I was affraid to mention bullies here

[larry]

I think it's painfully obvious that this kid was suffering from a serious mental illness and that the state mental health establishment such as it is in Virginia has let him down terribly, with tragic consequences for him and all those around him.  To blame him in any way for his illness is inexcusably backward and ignorant.

Tee, you have identified the problem. I've seen how the system works from the inside. Me and my coworkers used to talk about the revolving door and the lack of security. The health care system see this as a cash cow. We see the same people coming and going and the health care facility makes millions of dollars for holding those supposed patients for up to seven days, in the state of Florida. Using the Baker Act as a way to deny people the right to a fair trial is wrong. That is the BA is used for in most cases. What does it do to an individual to be abducted by police and drag to a psych facility and held there without any real justification? That is what happens in far too many cases. Most of the people this happens to just accept there is nothing they can do about it. They have special Baker Act Courts that are run by ombudsmen. It takes two years to go through that process and only then can one have their case heard in a criminal court. The result is that the police use the baker act with total impunity. The sad part is that health care worker have become complicit. Not-for-profit health care facilities are managed by a state appointed CEO. The governor of the state select the CEO. Political appointments are the bedrock of fascism policies, practices and laws. Russia used their health care system in the same way for most of the twentieth century. It is a convenient way to lock up political descent. I would love to have access to the information Cho sent to NBC. What I suspect is the bullies did was turn a troubled young man into a raging killer. Who are the bullies? The politically correct people who follow orders and don't ask questions. It is a sad truth about America today. Cause and effect, no one in politics, law enforcement or health care want to talk about the negative effects of unwarranted baker acts.

[kimba1]

mental health care is quite chaotic
I went to get treatment but the only way for me to get it was to quit my job since it`s mostly available 9 to 5
and it not like I can magically make money appear out of thin air for after hours treatment.
so i just skip it.
I remember reading somewhere most people need therapy,but since it`s not free and people are not willing to not eat ,
therapy is just not going to happen.

[Michael Tee]

<<I remember reading somewhere most people need therapy,but since it`s not free and people are not willing to not eat ,
therapy is just not going to happen.>>

It's particularly pathetic when you consider the hundreds of billions wasted on such ventures as the war in Iraq. 

Group therapy is an attempt to bring psychiatric treatement within the range of the average working man or woman but I've yet to hear one psychiatrist claim that it's anywhere near as effective as one-on-one long-term psychotherapy.

[Amianthus]

Group therapy is an attempt to bring psychiatric treatement within the range of the average working man or woman but I've yet to hear one psychiatrist claim that it's anywhere near as effective as one-on-one long-term psychotherapy.

You should talk to Modesty; she seems to think therapy is oppressive.

[Michael Tee]

<<It is much less true for the mentally ill, who have a twilight of recognition, often, from going about their daily lives and noticing not only how they feel but also how people react to them. There was plenty of the latter in Cho's life. I maintain that it's a very bad precedent to divorce responsibility from the actor himself except in the most extreme circumstances. Indeed, that is presently and will remain for quite some time the stance of U.S. law.>>

There are certain actions, like taking your medication on time, that definitely can serve as a measurement of responsibility or irresponsibility.  I'm sure, as you pointed out,  there are other situations where responsible preventive action is called for before an individual succumbs to irrationality, warning signs of various natures which can be acted on or ignored depending on one's degree of responsibility.  Whether it's only the extremely unfortunate who are unable to respond in time to the warnings, or only the extremely fortunate who can, I don't feel qualified to judge.  From a legal perspective, I suppose, you'd want to extend the ambit of responsibility as widely as possible so that more people are caught by the legal imperative to moderate their actions before they become crazy, but I don't know how practical it is to try to assess which minds are capable of making the often subtle distinctions that enable them to recognize the warning signs.  When in doubt, I tend to follow the criminal law maxim (because it's really criminal acts that we're talking about) that requires proof beyond reasonable doubt.

[Amianthus]

There are certain actions, like taking your medication on time, that definitely can serve as a measurement of responsibility or irresponsibility.  I'm sure, as you pointed out,  there are other situations where responsible preventive action is called for before an individual succumbs to irrationality, warning signs of various natures which can be acted on or ignored depending on one's degree of responsibility.  Whether it's only the extremely unfortunate who are unable to respond in time to the warnings, or only the extremely fortunate who can, I don't feel qualified to judge.  From a legal perspective, I suppose, you'd want to extend the ambit of responsibility as widely as possible so that more people are caught by the legal imperative to moderate their actions before they become crazy, but I don't know how practical it is to try to assess which minds are capable of making the often subtle distinctions that enable them to recognize the warning signs.  When in doubt, I tend to follow the criminal law maxim (because it's really criminal acts that we're talking about) that requires proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Cho was hospitalized for mental health, a magistrate had ordered him to attend outpatient treatment, and he was prescribed drugs which he apparently never got filled.

How much more should have been done to make it his responsibility?

[Michael Tee]

<<You should talk to Modesty; she seems to think therapy is oppressive.>>

How is sitting or lying on a couch, relaxing and talking to somebody else for 50 minutes oppressive?  Think Tony Soprano and Jennifer Malfi.  I wish I could find the time for it.  And the money.  I just don't believe that I'd come out any different than how I came in.  OTOH I have no doubt at all that there are some majorly fucked-up people out there, particularly young men and women, who could obtain life-changing insights from a good shrink.  I'm kind of convinced that the people who don't really need it get more than their fair share of it and the ones most at risk without it get the least amount of it.

[Michael Tee]

<<Cho was hospitalized for mental health, a magistrate had ordered him to attend outpatient treatment, and he was prescribed drugs which he apparently never got filled.>>

Wasn't he just hospitalized for a few days?  What can they do in a few days?  The guy comes in crazy as a bat and voila 72 hours later he's as sane as I am?  (I'm already laughing at the come-backs to that one.)  If the purpose of hospitalization was short-term assessment, it obviously failed.  Failed Cho and failed the people of Virginia.  I don't know how it works in Virginia, but in Canada, the guy can be assessed for a short term (three days I think) but then if two shrinks certify more time is needed, he can be held a further period of time, maybe 45 days, I'm not sure exactly.

Magistrate orders him to attend outpatient treatment.  Brilliant.  With no follow-up.  Nobody to monitor if he attends or not.  It's all up to Cho, the sick guy who probably thinks he doesn't need the treatment anyway.  Like Cho is just so consumed by respect for this magistrate that he wouldn't even dream of disobeying him.

He was prescribed drugs which he never bothered to get.  Geeze does anyone find this at all surprising?  "I don't need no fuckin drugs."  That's his illness talking.

<<How much more should have been done to make it his responsibility?>>

Maybe the question should have been, CAN it be made his reponsibility?

[larry]

The problem with mental health is it is more concern with conformity than it is with an individual,s reality.

[Michael Tee]

<<The problem with mental health is it is more concern with conformity than it is with an individual,s reality.>>

Realistically speaking, a certain measure of conformity is required of anyone hoping to live in any society.  I'm sure any psychiatrist would try to make someone want to conform to whatever that minimal degree of conformity happens to be, and then beyond that point, different psychiatrists would differ as to how much conformity they are trying to push.  I bet the good ones would first of all try to determine just how much involvement the patient wishes to have with his or her society, and then try to get the patient's behaviour to show at least the minimum amount of conformity required to fit comfortably into that level of involvement.

[Amianthus]

Wasn't he just hospitalized for a few days?  What can they do in a few days?

You might want to ask the magistrate that ordered him released to attend outpatient treatment.

[Lanya]

Inpatient therapy is very hard to get into, takes nurses a couple of hours on the phone to pre-certify it with the insurance company.  You wouldn't believe the conversations I  heard in the ER, from the nurse trying to get the patient booked into a psych unit. "Yes, he's hurt his mother, his wife, and himself.  Then he came in here and pushed a copier onto our secretary.  Yes...I'll  hold....."

People can be in need of treatment but not violent, so they get pushed aside.  It's like...medically, not treating anyone for anything until they need dialysis or a limb amputated.  Completely wrong and tragic.

There are mental health clinics available for outpatient treatment. 

[kimba1]

it`s a waiting game
it`s extremely hard for someone to lose it
thats how suicide hotline works.
if you talk to someone long enough the natural coping mechanism will kickin for that person to not do extreme.
therapy is basicly to get the patiant to spill everything to use up time and hope the therapist catches something to guide that person out of that state.
this is why very little is done in the mental health field
the numbers show it`s very hard for person to get that far ,so not much  is done
tons of people get depression,but very few will do anything severe
it just mean these people will rarely be happy and maybe get a shorter life span from the stress
note all the  people you`ve hear about in the news in your life ,not many compared to the population go homicidial or suicidal
tons think it but very few do it.
look at how we talk to people very rarely we ever think how this will hurt someone.

[_JS]

That complexity, mixing good and bad traits, is perhaps the most startling insight one can take away from a brush -- historical, literary or otherrwise -- with a "monster." Currently I'm reading Norman Mailer's "biographical novel" of Adolph Hitler. One of the chapters I completed last night had Adolph at six or so walking to a beekeepers farm with his father, a rare treat. The y warmed up to each other, the boy getting downright giddy with delight, it seemed. In any case, just about anyone can relate to the vignette.

Domer, I once read a biography on Josef Stalin while at university. While he was a boy his father would almost always come home very drunk and commence to savagely beating Josef and his mother. Sometimes no words were exchanged.

You could imagine this frightened little kid with his destitute mother, waiting in terror everyday for this horrible father to come home and beat the hell out of them with no reasons given.

There's no lack of responsibility (and once you read about how he treated his first son, let alone his other crimes, all sympathies quickly evaporate) but still, somewhere inside this "monster of history" was an authentic human being.

[domer]

Michael, it's hard to figure you much of  the time. Regarding criminal responsibility in light of Va. Tech massacre, you seem to counsel lenity -- "the poor sick person" -- without any attempt to weave that view into a wider, more meaningful understanding both of human nature (and the human psyche) but also of a sound philosophy of the polity. Your "reservations" add nothing and change nothing. And for your information, though by a (lesser) preponderance of the evidence standard, insanity (using that example) is an affirmative defense in many jurisdictions here, meaning that the burden of proof (adjusting for the State's duty to prove all elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, including intent) is on the defendant for such a matter. I am led to think your view is tinged by sensitiivity for the "poor wretch syndrome." I oppose that strenuously when it comes to the guilt stage of a criminal proceeding (as opposed to seentencing, for example, or even "after care"). Poor wretches kill, unfortunately, and the time to exercise our humane concerns for him comes with treatment in prison or transfer therefrom to a therapeutic environment.