Suspect arrested in therapist attack

[ben_meyers]

Source: CNN.com

NEW YORK (AP) -- A 39-year-old man with a history of mental problems was arrested Saturday in the vicious slaying of a psychologist attacked in her office with a meat cleaver, police said.
David Tarloff of Queens was taken into custody in the morning after investigators matched him with three palm prints found at the bloody crime scene, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Tarloff made statements incriminating himself during a 25-minute interrogation, Kelly said. The questioning stopped when he asked for a lawyer, and it wasn't clear later Saturday whether he had an attorney. Murder and attempted murder charges are pending, Kelly said.
Therapist Kathryn Faughey was slashed 15 times with the cleaver and a 9-inch knife in her Manhattan office Tuesday evening. A psychiatrist who worked in the building, Dr. Kent Shinbach, went to Faughey's aid and was badly injured.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/16/therapist.attack.ap/index.html

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FTA: "I know he's crazy and everything," said Betty, 72. "I don't think that he's capable of doing something like that -- of killing somebody. I really don't."

How is it that this guy can be running loose and have access to a meat cleaver for cripes sake?

[99th_Monkey]

1. He's "running loose" because of cut-backs/under-funding of mental health infrastructure. nt

[Nay]

3. Indeed. Come to Richmond any fine afternoon and watch similar

people talk to the sidewalk, scream incoherently, etc. It's a travesty. Ever since that asshole Reagan let everybody out of the asylums. I'm no huge fan of asylums the way they were, but Jesus, they were better than letting these ppl run loose with no help and with access to innocent individuals going about their daily business. I realize that most are not violent, but good heavens, what does it say about us as a society when these poor souls run around screaming?

[EFerrari]

5. There are only 1/10 the number of people in long term care now

than there were before these folks were tossed out on the streets. There's nowhere for them to go but their family home, the street or jail. It's not safe for anyone.

[fshrink]

6. Or "community-based" services,

which means a bunch of under-qualified people "wrapping-around" mentally-ill individuals "support services", thus raking a lot of money from the State without any therapeutic effect. State Hospitals have become distributors, often de-localized, of "psychiatric services", meaning "distribution of medications," fundamental, theoretical psychotherapeutic thinking and research have gone down the drain and are virtually extinct. Statistical thinking and research, on the other hand, has become the ultimate truth, thanks to the insurance companies, and a neurological understanding of psychology is still in complete infancy, in spite of the constant claims of breakthrough discoveries, claims which are necessary if you want to obtain funding. Anti-psychotics are now routinely used as downers even if the patient is not psychotic, thus not addressing the main symptoms and imposing many unpleasant side-effects and further increasing the likelihood of discontinuation.
So... yes, that's a lot of very disturbed individuals who are left in the grip of their overwhelming primitive anxiety and aggression. For one and only one reason, an easy guess indeed. Profit.
There might be another factor, however. America does not like to look at the dark continent of pulsions and drives because they are the Devil and America is religious. America feels better if these horrible things are first cleansed and become objective entities, like a synaptic malfunction or a deficit in serotonin. So you'll get approval and half a mil to get a new picture of rat's brain activity but if you want to examine repressed homosexuality in paranoid schizophrenia you will get a smirk and 0 dollars.

[The empressof all]

7. Actually the amount of money the mental health centers get is very small

and the expectations for service are great. If service is provided by a private non profit the amount of admisnistrative overhead is high just to compete for contracts. The states then expect "quality" service from undertrained casemanagers carrying caseloads of 60 or more. The degree of stress on the present system is through the roof. Case managers burn out quickly and are hard to replace. It's a system that eats its workers and its patients alive.

[EFerrari]

8. Everyone I know locally is also losing support staff.

They were already doing the work of three clinicians and now they have to do most of the admin, too.

It's a disaster.

[PCIntern]

2. Good point...

here in PA, you can buy as many guns as you want, but access to meat cleavers and other cutting instruments. even so-called 'safe' butter knives, has been highly restricted for years. We have 'meat cleaver' legislation pending which would allow sales to minors, but it is stalled in committee, thank God.

:sarcasm: and :hi:

[lynnertic]

4. PA is just weird. A good place to be *from*

if you know what I mean.