What went wrong?

Two people were found dead in a Little Black home last week the victims of a murder/suicide.
The questions that need to be asked now are why this happened and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
Two people are dead because something is broken in our community. Two people are dead because as a society we do not seem to be able to stop the cycle of domestic abuse.
Two people are dead because at some point along the way they did not get the help they needed.
Two people are dead because the system failed. The system failed them and their families and friends and ultimately the community. Failure is not an option when lives are at stake.
It would be easy to say the murder/suicide was aberration — an isolated incident and that most of the time those sorts of things don’t happen around here. It is easy to say you can’t save everyone you can’t prevent bad things from happening all the time.
It is easy to turn a blind eye to abuse and to those factors that cause someone to step over the edge. Most of us are uncomfortable when we see a co-worker or friend with tears in their eyes or do not want to ask about the unexplained bruise or stand in awkward silence when we witness psychological or verbal abuse. Most of us have known someone in an unhealthy relationship, sometimes that person looks back at us in the mirror.
There are plenty of pressures in modern life. From job losses and cutbacks making it hard to make ends meet, to issues with mental health and substance abuse, the triggers of domestic violence are many.
What sends someone past the breaking point another may be able to handle easily.
As a community we need to step back from this tragedy and look at where along the way these people fell through the cracks of a system intended to prevent this sort of incident from occurring.
We need to avoid the easy way out and not brush this under the carpet. We need to ask the hard questions and make the tough choices.
It is too late to get the victims of this crime the help they needed. It is too late for them, but maybe not for others.