Ohmeed Popal's parents had apparently been very overprotective of him throughout his life, to protect him from America's "evil society." Popal got in a big argument with his parents starting over the weekend about wanting to go back to Afghanistan by himself to see his wife. He stormed out of the house and ran away to LA, but ended up having to call home a few days later and ask them to pick him up because he had no money.

The arguments started up again after he got home, and escalated to the point that on Tuesday, he spent the entire morning arguing with them about it as he drove into San Jose from Fremont to drop his brother off at SJSU, and continuing as he went into Fremont around noon to apply for a temp job. At that point, Popal dropped off his mother and sister at the temp agency, and took off. You know how the rest goes.

Popal had a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia -- last spring, he was checked into Kaiser Fremont after repeated dreams of a devil dragging him into a graveyard and killing him. He was prescribed medications and shortly afterwards, agreed to his arranged marriage. In July, he told his family he'd stabbed a man to death in SF. The confession was false, but they checked him into Washington Hospital, where he was subsequently released as not posing a threat to society.

Um, and also, C.W. Nevius thinks it's sweet that everyone helped everyone else out in the hit-and-runs. Yay San Francisco, you don't leave people to die after they've been run over by a maniac in the streets.