Georgia school on lockdown after Iraq veteran's suicide threat

Here is one more veteran making the headlines after he didn't get the help he needed. He's getting it now according to this report. Thankfully it ended the way it did but all of us should be asking how it began.

How do they go from being willing to die, facing days trying to stay alive, then end up wanting to die when they come home? These veterans are supposed to be safe back here but too often there is more danger to face from the enemy inside of them. The last thing they want to do is hurt someone else or make them feel fearful because of them, but it happens. It happens when a family doesn't understand what is going on, why their veteran changed or how to help them. It happens when the veteran is not getting the help they need, either because they don't seek it or when they do, it is not the right kind of help. Complicating this is the fact there is a huge backlog of claims in the VA, long waits for appointments and some programs that don't work. All this adds to the stress the veteran feels.

Do you read about all of this in your newspaper? Do you see it on the cable news stations? No, but when one of them gets into trouble, you hear about it over and over again. Wouldn't it be wonderful to know about all of this before it ever gets to the point where a family falls apart, a veteran commits suicide, a school has to be put on lockdown or a police officer has to kill a veteran?

Digging Deeper: PTSD its affects and resources

Posted: Dec 07, 2011
By Jennifer Emert

Lee County, GA -
Lee County schools were on lock down Wednesday morning due to a former Marine's suicide threat.

Tim Tompkins threatened to kill himself in a neighborhood near the schools. Tompkins was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon. He is not charged with a crime and is being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Family members say Tompkins struggled after serving in Iraq.

They say left his Canal Street home with a knife today and used social media to communicate the threat.

It was the resolution Tim Tompkins family hoped all morning for. Tompkins was taken into custody on River Street around 1:00 PM after police used his cell phone to find him.

"It registered at different places in the city and it finally registered up here and came up here and started looking and he was at a friends house," said Chief Charlie Moore, Leesburg Police.

His mother called police after Tompkins threatened his own life Wednesday morning. They say he left the Canal Street home with a knife. On his facebook page he posted, he saw dead people and when a friend asked if he was losing his mind, he replied, "yea I am". Schools were put on lock down and K-9 units from Mitchell County and the DNR searched wooded areas around the schools.
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