PTSD led to deadly encounter over traffic ticket

If you want to know how everything can converge to fail, this is it.

Dusty was diagnosed with PTSD but didn't want to go for help. So much for the outreach the DOD has been doing all these years to make it ok to seek help.

Dusty had a supportive family and they tried to get him to the help he needed to heal from where he'd been. Family support is key to helping them heal but even that was not enough to prevent what was to come from a simple traffic ticket.

Dusty had faith and went to church. We tell them that they need to take care of their spiritual healing as much as their "mental healing" and that didn't work.

Dusty and his family were failed by everything we're told is being done for these veterans. The Sheriff's department was failed too because now they have to face the fact that another veteran was killed because he didn't get what he needed to heal.

Family: PTSD led to deadly encounter
WCAX.com
Posted: Jan 10, 2013
By Matt Henson

ALTONA, N.Y.
It's been an emotional two and a half weeks for Sheila and Edward Clark.

"My world is going to be radically changed," Sheila said.

"It's been tough, it's been tough," Edward said.

Their 28-year-old son, Dusty, was shot and killed by a Clinton County deputy sheriff two weeks ago. Dusty allegedly pulled a knife out when officers went to his home in Altona to arrest him for failing to appear in court for an ongoing traffic ticket.

"PTSD is what brought this all on, I think," Edward said.

The Clarks say their son was not a violent person, but a young man who struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. He spent four years in the Marines. But in 2009 he was diagnosed with PTSD and was not allowed to re-enlist.

"His struggle to fit into this world and wanting to be still in the Marine Corps was just tough for him," Sheila said.

His parents say they noticed a dramatic change in his behavior. Dusty isolated himself, would go days without sleeping, thought people were after him and even walked 25 miles in the woods from his home in Altona to his mother's in Plattsburgh.

"I asked him, 'what are you doing for it? Are you getting help for it?' He said, 'I don't feel like I have anything wrong with me, mom,'" Sheila said.

Just a few weeks before the fatal encounter with police, Dusty Clark's father called the New York State Police to come check on his son. He told them he was acting strange.

"I told them, I think he needs to be medicated, and they tried, tried and tried again to get him to go to the hospital and get checked out," Edward said.

On Dec. 30, Dusty went to church with his mother like they did every Sunday. He served as an altar boy and was an active member of the church's fundraising efforts. After church, she gave him several hundred dollars to settle the traffic violations.
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Former Marine killed by sheriff's deputy had PTSD