You knew something was wrong, but you didn't know what to do. So you told yourself, it's a phase. Lots of kids these days talk about death, have pictures of skulls, watch violent video games, take drugs and write things that they call poetry; it's not like any poetry you'd ever read, but what do you know? You're not a shrink. Maybe it will get better.  You're not the Loughners, your kid hasn't been accused of killing anyone, but something's wrong with your kid and you don't know what it is and you're scared. You don't have a lot of money or you just lost your insurance, so you took your son to the county hospital because lately, he's been so angry all the time that you don't know what's wrong with him.  And the psychiatrist at the county ER tells you that he's schizophrenic and should be on anti-psychotic medication and they'd like to keep him for two weeks on an involuntary hold.  So they keep him for two weeks on an involuntary hold, but because of the cutbacks in county mental health services, there's no place to refer him when the hold expires, except back to you. And now that he's on medication, he's much calmer and no longer seems to be a threat to others. Crisis averted. Thank God for modern psychiatry.  Except that he doesn't like the way the anti-psychotic drugs make him feel, so he goes off of them. And soon he's back to posting angry, disturbing diatribes that don't make a lot of sense, and this time, he refuses to go back to the hospital because he doesn't want to be locked up.  So now you're worried all over again. You know that you could call the police and they would come pick him up and take him back, but he's still mad at you for hospitalizing him the first time; you can only imagine how angry he'll be if he's hauled back there in handcuffs.  But he ends up in handcuffs anyway, not because he's accused of murdering someone, but because of drugs, or theft, or some other crime. And you're almost relieved because the terrible end that you thought was coming has finally come.
What if he were your kid? You wouldn't raise that kind of kid. You'd know the signs and get help. You'd have spotted it early on and gotten help for him right away. You would've seen the warnings