There you have it. Who among us has seen a seriously mentally ill/psychotic individual having an ‘episode’? Ever see the specials on TV about such children, being committed over and over for short periods only to return to their tortured parents and terrorize the house again? Parade Magazine had a cover story, not long ago, and buried in the article was glancing mention of the boy having attacked his father. The man needed hospitalization.They took him home again and ‘hoped’ he wouldn’t do it again.
People like this are stuck in this loop forever-until a tragedy ends it. The mental patient kills someone ( Newton) and they end up institutionalized or dead. Why CAN’T parents who are determined( or forced by lack of institutions) to keep their offspring be afforded legal permission to control the mental patient without fear of ‘abuse’ charges?
I do not believe the father in this case COULD NOT have stopped his son. He was unwilling to exert the violence necessary to stop him- so he called the police to take physical control of the situation.They did. Did he think they could intimidate or talk to him, or use force?
Now-if it took PHYSICAL ATTACK to stop this 90 pound schizophrenic wouldn’t it have been better for the father to employ defensive violence? I’m assuming he loved his son and would not have gone so far as to kill him. He might have had to, to protect his wife. I hope he wouldn’t have been charged with murder had that happened. He shouldn’t have been charged with cruelty if he had to physically injure his son either.
If fear of charges stops parents like this from doing what is necessary, that fear should be removed.
No parent who loves their child-insane or not-will willingly hurt them; but if the danger posed by such a child is overcome by defense of themselves or someone else,and fear of the law becomes a factor, calling officers of that law in to deal with it can end like this. They will employ the violence instead-and in some cases much more violence than the parent was willing to use.
It's a conundrum. The kid had just turned 18. What if he got bruised by his dad, then called police later and told them his father had assaulted him?
The mother, in a video on another thread, said the local police had been there a few times to help them, that they were very helpful on that day, that they had the situation under control -- she praised them and expressed gratitude -- but then this other cop who didn't know them or the boy arrived from another district and shot the kid -- the father said within seconds of arriving. The news report said 70 seconds from radioing in to say he was arriving at the scene to radioing in that he had shot "in self-defense."
I am a EMT and I have had a number of mentally ill patients where the police had to use force or threat of force to subdue the patient or compel him to go to the hospital.
I have nothing but praise for our local police department in the cases I have seen. They have been patient, firm, low-key, and professional, and have always managed to defuse the situation rather than escalate it. Even when the country SWAT came in, they spent four hours talking down a patient with a knife. There are very good police departments in the country, and good police officers and I count us very fortunate to have them here.
But I read about other places where things like this happen and I shiver.
A few years back my boss and her husband were killed by their schizophrenic son. He had been violent in the past and they could not get him committed for more than a very short time to stabilize him, and then he was out and unstable again. I don’t know if something like a stun gun always on their persons would have helped but it would have given them a chance.