BALTIMORE (AP) — The suspect in a deadly shooting at a Florida video game tournament had previously been hospitalized for mental illness, according to court records in his home state of Maryland reviewed by The Associated Press.
Divorce filings from the parents of 24-year-old David Katz of Baltimore say that as an adolescent he was twice hospitalized in psychiatric facilities and that he was prescribed antipsychotic and antidepressant medications.
The records show Katz’s parents disagreed on how to care for their troubled son, with his father claiming his estranged wife was exaggerating symptoms of mental illness as part of their long and bitter custody battle. The couple divorced in 2007.
The Howard County, Maryland, divorce filings say that David Katz played video games obsessively as a young adolescent, often refusing to go to school or to bathe. Elizabeth Katz, a toxicologist who worked at the Department of Agriculture, said she confiscated some of her son’s gaming equipment after finding him playing in the wee hours.
“His hair would very often go unwashed for days. When I took his gaming equipment controllers away so he couldn’t play at 3 or 4 in the morning, I’d get up and find that he was just walking around the house in circles,” the mother said, according to a transcript in the court files.
At one point, she put his gaming controllers in her bedroom behind a locked door and he punched a hole in the door, she said.
Elizabeth Katz said her youngest son had increasing difficulty concentrating following his parents’ split. A judge awarded custody of the boy to his mother, with visitation rights to the father.
At times David “curled up into a ball,” refused to attend school and sobbed, she said. She asserted that her ex-husband instructed David not to take Risperidal — an anti-psychotic medication prescribed to him. The father claimed in court filings that David was not “diagnosed as psychotic.”
He missed large stretches of school while under his mother’s supervision. He was admitted to the nearby Sheppard Pratt mental health system for about 12 days in late 2007. Court documents say a psychiatrist at that time administered antidepressants. He later spent about 13 days at Potomac Ridge, a mental health services facility in Rockville.
Richard Katz, a NASA engineer, said his ex-wife had “an obsession with using mental health professionals and in particular psychiatric drugs to perform the work that parents should naturally do.” He said she routinely gave false information to mental health care providers. He described one incident in which his son was handcuffed by police after locking himself in his mother’s car in an attempt to avoid going to a mental health appointment with her.
By the time Katz was 15, the divorce records show, the father asserted that Elizabeth Katz “routinely” called the police for “trivial matters.” In a transcript of a 2010 phone call, the mother phoned a 911 dispatcher, accusing David of “abusing” her by coming home late after a visitation with his father. She then insisted he was “assaulting” her by trying to gain control of the cable cord to the television. She complained to the dispatcher that he was rolling his eyes and laughing.
“You’ll roll your eyes. Fine. You’ll pay. Where are you going to be tomorrow?” she said in the transcript, addressing her son.
According to the father’s version of events, the relationship between mother and son got increasingly worse.
Elizabeth Katz put David’s clothes in suitcases on at least two occasions and asked him to leave, including once on Mother’s Day in 2007. In court filings, the father asserted that David “routinely expresses his anger” toward her. He claimed that when David was staying with him, the boy showed no signs of behavioral problems and was “generally lively, communicative” and “playful.”
In a 2010 letter, David Katz wrote a letter to a magistrate judge saying he wanted to live with his father and describing his mother as “pretty crazy.” He said she called the police to the family’s home about 20 times and “gets drunk.” He blamed her for his poor grades.
Feminist Single Mother Drove Her Son to Homocidical and Suicidal Rage at Florida Video Game Shooting
Jace Adams
John Murphy
He was also jewish btw.
Source: twitter.com
Christopher Morgan
Single mother households with the gobmint playing daddy release defective barely functional humans into society but muh feminism.
Nicholas Russell
He really did cut down that crowd like a Jewish mother through self-esteem.
Austin Young
Fascinating.
Samuel Stewart
RE: FASCINATING
the only thing 'fascinating' about any of this bullshit is how you men in here all still desperately cling to nonsense 'victim statements' and always try to blame others for your actions, or lack thereof.
Video Game Sissies.
Kayden Scott
You know, we have these things, >>, new friend. Let me introduce you to them:
Liam Cooper
The mother abused/mistreated her son. Gynocentric family court still let her retained custody.
Jaxon Gomez
Johny Dr.Katz wants you to tell him why you're triggered by video games.
Henry Rogers
Behold, the female is revealed.