Posted on 04/18/2007 1:55:30 PM PDT by Ben Mugged
A Virginia court found that Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho was "mentally ill" and dangerous. Then it let him go.
Back in 2005, the District Court in Christiansburg said that Cho was a danger to himself but not others. He was ordered to undergo outpatient care.
The ruling came after Cho was taken to a nearby psychiatric hospital for evaluation in December 2005, after two female schoolmates said they received threatening messages from him and police and school officials became concerned that he might be suicidal.
That information came to light two days after Cho, a Virginia Tech senior, killed 32 people and then himself in a shooting rampage on the university's campus.
Police obtained the order from a local magistrate after it was determined by a state certified employee that Cho met legal criteria for temporary detention that includes being a threat to others and being unable to care for himself.
Under Virginia law, "A magistrate has the authority to issue a detention order upon a finding that a person is mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or treatment.
"The magistrate also must find that the person is an imminent danger to himself or others," says the guideline from Virginia's state court system.
Wendell Flinchum, the chief of the Virginia Tech police department, said that it's common for police to work with mental health facilities
"We normally go through access [appealing to the state's legal system for help] because they have the power to commit people if they need to be committed," said Wendell Flinchum, chief of the Virginia Tech police department.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Cho flunks the BATF form 4473, which specifically asks if you have been adjudicated mentally ill or committed to a mental institution. The definition of 'committed to a mental institution' covers a court order.
This person was illegally in possession of a firearm.
I’m guessing that you mean the Immigration and Nationality Act, and not the McCarran Act. And you’d probably have to find some case law regarding whether a legal permanent resident can be deported for having a psychopathic disorder. Maybe he could have been denied renewal of his LPR status, but that point is moot because his status was not up for renewal.
It should have been picked up in the NICS background check.
Hmmmmmm. Too late for the sicko to be treated. Too late for all those he murdered too.
In your quote I thought it said something about mentally ill “at time of entry”.
Without a comittment, it would be pretty hard to deport him. All they seem to have diagnosed is depression.
I wish his parents could have seen the signs but I bet he hid it from them.
Do you suppose this could be an unintended consequernce of HIPPA or some other "privacy" act that our Congress passed without bothering to actually read the bill?
No idea. How did we do it for Documentgate?
Buckhead, you got any media tricks to make this information more visible to the media and talk shows?
I sure hope not....but I bet we will hear an awful lot about it shortly.
However, HIIPA doesn't apply here, since this is all court-level stuff. If a court orders you to a nut farm, or rules you to be mentally ill/deficient, that's all that regulation applies to.
A voluntary self-admission to a hospital because you are depressed when your sister died (for example) wouldn't be a 4473 disqualifier -- nor should it be.
Here’s another thought:
The Brady Insta-check system didn’t just fail once. If it had, we could have dismissed it as some glitch in the system never to be repeated.
THE INSTANT CHECK SYSTEM FAILED *TWICE IN A ROW*. Two separate purchases a month apart.
So, it turns out that the Brady Insta-check system is worse than having nothing at all, as it spits out false greenlight reports and consumes vast amounts of money.
HIIPA doesn’t apply here, since this is all court-level stuff. If a court orders you to a nut farm, or rules you to be mentally ill/deficient, that’s all that regulation applies to.
A voluntary self-admission to a hospital because you are depressed when your sister died (for example) wouldn’t be a 4473 disqualifier — nor should it be.
We’ll sure need every trick in the book to make this one public - this blows the media’s “he bought the guns legally!!!” argument right out of the water.
I’m guessing it would still be easier to deport him for his previous trouble with the law (didn’t he have previous trouble with the law?), than for being mentally ill.
Indeed.
Who's got the contacts?
I don't get that at all. If he's a danger to himself and has no reason to want to live why would he care about anyone elses life? I don't know what the percentages are but I wonder how many of these mass killings were done by someone suicidal? Besides that, he had been stalking and harassing others!!
Something needs to be changed about psychiatric holds and laws etc.
The McCarren act is for aliens who develop mental illness after entering the US. It states that the alien must always meet the criteria required for entry.
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