Tag Archives: committed

Law Enfocement finds Pennsylvania Shooter prescribed 43 drugs ranging from psychiatric drugs to pain pills

Law enforcement authorities who searched John F. Shick’s North Oakland apartment following his deadly shooting rampage Thursday found 43 medications ranging from psychotropic drugs to pain pills to erectile dysfunction tablets that had been prescribed by about a dozen different doctors, sources close to the probe said.

Additionally, they found the address for Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of UPMC, the scene of the shootings, written on a piece of paper hanging from a wall in Mr. Shick’s fourth-floor flat in the Royal York Apartments.

Rambling messages were written on the walls themselves and in notebooks scattered throughout the apartment. And there were handwritten complaints about his medical treatment for a variety of physical ailments, sources reported.

John Shick, Psychiatric ‘Shooter,’ Had Mental Health History; Pittsburgh Cops Seek Motive

The gunman in a fatal shooting rampage inside a Pittsburgh psychiatric clinic was previously committed to a mental health facility for treatment following an altercation with police in Oregon in 2009, a prosecutor said.

Details of John Shick’s previous involvement with mental health professionals come as investigators piece together a motive for last week’s shooting that killed one person and wounded six others in the lobby of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dangerous doctors slipping through the cracks

It took the discovery of guns and grenades to suspend the license of a psychiatrist who some say should have come under scrutiny years earlier. One night a Crestwood police sergeant doing a routine building check noticed an open door to the office of psychiatrist Joel Carroll. Stepping inside the cluttered office, he discovered roaming cats, a Colt AR-15 assault rifle and other guns, ammunition, military-grade smoke grenades, sex toys, and pornography. “Well, for the lack of better terminology, we considered it a pigsty,” Sgt. Thomas Kaniewski testified about his April 2009 discovery. “It looked in complete disarray. We couldn’t believe that someone could actually conduct business in an office like that because of the conditions it was in.”