In Puerto Rico a mentally unstable young man brutally murdered the landlord and his family after being evicted.

Are these type of cases a reflection of the state of mental health of citizens and of mental health care services and their accessibility/or lack of/or of the role they serve?

Are they collateral damage from the housing market's boom and busts? Of the ups and downs of the economy and the job market?

Is this what happens when the law is enforced in a way that prioritizes private property over human dignity?

Is this an issue about "gun safety" or "gun regulations"?

Is this part of what happens when there is a growing resentment towards cops/landlords?

Is this an issue about tenants not knowing their rights, or not having an access to legal advice/representation, or knowledge of government programs and therefore thinking there are no options or no way out?

Is this a tragedy brought about by "machismo" and the way men are socialized into repressing emotions, and where outbursts of anger and violence are seen as more "manly" than just crying and expressing them with words?

I know the ever unresolved issue of "homelessness" has to do with the first two.

It is horrible irony how he might have found it difficult to find housing after being evicted, yet now the government will provide now him "housing" in prison as punishment for a man that just lost his daughter after the embarrassment of failing to "provide for her". His actions which lead to her accidental death will forever weigh heavily on him, as they will on the officer.

The case presented in this post is a tragedy that is not isolated from the rest of the world and its problems, yet the loss of this girl's life by itself should weigh on us and we should allow the space to mourn it. In a way we are the witnesses and we owe to the victim to keep her memory and to accurately register and retell the circumstances of her demise.

If in any way the current culture/system we are complicit with in one way or another, has a share of the responsibility for this girl's death, then we are also responsible.