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The Queens sniper has been revealed to be Matthew Colletta, a Woodhaven bricklayer, with a history of mental illness and drug dealing, and one of the victims from his Friday shooting spree has died. He apparently was high on "a cocktail of vodka and cocaine" that made him think he was being followed by the Bloods. While it seems that Colletta was shooting at random, five of the seven cars were red. Six people were injured, and Todd Upton, a UPS driver, was died from his injuries. And Colletta told police he thought the dog of Andrzej Leonik, who was simply walking in Maspeth, was injuring a mother and baby, so he tried to shoot at the dog, but hit Leonik instead. An ex-girlfriend told the Daily News that Colletta was a nice guy, but the News points out that he tried to strangle her last Sunday - and chased her with a hammer - requiring an emergency protection order. A friend told the NY Times that Colletta had been taking lithium for paranoid schizophrenia and his defense attorney said, "Mental capacity will play a significant role in his defense." Watch out for the Mayor and Police Commissioner to use this tragic case as an example of why gun control is important.
Both the Times and Post have charts of Colletta's shooting spree. And the Daily News has a feature on Upton; he was a UPS driver who had just dropped off his daughter at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. He and his wife were in their new red Toyota minivan, headed home to Long Island, when Colletta shot at the car.
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I've racked my brains for the last five minutes trying to come up with something insightful to say about criminal madness vodka, cocaine and guns. I can't; this story is too depressing.
"Six people were injured, and Todd Upton, a UPS driver, was died from his injuries."
Was died? hahaha.
lithium is not prescribed for paranoid schizophrenia. lithium is for bipolar disorder. if lithium is given to a person with paranoid schizophrenia, then the person might become a sniper on a shooting spree.
If he was truly taking *only* lithium for schizophrenia, then that would indeed be a problem. From Entrez-Pub Med: "REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS: There is no randomised trial based evidence that lithium on its own is an effective treatment for people with schizophrenia. The evidence available on augmentation of antipsychotics with lithium is inconclusive, but it justifies further, large, simple and well-designed trials."
And how does this have anything to do with gun control?? NYC has the most absurd gun laws, and crap like this still happens. Mentally ill people can't buy guns in NY anyway. Maybe if someone had shot back, it wouldn't have taken 6 hours to catch him.
the issue of how to deal with the mentally ill will continue to be a problem for our criminal justice system.. really, many of these cases are the fault of our mental health system which prefers to medicate and dump people back on the streets rather than to closely monitor and take responsibility for their patients..
there are a disproportionte number of mentally ill people in prison-- people who have been to mental hospitals prior to commiting their crimes, who are subsequently charged as criminals and left to the mercy of prisons (where they rarely get the treatment they need and are often the ones victimized by their fellow inmates).
i have a friend who was commited by his parents to mental hospitals about a dozen times and the hospital refused to keep him. he later committed a crime (murdered a random girl) and was recently senteced to life in prison without parole. where is the hospital's accountability?
i just heard about this madness my close friend was also a victim his red van was shot up he survied had he passed
i would be really sorry for the family of that deranged cocksucker
because my boy is jamaican and he is welllllllllllllll connected
so thank god he wasn't hurt but even still this guy better stay locked up and out of reach cause once he is out he is fcuked royally
S
Matthew Colletta made a very big mistake that night On August 25, 2006 a mistake that cost one family in a tragic way, by losing there family member, and Matthew himself lost his family he lost his life all because of a sickness a sickness that was never treated properly, he was shuffled around for over several years from doctor to doctor , and medication to medication mostly making him coma like just knocking him out medicating him rather then helping him. He reached out to people and no one helped him he was a person scared and alone with an ilnness that is dangerous, people read the news and judge someone based on it you cannot judge someone on what a newspaper reveals about someone getting facts takes at least a month time newspapers tell a story , and also the news on television tell a story one hour after they hear it happened without true facts so dont judge a person and what tey are about because of a tragedy they created due to illness , Matthew Colletta would have given his life for someone when he was a well person and not bi -polar he is somone that would always go out of his way to help someone but his diseaese caught up with him and because of it two lives are gone the man he killed, and his own!