Has anyone else been following this story. A guy intentionally plowed into a man and his two young kids riding bikes on the sidewalk on Sunday killing the father and seriously hurting one of the kids. Turns out the guy who did it is a former all American track athlete who has spiraled down into mental illness over the past few years. I'm not a mental health professional but sounds a lot like schizophrenia (talking about being controlled by the devil, onset in early mid 20s). His mother posted something on Instagram saying they "pleaded" with mental health professionals to not release him after he himself had shown up at the police station saying he was a danger to others. They did anyway and just a few days later he ran into this family. Pretty tragic story all around. I'd be interested to hear UCLAs take on it. http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...-plea-for-mental-health-care-reform_169486980
Intentional hit and run in Tampa
- Thread starter QuaZ2002
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Don't feel remotely the same pain for him as I do of the kids who lost a dad and the wife who lost a husband. If he isnt charged, then I hope he lives the rest of life under supervision because he proved he cant exist in the real world.
That's pretty horrific. The state of mental health care in this country is beyond pathetic.
Horrible situation all-around. Obviously a massive tragedy for the family whose father/husband was killed, but also a tragedy for the family of the guy who did it. Sad, sickening, and terrifying all at once.
It is horrible.
It's not that complicated though and I don't think the initial reaction or overreaction of massive changes to commiting people is needed or even a good idea. Simple common sense would be good.
He asked for help and was denied. That should be addressed. He voluntarily, of his own will asked to be removed from society and helped. I think they should have granted that request. I'm not OK with taking people involuntarily (or restricting their rights) without due process that gives every benefit of the doubt to the subject.
And while it may seem harsh, no action is better than overreaction. It truly is an extreme outlier. As bad as it is, one is a million times more likely to be killed by a thousand other reasons. Bees and coconuts kill many more people than those with mental health issues.
It's not that complicated though and I don't think the initial reaction or overreaction of massive changes to commiting people is needed or even a good idea. Simple common sense would be good.
He asked for help and was denied. That should be addressed. He voluntarily, of his own will asked to be removed from society and helped. I think they should have granted that request. I'm not OK with taking people involuntarily (or restricting their rights) without due process that gives every benefit of the doubt to the subject.
And while it may seem harsh, no action is better than overreaction. It truly is an extreme outlier. As bad as it is, one is a million times more likely to be killed by a thousand other reasons. Bees and coconuts kill many more people than those with mental health issues.
They (the cop be talked to) did Baker Act him.
I’ll have to ask my wife how much the family could do to get him committed longer term. Waiting 5 days to talk to him after he was discharged seems pretty disinterested to me...
“"They clearly had concerns about him, which is why they kept him there longer than a week," Khadeeja Morse said.
During the visit, the parents said, their son attacked the lawyer.
"It made me and my wife feel like, this is going to increase the amount of time that he needs to be there," Michael Morse said.
But for reasons that remain unknown, Mikese Morse was allowed to leave Gracepoint on June 19 — five days before Sunday’s attack.
"I don’t know if they got mad and said, ‘We’re going to throw this guy out of here,’?" the father said.”
I think we are in agreement for the first part of your response. This individual should have been kept and treated.They (the cop be talked to) did Baker Act him.
I’ll have to ask my wife how much the family could do to get him committed longer term. Waiting 5 days to talk to him after he was discharged seems pretty disinterested to me...
“"They clearly had concerns about him, which is why they kept him there longer than a week," Khadeeja Morse said.
During the visit, the parents said, their son attacked the lawyer.
"It made me and my wife feel like, this is going to increase the amount of time that he needs to be there," Michael Morse said.
But for reasons that remain unknown, Mikese Morse was allowed to leave Gracepoint on June 19 — five days before Sunday’s attack.
"I don’t know if they got mad and said, ‘We’re going to throw this guy out of here,’?" the father said.”
As for the second part, it was just an example of two of the thousands of ways people can die. Bees (and wasps, and hornets) send nearly a quarter of million people to the hospital and kill about 60 people in the U.S. each year.
My point was you are more likely (by orders of magnitude) to die from an insect or an accident or happenstance, and most likely a disease, than you are from a lunatic running you down while bicycling with your kids.
"Bees and coconuts kill many more people than those with mental health issues."
Killer bees and falling coconuts?
Killer bees and falling coconuts?
We really need a tongue in cheek font.
I can't imagine what this board would have been like in Bobby's hayday.
“Several different studies and calculation methods (presented below) suggest that 1,000 homicides or more a year are committed by people with untreated severe mental illness.“
Link
That’s a lot of graves to whistle past...
It's out of 300 million people and 3 million deaths per year. And it's primarily speculation as well.
No one is whistling past tragic deaths. I'm simply saying that we shouldn't destroy innocent people's lives over it. In cases like the one referenced it's an easy call, but we should not overreact.
I think it is far worst to incarcerate innocent people than it is to let a few guilty or crazy people go free.
What should we ‘destroy innocent people’s lives over’?
I’m just trying to understand how you apply this standard.
Based on your calculus that most likely someone else will bear the consequences. Got it.
It's not calculus. It's quite simple
If you let the guilty go free, they might try to harm someone and that person is free to defend to defend themselves.
If you incarcerate an innocent person you have absolutely and undeniably done an incredible injustice to an innocent victim.
It's not rocket science. It's simple logic
I'm not saying let everyone go. I'm just saying the standard for conviction should be "beyond a reasonable doubt". I also believe that that standard should t be subject to a constitutional end around by claiming "it's not a criminal matter so we don't have to abide by the Constituion."
Calculus: a particular method or system of calculation or reasoning
So in your view the deceased simply failed to defend himself from the lunatic in the Dodge Charger?
How should he have gone about that?
Is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ a standard I can find in the Constitution?
This.
There are very few critical topics that get as much dismissive lip service as mental health.
(the only other one I can really think of is public education - which goes hand in hand with mental health)
Why don't you respond to the entire post?
We cannot prevent every tragedy. We can prevent ruining the lives of innocent people.
Are you truly willing to sacrifice innocent lives in order to prevent the possibility of bad peole hurting others?
It's a sad situation, but I don't know if I would characterize it as a failure of the system. For very good reasons, we do not hold people indefinitely absent an explicit, imminent, and on-going threat. This guy's situation is actually pretty typical for people with schizophrenia/other psychotic disorders.
Antipsychotic medications are absolutely miserable and difficult to take regularly, and most people will stop taking them once they start to feel better, because they mistakenly think that they do not need the medications anymore. This pattern results in the remitting/recurring whiplashing. This population has a lower rate of violence than the general public, and they are far more likely to be the victims of crime than they are to be the perpetrators.
Deinstitutionalization needed to happen, because it was a completely broken and dehumanizing system. Yet, we did not deinstitutionalize in actuality. We simply kicked people out of the state hospitals, let them decompensate on the streets, and then brought them back in to the county jails and state prisons. My personal opinion is that we need to devote whatever resources are necessary to re-establish a comprehensive state hospital system, even bringing back the aristocratic model of the sanitarium/asylum as an adjunct system (we already have this in a de facto form with the boutique and luxury rehab resorts).
Antipsychotic medications are absolutely miserable and difficult to take regularly, and most people will stop taking them once they start to feel better, because they mistakenly think that they do not need the medications anymore. This pattern results in the remitting/recurring whiplashing. This population has a lower rate of violence than the general public, and they are far more likely to be the victims of crime than they are to be the perpetrators.
Deinstitutionalization needed to happen, because it was a completely broken and dehumanizing system. Yet, we did not deinstitutionalize in actuality. We simply kicked people out of the state hospitals, let them decompensate on the streets, and then brought them back in to the county jails and state prisons. My personal opinion is that we need to devote whatever resources are necessary to re-establish a comprehensive state hospital system, even bringing back the aristocratic model of the sanitarium/asylum as an adjunct system (we already have this in a de facto form with the boutique and luxury rehab resorts).
