—Police Chief Bill Lansdowne to the San Diego City Council’s Public Safety
and Neighborhood Services Committee regarding a 33-percent increase in the
city’s homicide rate in 2006

Those of you younger than 50 probably heard and probably paid no heed to the fact that Tom Eagleton died on March 4. Here’s a brief biographical thumbnail: Thomas Francis Eagleton was a United States Senator from Missouri from 1968 until 1987 and is best remembered for being a vice presidential running mate of 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, albeit for just 17 days.

Polls that year indicated that the incumbent, Richard Nixon, was practically unbeatable. Probably for that reason, the most obvious choices to be McGovern’s running mate—Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale and others—refused to accept the party’s nomination. Eagleton was tapped for the spot on July 14, 1972.

On Aug. 1, despite McGovern’s declaration that he supported Eagleton “100 percent,” the latter left the ticket and was replaced by Sargent Shriver. Eagleton’s departure came after it was revealed in the press that he had been hospitalized on three occasions between 1960 and 1966 to be treated for “physical and nervous exhaustion.” On two of those occasions, he underwent electroshock therapy for what today would probably be called major depression.

Back in 1972, a really good way to doom a ticket was to reveal that one of its members had spent time in a mental hospital. The voters of the day weren’t ready to countenance the idea that the man seated at the right side of the throne might struggle with an illness that frightened them. And that’s really what it was. Americans in 1972 were frightened of mental illness. They didn’t understand it, and they didn’t really think of it as an illness at all. They thought of it as an affliction more akin to a character flaw than to a disability. Whereas Bob Dole’s withered arm was a mark of honor, Eagleton’s battle with depression was the mark of a complete incapacity to serve. At least it was at the time.

So with Eagleton’s passing, I asked myself, just how far have we come in 35 years with regard to our collective assessment of mental illness, our acceptance of it as a reality of the human experience and our willingness to confront it without fear? Sadly, I have to answer that when it comes to the matter of brain chemistry, we haven’t come a long way, baby.

Today we have a second-term vice president whose heart is held together with duct tape and bailing wire, but as far as anyone knows, at least he hasn’t ever been to a mental hospital. And no matter who ends up being a running mate with whom next year, he, she and/or they will have their backgrounds strained through the electability colander, the holes of which are set at a minimum to make sure he’s not a nut-job.

We’re still frightened of mental illness and sometimes our fear leaks out in some fairly conspicuous ways that should make us examine our preconceived notions. We are so afraid of mental illness that when the chief of police of one of this country’s largest cities uttered the quote that begins this column, nobody—other than CityBeat—batted an eye. After all, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? Of course people get killed in this city. There’s a bunch of crazy folks here.

No, it does not stand to reason. I defy Chief Lansdowne to proffer one study, published or otherwise, that would suggest that either: a) San Diego is any more mentally ill now than it ever has been, or b) there is any inherent correlation between a given city’s proportion of mentally ill denizens and its murder rate. I doubt he believes either of those things, actually, but when accounting for why people keep turning up dead in this town, it probably seemed intuitively obvious that it’s because the people doing the killing are crazy. I suggest that anyone who murders anybody is some kind of crazy, at least at the moment. So while the chief’s observation might be true (sort of), if it is, it’s only by definition.

I think what Lansdowne probably meant is that there have been some homicides in San Diego involving mentally ill perpetrators and those skew the numbers. But, Chief, why is that relevant? Would you have been as comfortable saying that some of that increase involves people with “height issues” or “weight issues” or “diabetic issues” or “orientation issues” or (as was once fashionable in your profession) “color issues”? Certainly you would not have said those things no matter how many short, fat, diabetic, gay minorities killed a neighbor. You would not have said those things because you do not believe that stature, girth, disease, sexual preference or race have anything to do with homicidality. Apparently, however, you and the City Council members who let your remark pass without comment believe that mental illness does. That’s all I need to know to restate my thesis with conviction: We are still afraid of mental illness.

Even I am afraid of mental illness. I should be. I’m mentally ill. Like Tom Eagleton, I suffer from major depression and, like Tom Eagleton, I’ve been to the hospital to be treated for it. I’m not afraid that my mental illness will kill me. I’m not afraid that I can’t deal with the monster with which I have grappled for 30 years now. I can handle that monster easily, but I am very afraid that, against an entire society of people who believe they should fear me, I stand no chance at all, particularly if that society’s law-enforcement leaders fear me as well.

So I’m not going to watch City Council committee meetings anymore, and I’m going to do my best to have minimal contact with the police. It’s best that way. And one other thing: I’m not going to run for vice president. I’ll leave that task to the truly fearsome.