brains out.

Most of them don't care, are numb from so many years 'in service' or just so overwhelmed with what's been asked of them that its like chasing your tail to try and get any logic out of them.

[jwirr]

19. I spent most of my life on welfare - never met the kind of workers

you are talking about. But then I live in a very blue state - at least as far as social programs are concerned. I also became a social worker myself because of the help and encouragement they gave me. As far as being denied food stamps - local workers do not make up the rules and cannot just hand them out regardless of the situation. She obviously needed help with her life and I wish she had gotten it.

In the county were I live the social workers have been threatened by enraged men who do not want to pay child support, people who dislike welfare for one reason or another, enraged people who have been denied like this woman and yes people who are mentally unsound. Most offices now are behind locked doors and bullet proof glass to protect themselves from getting shot. Yet most of them do what they can to help. It is only when someone like this woman is not given the kind of help she needs that anyone even thinks about any of this.

[Myrina]

21. Agree with everything you said.

And stand by my observations of the caseworkers I encountered in my experience.


:hi:

[jwirr]

26. I think some workers work for the people and others are working to save

the 1% from having to pay for taxes.

[Marrah_G]

22. I've had to be on food stamps/welfare a couple times in my life

I've never met the sort of worker you are describing. Maybe it's different in other states.

[Ed Suspicious]

2. Absolutely horrible on all fronts,

but why can't these people, if they truly feel they have to, shoot only themselves instead of taking the kids out with them. :(

[Ed Suspicious]

4. These people meaning people who have decided for themselves to end it all. n/t

[NOLALady]

11. Maybe,

in her mind, she was saving them from starvation.

[Turbineguy]

3. For the cost of running that operation

That family could have eaten well for at least a whole year.

Oh, and driven a Cadillac of course.

[tblue]

5. SHOT HER KIDS?!

Why do people harm their children?????????????! I know she was disturbed but how could a mommy kill her own kids? Meth, maybe? Or some very severe emotional disorder? This is so sad. I hope those kids pull through alright.

Damn her for doing that to them!

[Posteritatis]

18. Someone that far gone is more likely to see it as trying to spare them, I'd imagine. (nt)

[Doctor_J]

24. That's it exactly

Family Anihilators often think they're sparing their kids from their own misery.

[MADem]

6. Why didn't she go to the pawnshop and hock the gun and bullets?

Why didn't she head for the nearest food pantry?

This woman was mentally ill. Sad story, particularly when kids are involved.

[apnu]

8. Its Texas, guns are free after all.

:sarcasm:

[Codeine]

7. Probably not in that order, however. nt

[Brickbat]

9. Wow, that's some crappy writing, right there.

[Rex]

10. She gave up on the system, because it is not there to care

it is there to rubber stamp.

[grasswire]

12. she was making all sorts of outlandish claims?

Such as: "My children are hungry"?

[FarCenter]

13. The 38-year-old woman had recently moved to the area from Zanesville, Ohio

"Texas Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said Tuesday the woman first applied for assistance in July. Goodman said the mother was denied food stamps because she didn't submit enough information."

[Scuba]

15. Republican response: The plan is working. n/t

[Blasphemer]

16. Mental health care for the poor and disavantaged is abysmal

There was a good discussion about this in a thread several months back. I hope her children survive and have good guardians. They will need a great deal of support. It's too bad this woman could not have been helped before this occurred.

[Tsiyu]

20. This is so sad

The workers here are very kind. I wish the ones in TX would have helped her find the documentation she needed. Sounds like she was depressed and just went with the worst impulse to end her pain.

:cry:

[Doctor_J]

23. Our ever-growing underclass is becoming alot like the residents

of the old USSR, only with guns. I don't think the 1% will worry too much about it as long as we stick to attacking ourselves and each other.

[Blasphemer]

25. Sad experience on the bus reminded me of this story

A young man starting acting out at the bus driver (belligerent and threatening but with no swear words) because he wouldn't let him back off to retrieve something he forgot at the stop. The driver had already moved off from the bus stop and was a few feet into traffic. By law, they can only stop at bus stops. The young man (perhaps 17 or so) absolutely lost it. My immediate thought was the he was obviously troubled and his reaction had nothing to do with the driver or the situation on the bus. Some people who knew him explained that his family had abandoned him, he had not eaten all day and he had been told today that he couldn't get food stamps. For all of the GOP huffing and puffing about our social welfare system it is woefully inadequate. Far too many people fall through the cracks. The young man on the bus has friends so I hope that since he is close to being a legal adult, he will be able to overcome the miserable circumstances of his life. Many young people in the same situation do not and end up on the streets, on drugs and prostituting themselves. Our system failed this young man, the woman in the story in the OP and it could fail her children too. We do not do enough, the 1% do not do enough.