I became infuriated while reading a quote from Payne County District Attorney Rob Hudson. Hudson referred to a suspect who had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic seven years before he allegedly shot an Oklahoma State University student from Enid on June 25, 1996. According to a story in the Sept. 24, 1997 Tulsa World, Hudson said, `You can't even walk down the street or ride a bicycle without, in the back of your mind thinking, 'I hope some goofball doesn't drive by with a gun.'` Since October is National Mental Health Awareness Month, I feel it is my duty to make a conscious effort to enlighten Mr. Hudson and people who are like him. Please don't get me wrong. I grieve for the victims, including the student, Dean Rogers, who was only 24 when he was killed. I grieve for his biking companion who was paralyzed immediately after a bullet pierced both of his lungs. But what Hudson apparently doesn't realize is that we are all subject to the onslaught of mental illness. Attorneys, psychiatrists, doctors and almost anyone could develop schizophrenia or bipolar manic depression. It could be you. It doesn't have to be genetic. It is like cancer, a heart attack or AIDS. Mental illness does not discriminate. There are, of course, people who are more susceptible to it. I don't believe the `goofball` was part of a gang who deliberately killed someone as part of an initiation. He was a person who had no control over his actions at the time of the shooting. The `goofball` probably didn't have access to medical care or a family or friends to care for him. At one point, I shared Hudson's ignorance concerning mental illness. That changed for me when someone I was close to fell prey to this all-too-common problem. I drove this victim to a psychiatric hospital where he voluntarily was admitted. Diagnosed with bipolar manic depression, two weeks later he left the hospital. It was two months though before he felt normal. There was no trace of this