Given the conversations we’ve been having about involuntary commitment, etc., I thought the below court decision might hold some interest.
Man who killed grandparents sent to mental hospital
liz | 11:19 AM | Uncategorized
Liz Spikol was born in Philadelphia sometime in the 20th century. She started writing about her experience as a person with mental illness in 1999, while employed at Philadelphia Weekly as the paper’s managing editor. Aside from serving as that paper’s web editor, music editor, staff writer, senior editor, executive editor and a host of other random roles that she couldn’t make up her mind about, she has also worked as a Spanish teacher, as a Certified Peer Specialist during Philly’s system-wide transformation and as a communications specialist for a prison reform organization. Currently, she works at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and writes book reviews for PW. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about medications, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, SAD (and many other acronyms), mad pride, Big Pharma, celebrities, hospitals, stigma and the recovery movement. And other stuff.
I live in a city with a very high murder rate. When I read about the deaths of innocent people, it makes me sick. I have no problem with incarcerating and using force against someone who is harming other people. And while this has become a tired refrain, it needs to be repeated – MOST people with severe mental illness are not going to stab granny and grandpa to death. Most people with severe mental illness do not hurt other people.
It doesn’t sound like the delusions we are told this man suffered from played a role in the murder, thus his purported mental illness played no role in the murders. All murderers have a story to explain thier actions, and yet, all should still be punished. Liz you are too smart to engage in this kind of sensational hate journalism. Here are two stories of murder from today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution that were commited by people who were not labeled as being mentally ill:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/08/02/inga_0803_web.html?cxntlid=inform
and
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/Nail_Gun_Deaths.html
In order to be objective, fair, and balanced, could you tell us, on the day this crime occured, how many people were murdered in the US, and how many of those people were murdered by people labeled as having a mental illness.
Regarding the statement: “all murderers have a story to explain their actions”, I remember the notorious killer Ted Bundy claiming that viewing pornography was what led to his murderous rampages. As far as I know, no restrictions were ever placed on the sale of pornography as a result of that claim. If only the people with a psychiatric diagnosis had as high a status in U.S. society as do the sellers of pornography, we probably would also not be persecuted for those few who claim that insanity caused them to commit murder.
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