flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

My Childhood Best Friend and America’s Failure to Help the Mentally Ill - The Atlantic

theatlantic.com · 12,806 words · saved by 1 readers

Thousands of people with severe mental illness have been failed by a dysfunctional system. My friend Michael was one of them. Twenty-five years ago, he killed the person he loved most.

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic , Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here. O n the night of June 17, 1998, a Cornell campus police officer named Ellen Brewer had just begun her shift when she noticed a tall, silhouetted figure moving slowly across the engineering quad. The man appeared to be dressed all in black. Brewer felt a whisper of danger. She slowed her car, and the shrouded figure began loping toward her. He raised a hand and hailed her as if she were a taxi driver. As he drew clos

Explore this link on the map →

related reading