In Howard County, parents of Jacksonville shooting suspect had been desperate to find psychiatric ca

[demmiblue]

Years before a 24-year-old Columbia man allegedly unleashed a deadly barrage of gunfire at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Fla., the parents of David Katz had been desperate to find some treatment for their son’s troubling behavior.

They had tried psychiatric care in Towson and Rockville, enrolled him in public and private schools, and even sent him to Utah for a therapeutic wilderness school for teens.

Court records show his behavior was still worrisome.

“David would go days without bathing, would play video games until 4 a.m. on school nights, would walk around the house in circles,” Howard County Circuit Judge Lenore Gelfman wrote in 2010. “[He] was failing all classes at Hammond High, was unresponsive to school teachers and uncooperative with school psychotherapists/counselors, and was extremely hostile toward his mother.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-jacksonville-david-katz-08272018-story.html#nt=oft12aH-1gp2

[redwitch]

1. That poor family!

They seem to have tried everything to help their son. I cannot imagine their grief.

[Anon-C]

27. +1

[Lee-Lee]

2. They did everything except the one thing they should have

They ran him around to private facilities and care. They had him in various private schools.

Despite his psychiatrist even saying he had the potentional to be violent they didn’t do the one thing that could have stopped this.

Before he turned 18, after any of the 25+ Incidents where police were called to his home, they could have had him taken before the courts, presented his diagnosis, and asked for an involuntary commitment and/or him to be declared mentally incompetent.

Either one of those things would have been enough for him to not pass a NICS check, much less the MD background check for a handgun permit that is even stricter.

But they didn’t. Like typical suburban parents they both wanted him helped, but wanted him shielded from the “system” and didn’t want him “labeled”, so they avoided doing the one thing that really mattered. Because their only concern was him and how society would view him, but they had no regard for the rest of society and how he would affect everyone else.

It’s the same story over and over and over...

[LisaL]

3. It's same old, same old.

All kind of mental health issues, yet he was able to legally purchase guns.

[Lee-Lee]

8. Because nobody used the tools in place

You can have all the systems you want, as long as the people with a responsibility to see them used don’t do so they are all worthless.

Any background check system is only as good as the data in it. And that data is only as good as the people with a responsibility to put it there make it.

[McCamy Taylor]

4. The same old story is blaming the parents.

We are living in a country in gun crisis.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. This is a shitty take.

[demmiblue]

7. I agree... the poster is reading a lot into the situation.

I think they did the best they could, especially the mother.

Perhaps if the police advised them to take the route described, this wouldn't have happened and people wouldn't be dead/injured (see, I can do it, too!).

[Lee-Lee]

9. The police probably did

I went on calls like this all the time as a deputy.

The story always played out the same. We see the pattern. We advise parents to take more serious action and consider an involuntary commitment.

Parents refuse, over and over. Saying they don’t want the child “labeled” or “in the system” and they can handle it. Well, if you have to call 911 on your own child multiple times you can’t handle it yourself.

So what almost always happens is either they don’t take the steps until their hand is forced becuse the child worth hurts a family member (and often they hide that, I investigate a case where a woman came into the ER with a stab wound claiming it was an accident, it was really her 15 year old daughter but she “didn’t want her to get in trouble”) or they commit a crime against someone else and it’s out of the parents hands.

Or, more typically, they shield them and suddenly before they know it the kid turns 18, and then even though they may be in high school and living in the parents home they have zero say over their care anymore because the kid is now legally an adult. And it’s all out of their hands and they can’t do what they could have the week before- and the person eventually goes on to cause worse probelms in society.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. If GUNS weren't legal, the whole thing would not have happened.

FUCK GUNZ

FUCK GUN OWNERS

[Lee-Lee]

10. No, it would have happened. Maybe just differently

Last edited Tue Aug 28, 2018, 09:45 AM - Edit history (1)

It’s delusional to think that if guns were illegal that this person would have just been a peaceful normal person.

He wouldn’t have been. Whatever was driving him to do that still would drive him. Maybe he still would get a gun illegally. Maybe he would use a knife. Maybe a gun. Maybe drive a truck into the crowd as the event ended.

Just banning guns wouldn’t do a single thing to change his motivations, his poorly treated mental health issues, hos presence there or his intent to inflict violence on others. At best it might, might have changed how he acted out his violence.

But had they identified him to the system as someone with a metal illness that made him prone to violence maybe when he tried to buy a gun and was turned down some intervention would have happened. It’s doubtful because 99% of people who break the law and are turned down on anputcahse don’t get so much as a follow up visit from authorities (a SERIOUS problem and gap in the system) but it still should have been tried.

[kcr]

13. I don't think anyone is arguing the guy would be peaceful.

It's the shooting and killing people are talking about. But I think you know that.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. Your arguments, intended as serious, are weak

My statement is overly simplistic but speaks to a whole other approach:

Fuck Guns

Fuck Gun Owners

[Lee-Lee]

16. Yeah, I know. I talk about viable solutions, you live in fantasy land

I like to focus on the achievable.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. I like to point out the destructive selfishness of gun owners

Gun owners fight to keep them legal. I oppose all guns.

[Calculating]

21. Ok, have fun never winning anything

You can't win when you take up a non viable position.

[NCTraveler]

20. Who said he would be peaceful if guns were illegal?

If you are going to use the word delusional directed at others, might want to check yourself.

[Mariana]

35. No one said that.

[lostnfound]

31. It's so GREAT how you have "parenting" all figured out

What I know is that there is no help anywhere. When you are a parent who is drowning in confusion and uncertainty, you can add paying for incapable treatments, seeking help from relatives who prefer to avoid the deep end, and armchair quarterbacking until your last nerve is shredded and gone. There is no help.

[malaise]

14. That fucking simple n/t

[LanternWaste]

11. You then believe one, and only one option was available to the parents?

I s'pose when one is compelled to point fingers, finding someone to blame with absolute righteousness is going to be a priority.

Same story over and over, indeed.

[Lee-Lee]

12. No, there were many options that were not mutually exclusive

The major one here, the one that would have protected him and society by ensuring he wasn’t legally able to buy a guy later in life, they made a conscious choice to not pursue.

That wouldn’t have prevented them from any other courses of action.

It may not have prevented this totally. But it still was worth pursuing.

[ismnotwasm]

18. My brother could have been that kid

He was put in an institution and my parents took him out, because of stigma. And because my father was a asshole. It’s a very long story, and one I don’t talk about much. Let’s just say my family is one of those odd ones. Out of three siblings, I am the only normal and fully functional adult.

My brother used to cruise rough neighborhoods—including my own—hoping for some conflict to break out where he could use one of his many guns, my Republican father thought it was just great for him to have. He even had a bullet maker. Nothing ever happened. He will never be “normal” but he functions well enough, and now is one of those anti-war libertarians which is much better that what he was.

I am less inclined to blame parents who tried what they could at least than the ones who simply deny the problem altogether. It’s a horrible thing to watch your child or your sibling start to express mental illness and most people have a hard time knowing what to do.

[Demsrule86]

23. There are few hospitals for anyone these days...

And Trump made it harder to check mental health for gun buying earlier in the year. We need to address background checks and elimiting guns for those who shouldn't have them.

[Lee-Lee]

26. There was nothing that made this harder to check that was done

What made it impossible to check is his parents didn’t have home involuntary committed at any point to get it on the record and get him into NICS. They instead chose to go the private route to keep him “out of the system”.

His parents refused to do that. They refused to have charges pressed on any of the 25+ tiems that law enforcement was called to the home because of his actions. His mental health provider testified in the divorce trial the kid was a danger of being violent, especially to the Mom, but failed to report that danger to authorities.

A background check is worthless if it isn’t backed up by data. If the system isn’t informed a person is a danger it can’t bar anything. That’s my whole point here- nobody who was in a position to make that happen, especially the parents, did so.

The only thing that happened recently had nothing to do with cases like this. It was a move to stop declaring every single person who had a representative payee in Social Security to automatically be mentally ill to the point of being a danger- a bad policy that was so bad even the ACLU said it was bad. It had no bearing on this case and saying is did is dishonest at best.

[hunter]

25. No, it's the guns.

This case is just an outlier.

There are plenty of people running around with guns who are a danger to themselves and others.

Even cops.

Gun fetishes are disgusting.

It's sickening to see all the excuses made for U.S. gun culture.

Easy access to guns is the problem.

I think anyone who goes out to buy a gun for self defense or recreation is probably a little off.

The majority of U.S. Americans can't be bothered to own guns.

Then there are people who hunt. I'm not going to object to that, especially in a nation where you can buy bacon neatly wrapped in plastic at any grocery store. At least hunters know where their meat comes from.

But lets face the truth. Most guns are sold to gun fetishists who don't have any practical use for them; people who let unlikely and imaginary bad guys live in their heads.

Sometimes it's the black guy reaching for his cell phone, sometimes it's the infuriating spouse, sometimes it's the winning gamers, sometimes it's the guy in the mirror.

[exboyfil]

28. Shouldn't the law enforcement and judicial system

also take a hand in this response as well? Can't they also do an involuntary commitment? Isn't that evaluation the role of the psychiatrist who saw him?

[Lee-Lee]

29. It's harder for LE if the parents don't want it done

For all the calls to the home they could have taken him into custody and had an involuntary commitment done IF the parents had asked for it. They didn’t.

Absent that the officers would have to observe a level of behavior that both amounted to a crime and had a victim willing to press charges- and the parents in these cases almost always refuse to even after an assault.

As a result it would take a whole, whole lot more for LE to be able to do an involuntary commitment of a minor without parental consent.

For example had the kid done things that resulted in a call to LE outside the home and harmed or threatened to harm others, then it may have been possible.

But so far it appears all the interactions with LE were in the home and with the parents involved. As such it’s hard for the police to legally do it if the parents object.

[aikoaiko]

19. I wonder if they tried the new red flag laws to take away guns temporarily

[Hekate]

22. I had a dear friend in the same situation. If you think family money is the answer, think again...

He and his second wife tried desperately to get help for his 19 yo son, and one day when my friend was out of the house in yet another fruitless search, his son took a knife and sliced that harmless little woman to death.

Family money? Oh yeah, my friend has it.

The system, if there is one, has holes in it a whale could swim through.

[Demsrule86]

24. Remember the wealthy state Virginia Senator who's son stabbed or shot him forget which

and then killed himself? There was money but little help available for anyone.

[bettyellen]

30. Almost happened to Katherine Ross and Sam Elliot.

[Demsrule86]

32. That is right...I forgot that.

She stabbed her Mom with scissors I think.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

33. Creigh Deeds

I couldn't recall his name. Wikipedia knew.

Creigh Deeds

Robert Creigh Deeds (/ˈkriː/; born January 4, 1958) is an American politician serving as a member of the Senate of Virginia representing the 25th district since 2001. Previously, he was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General of Virginia in 2005 and Governor of Virginia in 2009. He was defeated in both of those races by Republican Bob McDonnell. Deeds lost by just 323 votes in 2005, but was defeated by a wide margin of almost 18 percentage points in 2009. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1992 to 2001.

On November 19, 2013, Deeds was critically wounded during an incident at his home in Millboro, in Bath County, Virginia, where he was stabbed multiple times by his son Austin "Gus" Deeds. Gus was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the home. Deeds recovered and was discharged three days later.
....

Personal life
....

Stabbing

On November 19, 2013, Deeds was stabbed multiple times at his home in Bath County, Virginia by his 24-year-old son, Gus, who then committed suicide. Deeds was initially reported to be in critical condition at University of Virginia Medical Center. Although a judge had issued an involuntary commitment order for Gus, and despite an intensive search, no available hospital bed could be found to provide him mental health treatment in the days before the attempted murder and he was released home without the ordered treatment. As a consequence, several changes were made in the screening and admission process for people undergoing an emergency psychiatric examination in Virginia.

There were a few threads at DU about this incident. Here's the one from LBN:

Deeds critically wounded; son dead from gunshot

[H2O Man]

34. That's sad,

but not uncommon. The article provides some information that should give us all pause, yet it doesn't answer several important questions.

It is important to keep in mind that people suffering from mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence, than to commit it. Indeed, only one serious and persistent mental illness has a noted comorbidity with violence, that being paranoid schizophrenia. Though the article provides some clues as to the young man's illness, it does not include what diagnoses he carried. Hence, one can only speculate, although it may be a semi-informed speculation.

More, laws differ from state to state on issues involving hospitalization and long-term institutionalization. Being from NYS, I can really only comment on the rules and regulations here. However, in no state is mental illness a crime; hence, what law enforcement and/or the courts can do is limited -- unless the person has committed a crime. It is limited to if that person poses an immediate risk of doing harm to him/herself or others. If so, that situation can be addressed by an involuntary hospitalization -- usually up to three days, but longer if that risk persists.

Once this fellow reached the age of 21, even if he remained financially dependent upon one or both parents, his status becomes that of any adult. Thus, the parents cannot command treatment, unless there is that immediate risk to self or others. Knowing that a person likely poses a long-term risk, as in this case, is not enough to result in hospitalization or institutionalization.

The truth is that there are people similar to this guy living in the towns and cities across our country. Most paranoid schizophrenics will not kill others. But they will often view those who attempt to lead them to treatment as part of the conspiracy against them. This brings us to the fact that this fellow appears to have been above normal intelligence (though disorganized per education). It makes it that much harder.

The solution would seem obvious: he should never have had access to a gun. Without that gun, this would never have happened.