Alabama School Shooter’s Psychiatrist and Father Should Have Gone to Prison, Too

     On February 5, 2010, fourteen-year old Hammad Memon walked up behind his classmate Todd Brown in a hallway at Discovery Middle School in Madison, Alabama, and fatally shot him in the back of the head with a stolen .22 caliber pistol. Brown was also fourteen. 

     Memon was to be tried as an adult, and he received a thirty year sentence for murder after he pleaded guilty to the charge in 2017.

     “As I reflect on my crime, I make no excuses,” the then seventeen-year-old Memon said. His father, a doctor, and his psychiatrist offered no such frank culpability for their own part in the tragedy.

     The boy had been prescribed Zoloft for depression and Strattera for ADHD by his psychiatrist. Potential side effects of Strattera include suicidal thoughts and violent behavior. Memon’s father, a pediatrician, was giving the boy the medication, as well.

     It is not appropriate, of course, for a physician to write prescriptions for controlled substances for themselves or for their immediate family members, but no action was ever taken against Dr. Memon by the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners.

     If Alabama had had a stricter Informed Consent law that required signed documentation by physician and patient (in this case family) alike, this tragedy might have been prevented. Informed Consent paperwork would have shown that the psychiatrist had informed Hammad’s parents the reason for the diagnosis, the medication for it which he had prescribed — including its side effects of suicidal and violent behavior — as well as alternative treatments and the risks of doing nothing at all.

     If he did not have a signed document showing his diligence to the law, he could be held liable to lawsuits. If he did have a document showing he prescribed dangerous medications such as Zoloft and Starttera to a fourteen year-old boy without good reason, he could also be held liable to lawsuits.

     Informed Consent paperwork can act as a legal deterrent to any doctor or psychiatrist choosing not to carry out a full informed consent procedure. Strict, local Informed Consent laws help guarantee any medical patient’s rights, regardless if they’re being told they need a hysterectomy or if they’re being told they need Zoloft.

     So, why have so few state legislatures passed those legally binding Informed Consent laws? 43,000,000 Americans are prescribed antidepressants every year. Obviously, not all of those people turn into mass shooters. But for the few who do, applying a strict Informed Consent protocol might have prevented some of America’s worst mass shooting tragedies.

     It might also prevent future tragedies.