“I usually don’t pass along stories of people with FASD convicted or accused of murder. My daughter faces enough challenges without people assuming that prenatal exposure to alcohol makes her innately dangerous.
The Fatal Link: The Connection Between School Shooters and the Brain Damage from Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol by Jody Allen Crowe is a book that links prenatal alcohol exposure with senseless, brutal murders. A teacher, principal and school administrator, Crowe has been on the front lines. He has seen the devastation, the impaired learning, the poor emotional control and the resulting behaviors. He “gets it.” Like me, he walks around looking at the world through FASD colored glasses. He sees it everywhere.
The author researched seven school shootings in Minnesota and Wisconsin. A”prototype” profile for a person with FAS was used to determine whether or not the person responsible for committing a crime had behaviors typical of a person with FAS.
What I found was irrefutable… In every case, the behavior of the shooter fit research-based social and academic exhibitions of brain damage. In four cases, heavy prenatal exposure to alcohol is absolutely confirmed. (page 117)
And, no one asks. Is it possible that there is a link between prenatal exposure to alcohol, emotional instability, brain damage, faulty executive functioning and senseless murder? In my opinion, the strength of this book is that it invites future researchers to answer the questions. Perhaps future police investigations will ask…
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Julie wrote this review Saturday, October 17, 2009.
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