From January 10, 2011, The New York times article, the reporter Benedict Carey quotes an expert:

“This guy wasn’t a missed case,” Randy Borum, an expert on threat assessment at the University of South Florida, said about Jared L. Loughner, the 22-year-old college dropout who is accused of trying to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona on Saturday.

“It wasn’t a case of ‘Gee, no one saw this coming,’ ” Dr. Borum said. “People saw it. But the question then was what do you do about it? Who do you call? The whole thing speaks to the need for some coordinated way to detect such threats.”

I don’t want to say much about this case. This expert, for example, is making this statement from such a long distance away, reading the same reports we read.  (I assume this.  Maybe he is already on the ground–part of the investigation.)  But his questions are absolutely essential Who do you call? And obviously–make this phone call long before the situation becomes acute.

Who do you call? I know part of the answer. In New Jersey, you call, NJmentalhealthcares.

What do you do about it? How do you recognize the signs, and pay attention, and ask the right questions? You become a mental health first aider.