I cruised up Central Avenue at 4:45 am on Friday morning, beginning my shift in the cab for another 12 hours, and I saw all three local news trucks with their antennas sticking up high at Ash & Central. Something bad had happened. Within the next fifteen minutes, my dispatcher was explaining to the day drivers just starting that two APD officers were shot and killed in the line of duty that night. The entire day had a somber feel to it.

By the time I got home that day, more details had unfolded, and like many of the tragic events that occur in my neighborhood, the gunman was a mentally ill man who had stopped taking his medication months before. Not only did John Hyde shoot and kill two officers with more than twenty years service each, but he also shot and killed workers at a local motorcycle shop earlier that night. Another mentally ill man goes on a rampage, and the result is four dead people who didn't see it coming.

This is one of the most difficult lines we have to walk as a society. What do we do with the mentally ill? I've spent a good deal of my adult life dealing with unstable folks in some form or another. During my university years, I volunteered at the Agora Crisis Center, a call center for distressed people to talk out their difficulties. I worked for a winter at St. Martin's Hospitality Center, a 24-hour homeless shelter. I spent over two years of service at a Charter Residential Treatment Center for kids.

Now as cab driver, I drive around unstable people on a regular basis. I take people to and from 2600 Marble, the University Mental Health Facility. I pick them up at 420 Coal, a building made especially for older crazy folks. I pick them up at motels, restaurants, apartments, pharmacies, grocery stores and just off the streets. There are a bunch of them, and they all need rides somewhere. One of the reasons I'm a good cab driver is my ability to keep a situation calm. Sometimes, I do better than others, but in general, I get everyone where they need to go without incident. Of course, I don't want anything from them besides payment for the service.

But what should we really do with these people? We already have institutions for them to be committed, outpatient treatment, specialized housing, government funded programs, charity funded programs, hot lines, and on and on. Still, a person can just decide to go off their medication. The movie A Beautiful Mind celebrates the delusional mathematician who learned how to deal with his difficulties without drugs. Lots of folks who go off their medication still lead decent lives. One of the guitarists in my band is one of the folks who chooses not to take medication for his diagnosed conditions. He drinks a lot, and occasionally, he goes off on internal journeys which I never quite comprehend. There are people all over the place taking medication for some sort of disorder, and if most of us are honest about ourselves, we all have tendencies toward one or a few mental illnesses.

John Hyde suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. He stopped taking his medication for a few months, and that choice resulted in four deaths. You cannot defend John Hyde. You cannot say his crazy life was worth two police officers with families or two young employees at a motorcycle shop. John Hyde is a crazy fool.

It does no good jump on some anti-gun bandwagon. Guns are readily available in many forms, and crazy people have a knack for getting whatever they need in the most bizarre ways. It does no good to call for budget cuts for mental health issues. The less you help these people, the more tragedies like this will occur. Even with more money and programs, these incidents will continue.

Personally, I can't deal with their madness for long periods of time. I still suffer a little PTSD from working directly with the mentally ill for only a few years. The more you hang out with the mentally ill, the more you relate, mimic and become like them. Most cab rides lasts about ten minutes or less, so I can hang with anyone for that long. While I haven't been diagnosed with anything, I know family members who have full blown cases of depression, bi-polar disorder, histrionics, sexual deviance and schizophrenia. It's in my blood. It's in yours as well.

But what do we do? How do we stop these horrific incidents from occurring? How do we protect ourselves? What about our national security? What about our personal safety?

Sadly, I shrug my shoulders. We do what we can, and really, that is all we can do.

Chris Jungle is little bit better than he used to be.