I agree, they should be locked away, or a better term would be "under constant supervision".
I drive a taxi in New York city, and because I grew up with a schizophrenic, I can literally tell right away with one look if someone is, I don`t care what drugs they are on or what level they are at, I can always tell.. For example, last year I was driving down Central Park west and this guy hailed me so I pulled over. I can`t explain it, but I knew right away. I think it was the body language. Even though he was dressed neatly and looked like your average everyday Upper West side yuppie, I could just tell and I regretted it right away when I pulled over but it was too late.
When he got in he told me to bring him to 86th and York ave which is on the east side. When we hit the first stop light he yelled out "Mister, you have exactly 2 minutes to get to where I want to go or it will be the last thing you ever do in your life!" So that comment pretty much confirmed what I suspected, and I prepared myelf.
Then we hit another stop light and he started getting very VERY violent! "What the hell are you doing! Why are you stopping! Get your ass f-ing going now or you are f-ing DEAD!" So what I did is simply close the partition (there is a bullet proof partition between the back seats and the front) and I just tried to ignore him. Actually what I did as well was tell him to "stop it" like you would tell a kid to stop misbehaving.
Then we hit another red light, and he started getting violent, very violent. Punching the partition, kicking the doors (I thought he was going to break the the window of his door) and he then started screaming bloody hell, threatening to kill me, stab me, shoot me, strangle me, just every murder method you could imagine.
When I finally got to where he wanted to go, he jumped out (without paying me) and out of curiousity I got out as well and followed him. Do you know where he went? To a video store to return a video. That was his huge emergency. This was someone who if I did not have protection from, could have very well bashed my head in or much worse, and for what? Simply to return a video.
The point is, these are people who should not be left by themselves. On one hand they are not to blame for what they do or say as they are mentally deranged, but on the other hand, they should not be allowed the same freedom that me or you have. These are people who are literally out of control, they have no grasp on basic common sense or logic, and this is what gets people killed.
It happens so often it is sickening, I read about it all the time, pushing people off of train platforms into oncoming trains, or stabbing people for no reason. These are people who should not be jailed, but people who should be under supervision 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But the problem is who pays for that?
There was a guy last month here in NYC who if you can believe it stole a power saw from some carpenters working in the subway and literally power sawed a guys chest. He survived, but the question has to be asked why did this happen in the first place? Why was this lunatic walking around unsupervised? Is it his family refuses to commit him or did he escape? And this was a few weeks after another one went around stabbing people at random!
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/06/D8IMK8H00.html
Very intelligent post. I agree with you.
I think cab drivers are among the bravest souls in the world. Good thing you had experience and knew how to handle that! :-0
I remember coming across the "yellow tape" every so often at the subway station in Philadelphia. Rarely did those stories make the papers. Good thing the man attacked in NYC survived.
I noticed the "look in the eyes," too, and family members and I talk about that. My one relative who has it is a very intelligent woman. It started in her 20's when she was in college. She read about it and knew what was happening to her, but she was powerless against it. There are lots of different mental illnesses, but schizophrenia seems to be in a class all its own.
I wouldn't want to see everyone with a mental illness locked in an institution. That would be a terrible injustice. But, once someone commits a violent crime, insanity shouldn't be a reason to release them. It's a reason to keep them locked up for good, or, as you pointed out, under "constant supervision" (in a locked facility).
That outpatient business in our town sure made the town "colorful". Most of the people seemed harmless. Or were they? I remember the one guy would break out into a ballet dance in the middle of the street. Sounds harmless, but he also happened to be the same guy who attacked his mother.
There's some class-ism happening in this story, too. The only difference between Yates and the dangerous people you confront as a taxi driver (or the "outpatients" living in my hometown) was that she was a middle class, suburban mom. I don't know if she has schizophrenia, either, but she seems like a sociopath. Here's a weird thought: I wonder, if she had murdered someone else's children, would people be as sympathetic as they are when she murdered her own? I think they still might feel pity for her, but they wouldn't want to see her set free.