Sword and Scale - Episode 96

Episode Date: August 6, 2017

There's a lot that can go wrong in this organ we call the human brain, which we don't fully understand.  It's important for all of us to be much more aware of the red flags so that we can prevent tragedies like this one from happening.We examine this phenomenon of "Gangstalking" and "Targeted Individuals" and the case of a young lawyer named Myron May.  We're joined by graduate professor of forensic psychology Dr. Vanessa Holtgrave.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised I was 50 feet away from the guy he pointed has gone at me and I feared for my life Welcome to season 4 episode 96 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. There's a saying that goes, you cannot reason with unreasonable people. And in today's story, we'll explore just how true that is. We're going to talk about a well-organized group of people on the internet who's beliefs to phylogic and reason, and whose delusions can sometimes turn deadly.

With approximately 42.5 million adults suffering from mental illness such as depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder, 9.3 million of those experiencing severe mental illness that impedes their day-to-day lives. You'd think as a society, we would be better able to recognize when someone is in crisis and know what to do. Too often, however, those suffering are alone, left to rationalize their own deteriorating mental state. Today, we examine one man's spiral into paranoia and his ultimate decision that killing would be the best way to bring attention to his cause. He was alone out front of a stroger and he looked like he had been pacing before and then he stopped and started walking. I went down the step.

I heard one gunshot. I turned around and he was sprinting at the other guy and took two more shots. And that's when I turned and ran. Miron May moved to Wewa Hitchka, Florida in 1995. With a population of less than a thousand, this was far removed from date, no, Hio, where he was born. He lived with his grandmother. He made friends running track. He found family. His childhood friends, the tauntens, later took him in. Just weeks before he tries to take the lives of three people on Florida State's campus. Here is David Taunton from an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat.

He, his, his, his natural father was a little crack cocaine and he moved here to deal with his grandma. It's cool, Keith, when he was 13 years old. And that's when he became affiliated with his old son, just back in four from the boys. I kept up with mine. I was so proud of him. He graduated high in his class at FSU. He graduated high in his class.

I think this takes his take or takes his say in&M Law School, and we were proud of him, because he was really intelligent and determined. But three weeks ago he appeared in my front yard, and I said, my mom is so glad to see, and he said, well I don't know what he should be. By this point, Miren was in a state of crisis. Let's rewind to 2001. Miren begins his first semester at Florida State University. A long road is ahead of him, leading to his graduation in 2005, with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and then to Lubbock and Texas Tech for his law degree in 2009. In no time, Miren lands his first job at Andrew

Curth Law firm in Houston, Texas. He reportedly starts making six figures helping Andrew Curth settle labor disputes for companies. He is a hard worker and smart. In 2011, he lands a job at Littler Medicine PC Employment and Labor Law Solutions Worldwide, a big hitter. After a short time there, his need to help others gets to him, and he quits to work for the much smaller Canard law firm, making far less. He tells Alfonso Canard he wants to help people, not companies, and Canard hires him on the spot. That's where he works for a short time.

In 2013, he's ready to move on from Canard Law. He meets Daniel Nixon on Match.com right before his June start date as a public defender for the Donna Anna County Public Defender's Office in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He moves into apartment close to Danielle and they start dating officially in July. For a short while, Myron is content and he and Nixon enjoy a wonderful romance. She is drawn to his achievement and professionalism. She loves his intelligence, his charm, and his bow ties. Myron soon resigns from the Public Defender's Office too He loves his intelligence, his charm, and his bow ties.

Miren soon resigns from the public defender's office too, and begins work as a prosecutor for the District Attorney's Office in Les Cruces in January of 2014. Nixon notices Miren beginning to act strange in March. Both being religious, they regularly attended church together. This suddenly stops. Then there were other things. Yeah, something wasn't right. It definitely. He wouldn't come around very distant. He had taken a long time to respond to messages, to voicemails, to text messages, the calls, he would not answer his phone. And that was just unusual. I mean, you're going from somebody who was really in-lip together, but he was

out my place, maybe five years old and weak, being there once or twice. That was a big change and just not really being very communicative. Nixon deals with the strange behavior because sometimes he is the normal Myron. Other times, he is paranoid. In May, a friend of Myron's gets married and they travel to Tallahassee to attend. Myron is excited to be back in Talley and shows Nixon all around the FSU campus. By July, Myron's behavior worsens. He's having sudden back pain unrelated to any injury and thinks that he has ADHD.

Nixon, a pediatrician, disagrees, but Myron goes to a therapist and is prescribed medication for ADHD. On September 7, Miren walks into the Las Cruces Police Department wanting to file a report. He is certain that he is being watched and that there is a camera hidden in his apartment. He claims to hear voices through the walls describing and commenting on his every action. The officer taking the report tells him there isn't much he can do. Later that month, Myron has a panic attack at work and is transported to the hospital.

This was the turning point. After that incident, he was much different at work. On September 25, he checks himself into Masilla Valley Hospital, a mental facility, but is released just four days later. Nixon's concern increases. Myron thinks everyone is following him all the time. He thinks cars cut him off in traffic just to put him in a state of stress. She tries to reason with him. Well, I tried to get into it several times. She tries to reason with him. and I think he needs to get help. Obviously, I didn't just see it in that one sentence.

It took a lot more than that to see it. And then he's just re-wraith sitting in Starbucks. He just got up and walked right out, jumped in his car and drove away. He was like, no, you are wrong. Nixon tries to reach out to mutual friends. So someone else can see the drastic change in Myron's personality.

I spoke to his friend who's the police officer in town. At first, he was rationalizing it but because he's in town he had been a fed up interacting with him and seeing him so he quickly understood what was going on when he interacted with him we have another older friend, a guy who was to that same non-denominational church I called him and I told him what was happening

and it first he too was like oh no I can see how that could happen I could see how somebody could want to be spying on him I mean again people linked it back to his job him being a prosecutor but him too once he interacted with him I think once you understood what my friend was like before and then you interacted with him in September it was time you would realize that something was off even if you couldn't put a name to it. Nixon breaks up with Myron. Two weeks later on October 6th, Myron resigns from the DA's office suddenly, with a short seven line letter.

The following day, Myron shows up at her office, rambling about police watching him. Nixon doesn't recognize him. He's holding part of his car, claiming its proof. He thinks the parents in the waiting room are watching him too. Nixon asks him to leave and he does. That night, Myron shows up at her apartment. She calls 911, but Myron leaves before the police arrive. Nixon reports Myron's strange behavior and paranoia and that he's been using medication

to overcome ADHD. She tells the officer he quit his job at the District Attorney's Office and is staying up for four or five days at a time. She's afraid of Miren. Thank you, Mr. Miren. I'm just going to let you know that I found one of the cameras that was actually installed inside my vehicle. Like, I literally have the camera right here in my pocket. There are several officers

around me right now trying to stop me. So I just thought I would let you know just in case they actually pulled the shit off and do stop me. But what they were up to because I have the camera and I'm bringing it to you for you to see it's live and in the flesh. You can know that I was not fucking crazy. Be there in a moment. This is the last time Nixon will see Myron until she sees him on the news after the shooting. On October 30, Myron arrives in Wewa Hitchga, nearly 1,500 miles from Lus. Cruces and asks

the Totten's for a place to stay. The Totten family takes him in, gives him a place to stay, and a small job filing property mineral rights. For a short time, Miron remembers the piece he had when he was a child. Miron attends church with the family and even goes on the annual family camping trip. Josh Totten describes Mron on that camping trip. He seemed to be doing everything, and I mean, you can see we're sitting around a campfire down the end of the day, thinking about something,

but everybody does that around a campfire, so... Abigail Totten texts Myron on Monday, November 17th. Myron hadn't been home for two days, and missed church on Sunday. Myron hadn't been home for two days and missed church on Sunday. Myron responds that he's okay just having spiritual warfare. This is the last time the Tottenham's will hear from Myron. He's made up his mind on what he needs to do. He outlines a script and records three videos.

The first describes what he's been experiencing, what he's been trying to tell the police and Daniel Nixon. It's with the heavy heart that I am in front of you now to make this video kind of my last words. It's really unfortunate that I have to make this video. You see, I am a victim of covert harassment and electronic harassment and gang stalking. I'm what's called a targeted individual. There are thousands of targeted individuals in the United States of America, and we unfortunately are subjected to some pretty heinous treatment, which I'll detail in this video. You can find out more about what a targeted individual is simply by googling or YouTube being the words targeted individual or gang stalking and you'll

see videos and postings and articles and stuff like that about what a targeted individual is. And on YouTube you'll actually hear the stories of other targeted individuals or videos that they've posted about what their experiences are. They won't be that different from what you hear from me today. I think mine might be a little bit more comprehensive in explaining exactly what a target individual is and what a target individual experiences on a day-to-day basis. So I'll just go straight to it. Talking about gang stalking in general, which is what it target individual experiences. The goal of gang stalking is literally to drive a targeted individual crazy. It's a very comprehensive program and it's

sadly it's a government program. Its roots are in programs known as MK-Ultra and Cointail Pro, which should have been eliminated, but unfortunately they are still around. They're not only still around, but they're actually far more comprehensive and more detailed than they were even when those programs were popular. But like I said, the goal is literally to isolate the person, make them destitute and financially unstable to the point where they can't take care of themselves, many target individuals living homeless shelters and on the street. And they employed various tactics to accomplish their goal of destroying targeted individuals. The most common experience that you'll hear

is and why the term gang stalking comes about is because they'll have people follow you around. Whenever you go into public places, like if you're driving on the street, people in cars will follow you around and they make themselves very known that they are there and they are present and they are looking at you.

If you go any public place like going shopping or anything like that, they'll follow you around the stores. And as soon as this may sound, I've even had stalkers follow me into church while I was in Las Cruces and in Houston. I've had stalkers follow me into church to harass me. That's how sick this program is. It's literally to keep the target individual agitated, stressed out, and never really have their mind at ease to make them paranoid. They employ isolation tactics. They basically try to convince your family, your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers that they should be keeping an eye on you for whatever reason. They do this. Some of them they pay. They pay off to keep an eye on you, to look at you in strange ways.

They do this through blackmail, the blackmail individuals, into stalking you and harassing you, looking at you. And they do this to people who actually are real criminals. Target individuals are typically just regular Joes, every ordinary innocent people, and somehow we ended up on this ungodly evil list of people who have their lives literally destroyed on a day-to-day basis. Another way that they

coerce everyday citizens into participating and harassing target individuals is that they they'll tell them lies like you're under investigation for something or you've committed a crime or they should keep an eye on you because you're crazy and as you can see right now I am am totally not crazy. I'm completely saying, but they've employed these tactics against me as well to try to make me appear to be a crazy person. To the target individual who hasn't yet discovered that they're a targeted individual, or does it know exactly what it means to be a target individual this experience can be pretty troubling because all you do is you just notice that people are are paying

extra attention to you. People are staring at you in strange ways and stuff like that and that can make you very uneasy naturally. There's a saying that people do anything for money and basically if they're doing it not only for money, but also based on the life, it's weird because they get this sort of altruistic thing because they think they're helping to prevent crime or something like that. So they have that altruistic feeling

plus they get money for it. But what they don't realize is that many of those people are just participating in an evil, ungodly program that's designed to piliate people like me every day or near ordinary citizens. And to be honest, you know, it's just not fair because we didn't do anything to end up on this list. Eventually due to the target individuals own fear and apprehension, as well as though

his friends co-workers apprehension that's been given to them in a false way, the target individual starts to withdraw and isolates himself, and he's alone, and that basically helps them to continue with the gang-stocking program, which is designed to destroy him. Miren goes on to detail all the ways in which targeted individuals are harassed, each more bizarre than the last, such as psychotropic weapons designed to induce images and sounds into a targeted individual's mind. This is Vanessa. My name is Vanessa Hulkrey, I'm a registered psychologist in the state of California, and I work mostly in forensics. Oh, she's also a graduate professor of forensic psychology.

And I work sometimes with children. You saw this video that we sent you about an individual named Myron May. Yes. I know you've never spoken to this person in order to properly diagnose him, but at first glance, what is wrong with Myron May? You know, and I'm glad you said that this claim or you can't really make suggestions about a person,

but you know, it's easy to look at the more general group that he fits into of the individuals that feel like they're the target of gang-socking. So when you look at it it's kind of easy to say oh well this person has some sort of psychotic disorder, you know they're suffering from some kind of mental illness but we don't know the person. So for him, it looked like his onset was relatively quick. He had, I think, you know, in a relationship, and there were all these other things going on in his life that he started to get some impairments with. Does it feel like, I mean, when I watched it, it seemed to me like it had a lot of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Well, yeah lot of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia

well yeah when you look at paranoid schizophrenia and particularly you know some of the research that i've seen on gang stocking it looks pretty delusional when you look at it and there's a lot of persecutory belief you know the person they falsely believe that they're being conspired again so they're being stalked or harassed or attacked. And a lot of times we see one enforcement or the FBI,

the CIA, NSA, those are the usual perpetrators of this kind of scheme. And sometimes we see a mind reading, there's a lot of reporting of cameras being placed or their vehicles being pampered with, a kill switch was kind of implemented when they brought their car in to get the oil changed. So those types of reports, so when you have people who are not experiencing those types

of phenomena during their day, they tend to say, well, no, that's not true. And then it causes a lot of frustration and kind of escalating anger from the individual because they're not really validating their beliefs. And it's very true to them. Now, if it is paranoid, it gets a frenzy that we're looking at here. It there seems to be this common theme throughout that disease, which is this over importance

of the self. It's sort of punctuated with delusions of grandeur, such as the idea that God is personally talking to you, or that the government has this program with thousands of employees and drones and other infrastructure simply to harass someone who is otherwise completely unremarkable in every way. Right. Right. And it's totally out of touch with reality. So, you know, the general person would say, you know, the general person would say,

you know, these individuals would not spend the resources of their time to harass me all day every day, or, you know, more specifically to gang stalking. It's not just an individual usually. It could be this large amorphous group where, you know, the bulk of the FBI are kind of targeting you. So we're able to rationalize that and say, you know, that's not something that would be logical or that's not something that would be happening, but it can be kind of non-bizarre in the sense that, yeah, we can be, you know, surveilled by the government,

but it doesn't mean that they're spending all their timing resources for somebody that they have no intention of kind of gathering information on. So they do have no intention of gathering information on. So they do have this kind of sense of importance. Humans are good at identifying patterns. We're so good that sometimes we see patterns that aren't there. Are you familiar with brighting?

No, I'm not. The next method they use that I want to talk about is called brighting. Brighting can be very irritating. It sounds just like what it is When you're driving on the road for example a person may flash their bright lights in your face like when you're coming on Common traffic people have their bright lights on you now. It's not unusual obviously to Experience somebody with their bright lights on you. I mean, it's not unusual at all People often forget you know that their brights are on when they're riding at night. And then you just give them that quick flash and they'll flick it back to the regular

dimmer lights. But with brighting, if you give them that quick flash, they don't actually click it back to the regular dimmer lights. They'll keep on the bright lights. Okay, so this is what Myron May points to is one of the methods with which he's being harassed. He says that when he's driving at night and a driver in the opposite direction

has their high beams on, he'll flash his to let them know. Right, okay. And because they don't immediately turn off theirs, they're engaged in this targeted harassment because it's a little annoying. Right, right, yeah, I have heard of that. And it's like as humans, you do kind of look for patterns where people might say, oh, I saw the face of Jesus and my grilled cheese.

And those patterns are at least kind of benign, where for that individual to feel like you're being targeted, even with headlights, for example, it just seems really out of touch with reality. In the second video, Myron May prays for forgiveness for what he's about to do. To Heavenly Father I just thank you for your foremost for life. Thank you for the 31 years that I spent here on this earth, thank you lower for salvation. God, I ask Lord that you would have mercy on my soul, forgive me in my future sins. By the right now I ask that you look down on all the targeted individuals across the globe helped them to cope with this madness, helped them to cope with this evil ungodly program that they've been

put into against their will, helped them to deal with the mental stress, the psychological stress, the physical stress, the financial strain, the emotional hardship, helped them to deal with all of that. They can come out on the other side stronger and more victorious. And God, if this video or my actions in any way can alleviate some of that pain so that people who are target individuals today won't be target individuals tomorrow. Please let that be the case. Father, and don't let my story die. I'm starting part 3 of my personal story as a targeted individual. I want to give you an explanation as to why I'm making this video and explain some of my actions that lead. Let up to this video and then that will transpire after this video.

First and foremost, I want to let you know this is a very difficult decision for me. It's not something that came easy. I spent a better part of a week thinking about this. I didn't choose to become a targeted individual. No one chooses to be a targeted individual. Every gang stalked. No one chooses to be tormented psychologically. No one chooses to be tormented psychologically. No one chooses to be tormented physically.

No one chooses to be tormented emotionally or financially. Nobody chooses that. Somebody else chooses it for them, and it's not fair. This is an ungodly evil program. It literally robbed you of the very essence of what life is supposed to be. You are supposed to have the ability to rise and fall on your own merits, on your own efforts in life and not be inhibited by some evil program. That's designed for God knows what research purposes experimentation. I don't know

But that's not what life is supposed to be Life is not supposed to be people sitting in a control room manipulating How you live day-to-day moment by moment. That's not what life is supposed to be. So literally, I feel like not just my hands are tied, but like everything about me is tied. I feel like I'm literally in a straight jacket in a standing room only space, fighting just to breathe. And it's not fair. I don't get to have a normal life because I'm a targeted individual. I don't get to have a wife and kids and a career where I get to

rise and follow my own merits. That's not what target individuals get. But we get his brief and pain and hardship and loneliness. And it's not fair. So the purpose of this video is, you know, hopes that my whole setting done that maybe some other target individuals in the United States and possibly even elsewhere will have a shot at maybe living the normal life that I didn't get to live. Because it's not fair and maybe somebody else will have a shot at a fair life. Because it's not fair. Maybe somebody else will have a shot at a fair life. I hope that my story gets some media attention. That targeted individuals will capitalize, at least here in the United States, will capitalize on that media attention.

And that'll give them a better shot at a normal life. And the biggest reason why I'm doing this is that for me I'm already here. I'm already at this point. I'm already a targeted individual. I've already been subjected to torture. For other targeted individuals, they're in the same boat. They're already there. They're already on that list They're already subjected to torture, but if this program can stop

Then maybe just maybe Other people won't be subjected to this they won't have to be tortured psychologically and physically and financially and emotionally. Maybe. And that's my hope. That's what this is about. He ends this video with a challenge to elected officials and the media to investigate targeted individuals and not just label him with mental illness. Miren goes on to forgive those who have helped knowingly or unknowingly in his harassment.

When he finishes, he loads the video onto several flash drives, which he mails to those he trusts, along with a letter pleading not to let his story die. We have been shooting in Deliber. Today where you are, we'll be coming to eat some more and clear it and take care of anybody. Does anybody have a dip to, does anybody have a shot? Call 911 on yourself. You have nothing shot, where you not know somebody was on. Jesus.

We not call 911. If you know somebody has a gun, where you know somebody has a shot, call 911. November 20th, 2014. Miron parks his SUV at McDonald's and walks just a quarter of a mile to Strosier Library. At 12.06 a.m., he walks into the library through the coffee shop.

He tries to enter the main part of the building, but is stopped by its turn styles. Looking confused, Miron walks back to the coffee shop. At 1209 AM, Farnan Rani Ahmed leaves the library. He heads to the nearby picnic tables for a break from studying. At 1220 AM, Elijah Vela's leaves and heads to the bike rack to get his bike. At 1221 AM, Jason D Durfus begins to leave, but stops to put the books he just checked out into his backpack, then he leaves at 12.22am.

By this time, Nathan Scott and Paige McFadden are seated behind the security desk facing the main doors. No sooner does Durfus walk out of the doors, that they hear a pop. Outside, Dirtfus hears it too, and freezes. He turns to see Miren pointing a pistol towards the picnic tables. Dirtfus runs. Only after getting home and calling 911, does he realize the first shot hit him in the backpack. Stopped by the books, he just put in there. On the picnic tables, Ronnie, who is now joined by a friend Robert Cohen, stopped by the books he just put in there. On the picnic tables,

Ronnie, who is now joined by a friend Robert Cohen, both hear the shot and turn to look at Myron. He draws his sights on Ronnie and fires twice. Both shots hit him. One immediately paralyzes him from the waist down. The other hits his arm, and then his chest, stopping right next to his heart. Cohen has no time to react. Myron shoots a third time. The bullet rips through Cohen's coat, narrowly missing him. Inside, Scott and McFadden watch in horror, as Myron turns back towards the library after shooting at Ronnie Ahmed and Robert Cohen. Miren fires again into the distance. From inside they can't see that Miren hits Elijah Velas' bike, knocking him down.

Later, Velas realizes a bullet grazed his torso through several layers of clothing. They hide under the desk. Less than 20 seconds since this began, and without a word, Miren walks in, walks around the desk, aims, and fires. McFadden hears the shot, and Scott yells, no, don't. Then, a click. Miren pulls the trigger several times, trying to shoot McFadden, but his gun is either empty or jammed. He walks away. Scott and McFadden only hear what they describe as metal scraping against metal. Scott, shot in the thigh, gets up and lifts away. McFadden soon follows. After Scott and

Paige enter the library, a security guard exits and goes to the main entrance, only to realize Miren never left and is just a few feet away reloading his weapon. The guard runs back through the turnstiles. At 12.24am, the 911 calls begin. Police are in route. Please. Hi, I'm not sure your librarian. Is somebody here with a gun? Yes, are they still there? I'm not sure. A lot of people left. I see someone on the floor right now.

Is there some people left in the room? The person shot. The person on the floor is he shot? I don't think so. He's moving right now. He looks like he's hurt. I can't really tell what's going on. I don't think the person is still here with a gun. I'm not sure. I can't really tell what's going on. I don't think the person is still here with the gun.

I'm not sure. I can't see anything. Yes, we are. Okay. Stand along with me. Okay. The person that's on the floor, is he shot? I don't think so, but the person that's there is no. Okay. Hang on just a second. Headquarter in the unit of school. I just showed you that I brought one person on the floor and known if they're shot or not.

You were shot in the floor? Yes, you were shot. You were shot? Yes, we did have a good shot victim. You're on the ground floor. Okay, stay on the phone and can you get to him? No, they just shuffled upstairs. Okay, stand on the phone and can you get to him? No, they just shuffled upstairs. There were some people around him, but I don't know what's happening now. Hang on a second.

54, they don't hear any more shots in Sturger. We do have a gunshot victim on the floor. Stand on the phone with me. I've got officers on the way, okay? Okay. Okay. How many people were shot? Just one?

That's all I know of, yeah. The first to arrive is FSU officer Oma Nations. A student runs to him and points towards the library. Officer Nations hears gunfire and runs towards the sound. As he approaches the library, he notices Ronnie on the ground and makes his way to him. Ronnie is breathing hard and struggling in no shape to answer nation's questions. The nation notices Myron standing still

in front of the library. Officer Nations is able to approach Myron from behind, so he is close when he finally yells, drop the gun, drop the gun. In moments, Miren is surrounded. The police are yelling. Miren is saying something quietly. Officer nation's here's, I'm gonna make you kill me.

Or you'll just have to kill me. He said something, but he was talking like really quiet. And I'm screaming, I'm screaming out of him. I dropped the gun, dropped the gun. Then I hear him say, I'm going to make you kill me. You just have to kill me. And so at that point I was like, all right. A second officer on the scene, here's, why don't you shoot me already?

Or why don't you kill me already? As far as Myron is concerned, he is going to die. He swings around, raises his gun, and fires in the direction of officer nations. Gunfire erupts, and Myron goes down. Shot 24 times by police. He is wearing the same clothes from his videos. 12.30 this evening, the FSU PD receives a call about an arm man near Strozer Library. As FSU PD officers were coming to the call,

they received word that they had one victim who was shot. The initial report indicates that as the officers got to the area, they located the gunman at near the entrance of Strozer Library. And he was challenged by those officers to drop his weapon. Instead of complying with their commands, the gunmen in turn fired a shot at the officers

and they returned fire killing the suspect. All of the victims in this case have been taken to a local hospital for treatment and at this time we've been able to identify three victims. All the officers that were involved in the case are currently working with TPD in any of the responding investigators who are here. FSU police has called TPD and asked if we would be assisting with the criminal aspect of the case and we have agreed to do so. The officers that were on scene are working to secure the surrounding areas of FSU school

campus, but there is no belief at this time that there are any other threats. The police searched Miren's SUV and found a 12-gauge shotgun and a BB gun modeled after a beretta. The event could have gone much worse. Toxicology reports revealed that Miren had 24 milligrams of emphetamine in his blood. It was probably his ADHD medication, but this amount is excessive. When the police find Miren's laptop, his second video was playing on loop. Miren's funeral was held on November 29.

Family and friends chose to remember the Miren they knew and not the one that tried to take three lives on November 20th on FSU's campus. But the story does not end there. On YouTube, a search for the term targeted individual yields 54,000 results. A search for the term gang stalking yields 128,000 results. I asked Dr. Hulkrave if there are indeed that many sick people out there. Well, yes, so when you look at the prevalence of psychotic disorders, it's pretty low when you look at the general population or the prevalence of other mental illnesses like personality disorders, for example. But when you're looking at the population of individuals with psychotic disorders, that's very possible.

And I know when you do like these members, they're kind of organized. You know, they consider themselves activists. They are kind of this like-minded community. And it's a very intelligent individual in this community, lawyers, anesthesiologist, engineers. Yeah, my own may was very high functioning. He was an attorney. Oh, yeah. I mean, when you look at John Nash, right? Yeah, my own may was very high functioning. He was an attorney. Oh, yeah. I mean, when you look at John Nash, yeah, John Nash was this famous mathematician.

And when you look at people that kind of grab hold to conspiracy, these sort of paranoid beliefs, you know, it's not really rational to say, oh, well, because that person is high functioning or they're intelligent, they wouldn't be subject to something like this. You know, I often get criticized for telling stories of very sick people who have done very bad things. Some people think I'm saying that everyone who's mentally ill is violent, which is not something I've ever said. I don't know.

I think that people in general can be violent. All people can be violent. And when you're disconnected from reality, the results can be tragic and unpredictable. Right. You know, some of the risk factors, you know, having schizophrenia or a psychotic disorder doesn't necessarily make you any more at risk for violence than say someone in the community. But if they're having these command hallucinations that are telling them you need to protect yourself or you need to kill them before they kill you. Then it does put that person on defense and it can increase the likelihood that they're

going to want to protect themselves and defend themselves or do whatever is necessary. So in that sense, it would increase the likelihood of violence. Many of these tens of thousands of videos are in the form of personal diaries, relaying to others what it's like to be a targeted individual. Some take the form of issuing proof by showing a random car driving down the street. In this one, someone who goes by the name Allen records people getting into their cars in an undistinct parking lot and going about their day. He claims this is proof that they are running from him because he's videotaping them. Put them right on YouTube, right on Blas. Must have all scre.

You're wrong, Ron. Look at that shit. That's gang stalking. There's so many of them on me. Let's talk about paranoid schizophrenia a little bit more. Is it curable? Um, so when you look at psychotic disorder, they're not something that you cure.

So you can kind of think of this sort of latent, it's kind of always waiting there. And then when they get to a certain age, usually it's sometime between 18 and 30 with the more paranoid types, having a more later onset, it's not something that you care. It's something that you manage symptoms with. So they get a lot of psychoeducation about what are hallucinations, what are delusions, what's the impact it has on the family.

They elicit a lot of family support and the importance of medications, as eating properly of getting sleep. So it's a lot of just symptoms and management. Do we know if diseases like this are genetic in terms of some sort of physical defect in the brain or is it much more complex than that? There are some genetic link. I know there's varying statistics

that they share through different family studies that the more closely related you are. So if your twins and identical twins at that, as compared to siblings, as compared to people in your family that are farther removed, that there is a genetic link there. And there's, you know, there's some abnormalities that they find in the brain. I think they talk about in large ventricles. There's some different structural differences that you can see and people that have schizophrenia as compared to people that don't. If you have one

of these diseases, is any help available to you? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of help. Community-based mental health. There's a lot of resources that these individuals can have, particularly want to involve the family members, as they can have as much support as possible, so they're not getting hospitalized.

The problem is getting individuals to realize that they're experiencing some kind of psychotic symptoms or other types of mental health symptoms. So the problem with gang stalking is that you have all these other individuals who are sort of validating their experiences. So if you have someone in your family or a friend that's telling you know this isn't something that you're experiencing. It causes a lot of frustration because in your mind it's something that you are experiencing. It's very real to you and all these other people are validating it. And I'm sure that you read that you know these tens of thousands of people who are experiencing gang stalking that are targeted. They can't all be mentally ill.

They're all having the same experience of being targeted. But then at the same time, it's one of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Right. Yeah, and it seems like the internet has perpetuated this problem because they go online, they find others that sound like them, and they latch onto these little details and make them their own. And then they sort of add their own elements to it when you see these confessional videos of them talking about their own personal gang stalking. There's always

something, some little personal difference in each person's story that makes sense to them. Right. Right. These people are kind of banding together, sort of demanding this recognition on this shared basis of this paranoia. And what makes it worse is that stalking is a real crime. It's an actual recognized crime. So when they kind of focus on the more broader definition of stalking and the prevalence of stalking and then they incorporate gang stalking into that definition, it then becomes supported by statistics by the Department of Justice, by the American Journal of Psychiatry. And so now it's legitimately recognized by mainstream professional.

So when they're discussing stocking, they're saying, hey, stocking's happening. It's very prevalent. It's recognized by these professionals. But what's taken out of context is that the stocking that's generally discussed is stocking by one person. There's evidence that they're stocking. And it's not by these large amorphous groups. Yeah, there's always a some element of truth. There's, I mean, the entire phenomenon of gang stocking really blew up when Edward Snowden talked about the NSA.

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, once you have instances with Snowden and statistics that are backed by these mainstream professionals, it's really hard to dissuade an individual into thinking otherwise. So it's really difficult to say, no, do you feel like you could be out of touch with reality or is it possible that this isn't happening to you because in their mind it is happening and there's all these other external validation to support that it's happening to them. You know, particularly with Myron, the audio clip with his girlfriend, she tried to have

this sort of intervention with him and kind of explain like this isn't going on, it didn't go well. Some of the symptoms and signs that you might be under electronic harassment or gangstocked. It's all about strange events happening that are nonstop, and people also behaving in a bit of an awkward fashion towards you. And even some physical pain and ill health that doesn't seem to go away. When it comes to strange events, the most common one is hearing strange sounds or voices. Might sound like real people or neighbors that are trozed by. And a couple of that is a feeling of being washed or being followed all the time. So when you do here these you know

voices or whatever it seems like they can see exactly what it is that you're doing in your own home or whatever it is wherever you are Your communications are being intercepted all your emails. You're not suddenly getting emails before or When you try you're not getting phone calls from from where's where's before you would have been getting phone calls from Certain people for some reason some of your friends don't call you for a long time and you wonder what's going on. Strong suspicion that somebody could be reading your mind, I mean when you start off you wouldn't think mind reading is possible. But you know it just seems like whatever you're thinking other people seem to know what it is exactly that you're thinking in a very creepy and in a very negative way. It's a program. Getting back to the issue that you brought up earlier on,

what if this was a mental health problem? Now, so we've got tens of thousands of people all experiencing the same things, what if we've all got the same mental health problem? That is some specific mental health issue, isn't it? Unless all of these symptoms or a large number of these symptoms are also mental health symptoms.

It's impossible. It's impossible. We actually blow the mental health conundrum out of the water. Exposes their worst factor. I think a lot of it now is we've got to be very, very careful because I think there's a lot of infiltration into the community. And they may be mentally ill and they're trying to sort of compensate, or well, I'm not ill, I'm a targeted individual like all these other people are.

What do you think that's important? It's putting question marks against true TIs. How can you tell though? How can you tell the difference? You can't. Yeah, yeah. It's designed to mimic mental health problems, mental health issues, especially with the voices

and the talk in and all that sort of stuff. To any normal gym bob on the street, this is crazy talk. Yeah. Absolutely unbelievably crazy. But the thing is, is that we're not crazy. For those of you who are still kind of on the fence thinking, we're just bunch of crazy skitsos, this program is not real. There's no such thing as government corruption, the government has nothing to hide and they

would never do anything wrong to their own citizens at the behest of multinational foreign interests, your idiots. So you don't really count intellectually and honestly, I haven't really heard a decent argument for many of you. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a family member to see someone decline into this web of boss belief and being powerless to stop it. Right, and you can't, you know, the wrong approach would be to tell somebody over and over that this isn't real because it is real to them.

You know, it has to be more strategic about it. If somebody told me, I'm not actually talking to you on the phone. I just spent this time in my home talking to myself. I would say, no, that's not true. I had this conversation. This is what we talked about. I don't actually exist. I know. That's legit and I worry about mine. Yeah. You know, I would say no, you, there's something wrong with you. You know, the problem is not with me. Particularly if I spent portion of my life functioning really well, maybe up to my 30s,

and then this kind of stuff started happening. I could then support the notion that I've never had this mental illness. I've never had any kind of takeosis where, in the reality, the onset could be around that age. In one of the more appalling examples of this phenomenon, a man by the name of James accosts an elderly woman on the street, accusing her of being a gang stalker. Tell, tell, tell everyone your name.

I don't know, I can't see her. I see her. You are corrupt, corrupt, corrupt lady. Who's participating in gang stalking targeted individuals not only that you are part of this corrupt system Yes, please take please take my picture. I want you to take my picture Yes, please do I'm just so glad you're here because it's going to bring all girls to religious places that will be out of your dreams. Listen, listen, you're corruption that's ruining this world. Do you understand that? It's your corruption that's ruining this world. It's killing people, it's torturing people, using people like human guinea pigs.

Do you understand that insanity that's going on in this world? But you don't care about it because you have your nice little money in your job and you don't care about that You don't want to set your little nice little nest egg, right? Because you weren't hard for it, right? You worked hard in this cool Do you know that I'm a system? Do you know how much money I live on from nice? Do you know how I'm a system? Do you know how much money I live on from? Do you know how much I live? Listen, all I know is that you're gang stalking me

and you're zapping me with satellite weaponry and you're committing a federal crime and you will be held liable for your actions, ma'am. You will be held liable for your actions. ma'am. You will be held liable for your actions. It's it's ironic to me that these so-called targeted individuals engage in the very same behavior that they accuse others of doing to them when they go around filming people that they claim are stalking them. Right. I know when I worked with the Sheriff's Office, we had a gentleman that would come in and out of the county

and he would go up to officers and film them essentially to make a case against officers that the officers were harassing him. This is the evidence that he's being harassed. So all of our officers were essentially getting harassed in the irony of it all. And so now you have all this discontent between law enforcement and then the individual in the community where, you know, the primary intent is to get the individual help, but how can you get help for an individual if that is not their wrongful thinking? I'm glad you brought that up because in this case, myronmay's girlfriend seems to be very concerned and worried and knows that something bad may happen. She can't convince Myron or the authorities to really do anything.

So what tools do we have available? I mean, a lot of it spent building rapport with individuals. So mental health professionals will spend many, many sessions just building trust with a person. So they wouldn't necessarily start out, you know, an appointment with somebody who is suspected of having psychosis by saying, I don't think that what's going on with you is real because that would really damage the trust that they have.

So I feel like once they do have some established trust, they can look at alternative explanations for what's happening to them. Sometimes they'll get on medications for other things like the depression or anxiety that kind of goes along with feeling harassed or the sweet problems And various medications have different purposes and so they can talk to them about you know, are you feeling better? Are you open to trying a different type of medication?

But really still giving the individual information about that medication and they'd have to know what it's for But what happens when they just don't want to do any of that and you know that they're dangerous? Well, and that's really frustrating though, you know obviously mental health treatment is voluntary, so there's only a few circumstances where it's in voluntary So it's really up to the person to want to take Medications and get mental health treatment. They might be more likely to seek therapy to talk about the harassment that they're feeling then to seek more likely to seek therapy to talk about the harassment that they're feeling than to seek medication because, you know, in that sense, why would you medicate something that isn't happening?

They don't have psychosis. This is really happening to them. So that can be really frustrating to family members, to mental health practitioners, to probation officers, anyone that can be involved in the case. So, you know, in that sense, you kind of have to do some risk management where you see as a person's behavior escalating, do they maybe meet criteria for an involuntary hospitalization, which would be the last report. But otherwise, there's not a ton of interventions you can do to kind of force the person to take

medications other than giving them as much information as possible and being there to support them. So that's why the support that family members are so important because they're around them a lot more. They can, with the right consent, report to mental health professionals that this person is deconventing. Yeah, but I've seen this happen again and again where that does occur and the person is involuntarily committed for a few days, given some treatment and then sent right back out the door.

Yeah, and then they essentially choose to get off the medications as well. So it's really difficult, it's something that we struggle with as mental health professionals in the community where providing support and education is really the main approach when somebody is choosing not to take medications. They do have medications that are injectable. education is really the main approach when some of these choosing not to take medications. They do have medications that are injectable, so sometimes that provides more of a timeframe where if you have a person who's on medication for 30 days now, then maybe they can come to the point where you can have a discussion with them about the validity of what it is that's

going on. I think definitely when you look at paranoid schizophrenia it should be distinguished from paranoid personality. There are plenty of individuals who are very paranoid. They have these paranoid features generally rightfully fell. Most of our listeners are paranoid. Yeah, I think the general individual probably feels a little paranoid. But you know it doesn't mean that they have a psychotic disorder. So it becomes't mean that they have a psychotic disorder. So it becomes psychotic when you have this kind of disconnect with reality where you feel like there's

mind control involved or these sort of electro-magnetic waves to skull, I think that's what they talked about. Or implants as well. There's implants. Yeah. When gang stalking microwaves, secret mind control, psychotronic weapons, and oh, let's not forget, remote sexual abuse aren't doing the job. This shady government agency with unlimited resources employs the help of an interdimensional

reptilian alien species to surgically implant torture devices in targeted individuals, just to fuck with them. Some less than savory characters in the UFO community have written books about this for they're exacerbating the problem of very sick people thinking that their delusions are fact. There are videos of some of these people performing selfgery to remove these implants, an activity which could lead to far worse and more immediate health problems. Yeah, and while in hallucinations and vulgar, you actually see these individuals following

you or you see evidence of cameras where that's not consistent with the personality. So there are some people that don't have schizophrenia that are very paranoid. Also, general community members like you brought up, but certainly for the most part, when you look at these cases, it seems to be more consistent with the more primary mental illnesses like schizophrenia. Yeah, and I think this is an important point to make that the brain is an organ, just like every other organ, and we all have issues at some point in our life with sickness in different ways.

And so it's not us and them. Like we are all capable of having mental illness, some types much more debilitating than others. But, you know, the brain is after all an organ, and we have to watch out for when things go wrong and get treatment. Right. You know, the brain is after all an organ and we have to watch out for when things go wrong and get treatment. Right. And it's very cultured, dependent too.

And I think when, you know, as a society, we tend to more readily accept explanations for medical problems. So if you have a problem with your pancreas or your heart, then that seems to be more readily accepted than to have a mental illness, even though, like you said, the brains in Oregon. So we tend to treat the brain as being separate from the rest of the body, where it's not something that needs to really be cared for or that it should be recognized, or, you know, if I sort of don't recognize that something's going on, then it'll go away. When if you were experiencing a medical condition, and what's pretend you had diabetes and you weren't taking care of it, I would hope

that family members would have a discussion with you about managing your health and it wouldn't seem so stigmatic. Right. Well Vanessa, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Yeah, you're very welcome. I'm happy to be on the show and to be helpful. Hey Mike, this is K-Von. I am from Minnesota. I just want to let you know you're doing a wonderful job. My wife and I listen to your show almost every day. It's just a wonderful program. We absolutely love what you do. Keep up the good work. I think there should be an option to be able to maybe pay for it because I'm sure you put in a whole lot of effort into production. And I mean, the production value is amazing. So, yeah, I just wanted to say, keep up the great work and can't wait to hear the new one. Next, K-Von, you can't actually support the show at patreon.com slash sword and scale.

It's completely optional, of course, but just $5 a month gets you access to Sword and Scale Plus. A condensed version of the regular program, so if you're needing an extra fix beyond the regular show, that's where you go. We also occasionally give out perks to higher tier levels, such as T-shirts, pins, mugs, caps, that sort of thing. Coming up this year, we have a custom skull design shirt available in all styles and sizes for those at the $15 or higher level on August 31st. You can find out more on our social media at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well as patreon.com slash sword and scale. That's gonna do it for this episode. We hope you've enjoyed it. So until next time, stay safe and stay off of YouTube. ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿� you