The Mental Health System Can’t Stop Mass Shooters
- 6 years ago
The Mental Health System Can’t Stop Mass Shooters
Shouldn’t psychiatrists be able to identify as dangerous someone like Nikolas Cruz, the young man charged in the
school shooting last week in Florida, who scared his classmates, hurt animals and left menacing online posts?
Here in California, as in most states, patients must be a danger to themselves or others
because of mental illness before they can be involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
The hearing officer would probably come to the same conclusion I had,
that he was not dangerous because of a mental illness, and he would be free to go.
The mental health system doesn’t identify most of these people because they don’t come in to get care.
It was clear to me that he did not have a psychiatric illness
that would justify an involuntary hospitalization, but I was reluctant to release this man whose story echoed that of so many mass shooters.
He had no history of mental illness and said he didn’t want or need any treatment.
Shouldn’t psychiatrists be able to identify as dangerous someone like Nikolas Cruz, the young man charged in the
school shooting last week in Florida, who scared his classmates, hurt animals and left menacing online posts?
Here in California, as in most states, patients must be a danger to themselves or others
because of mental illness before they can be involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
The hearing officer would probably come to the same conclusion I had,
that he was not dangerous because of a mental illness, and he would be free to go.
The mental health system doesn’t identify most of these people because they don’t come in to get care.
It was clear to me that he did not have a psychiatric illness
that would justify an involuntary hospitalization, but I was reluctant to release this man whose story echoed that of so many mass shooters.
He had no history of mental illness and said he didn’t want or need any treatment.