Another Tragedy

Another Tragedy

I have often written here about the failure of the mental health system with respect to mentally ill people who become headlines because of some monstrous crime they committed. They were known to be mentally ill--but until they moved from minor crimes to felonies that killed someone (or close to it), no one paid attention. But often, these mentally ill are the victims of horrible crimes. From Hector Becerra's October 13, 2008 Los Angeles Times:

After he sank into depression in the early 1980s and lost his job at the old Ambassador Hotel, his sisters got him to see a therapist. But it didn't work. In desperation, they tried to get him committed, but he skipped out.

And so John Robert McGraham's sisters settled into a pattern: visiting their brother on the streets of Mid-Wilshire whenever they could. They brought him food, money and clothing. They brought their children to see their "Uncle Johnny." The sisters were pleasantly surprised to learn that the neighborhood -- with poor immigrants and merchants -- also looked out for him.

Then last week, someone threw gasoline from a red canister on the homeless man who seemed rooted to the corner of 3rd and Berendo streets, in a densely populated, diverse neighborhood west of downtown. Neighbors rushed to save him in the Thursday night darkness. But his body had been charred, and he died.

On Sunday evening, more than 200 people crowded the sidewalk and spilled over into 3rd Street for a memorial to McGraham. Many of them wept as dozens of votive candles glowed on the concrete. McGraham's sister Susanne McGraham-Paisley brought pictures of her brother.

One showed him in front of a slot machine at the Lady Luck in Las Vegas. With his curly top and clean-shaven looks, he was a looker, said an elderly Central American immigrant woman.

"Ay, how handsome he looks," said Mari Umana, with a note of awe and sadness.

"He was loved here, seriously," a woman told another bystander in the throng.

"Remember his eyes?" a young woman asked. "I really hope they get whoever did this."

But police Sunday had no new information about who might have killed the 55-year-old man, LAPD Officer Karen Smith said.

It is possible that whoever did this horrible crime was not mentally ill. Santa Cruz, California at one time had a serious problem with teenagers who thought beating up on "bums" made them cool--or more likely, did not realize that many of their victims were mentally ill, and not responsible for their actions. But I would think it is more likely that when--if--the killer is caught, it will also turn out to be a mentally ill person who has slipped through the cracks.

The Treatment Advocacy Center is upset that California's involuntary outpatient commitment statute, commonly known as "Laura's Law," is a county option:

Laura’s Law would bring assisted outpatient treatment to people like McGraham who had family members trying to help, but because of a symptom his own illness, he was refusing or not staying on treatment. The state passed Laura’s Law years ago and left it up to each county to implement. Unfortunately, only one county in the state has put this important measure in place.

And why? Well, San Francisco County (which needs it badly), as I mentioned earlier this year, refuses to implement Laura's Law, because it would be too expensive. Even the San Francisco Chronicle, a very liberal paper (by American standards, although perhaps not by California standards) has taken Mayor Newsom to task for this. Somehow, San Francisco has money to spend on defending unlawful same-sex marriages, and a handgun ban--but not the money to help the severely mentally ill, before they become grim statistics.

You want to know why I (and many others) consider "liberal" a dirty word? There was a time when helping the mentally ill before they died of pneumonia, or violent crime, or malnutrition, would have been a defining characteristic of liberalism. Not anymore. Liberalism now defines itself by preventing help for the mentally ill--and thinks that this shows a commitment to civil liberties.