Follow-Up To Bus Rider Beheading Story

[Kamakazie Sith]

I doubt he will be. Schizophrenia isn't really 'curable.'

The yearly reassessments make it a possibility. An unacceptable possibility.

[Flagg]

I doubt he will be. Schizophrenia isn't really 'curable.'

The yearly reassessments make it a possibility. An unacceptable possibility.

If they get it under control and he's able to be released and not be a danger (and heavily monitored) then why the hell not?

[Broomstick]

I think in the US at least some states do phrase it as guilty by reason of insanity.

Here in the US you can also see "guilty but mentally ill".

[Kamakazie Sith]

I doubt he will be. Schizophrenia isn't really 'curable.'

The yearly reassessments make it a possibility. An unacceptable possibility.

If they get it under control and he's able to be released and not be a danger (and heavily monitored) then why the hell not?

Because his mental illness caused him to brutually murder someone. If for some reason he were to lose control, and then kill again what would society say to the relatives of that victim? "Sorry, we thought we'd give him another shot. We'll have our priest go rez your family member" Fuck that, Flagg. This guy is an unacceptable risk to society.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I doubt he will be. Schizophrenia isn't really 'curable.'

The yearly reassessments make it a possibility. An unacceptable possibility.

Even when he's old and frail and incapable of harming anyone and simply wants to live out his twilight years with dignity in the company of his family? Obviously, an educated psychiatric professional on this sort of thing must not know what they're talking about and you do, because... well, why again?

Fuck that, Flagg. This guy is an unacceptable risk to society.

Says you and what degree?

[Flagg]

If they get it under control and he's able to be released and not be a danger (and heavily monitored) then why the hell not?

Because his mental illness caused him to brutually murder someone. If for some reason he were to lose control, and then kill again what would society say to the relatives of that victim? "Sorry, we thought we'd give him another shot. We'll have our priest go rez your family member" Fuck that, Flagg. This guy is an unacceptable risk to society.

We say the same thing we say to every victim of a crime committed by someone who was imprisoned and let out to reoffend. Or do you support mandatory life sentences for all murderers and no parole for violent offenders?

[Kamakazie Sith]

Even when he's old and frail and incapable of harming anyone and simply wants to live out his twilight years with dignity in the company of his family? Obviously, an educated psychiatric professional on this sort of thing must not know what they're talking about and you do, because... well, why again?

I'm sure the institution he'll be staying at will give him not only dignity, but will allow visitation from his family. This is assuming a psychiatric professional concludes that this would be safe.

Says you and what degree?

LMAO. His previous actions are more than enough to conclude that society should be protected from him, and any possibility of him losing control. Now, unless a psychiatrist is able to cure him of his mental illness then there is a risk. Also, people will mental illnesses stop taking their medication quite a bit. The mental illness this man has caused him to kill someone in a very brutal manner. This is tragic for both him and his victim. However, there's no sense in allowing an opportunity for that to happen again.

[Kamakazie Sith]

We say the same thing we say to every victim of a crime committed by someone who was imprisoned and let out to reoffend. Or do you support mandatory life sentences for all murderers and no parole for violent offenders?

You hit the nail right on the head. Why is that such a bad thing to you anyway? You do understand that when someone dies they're done right? No coming back. So, why do you feel it's necessary to give the offender another shot at life?

[Darth Yoshi]

The yearly reassessments make it a possibility. An unacceptable possibility.

Dude, the guy was crazy enough to decapitate someone else and then eat chunks of him. No panel is going to release him if there's even the slightest doubt.

[Flagg]

We say the same thing we say to every victim of a crime committed by someone who was imprisoned and let out to reoffend. Or do you support mandatory life sentences for all murderers and no parole for violent offenders?

You hit the nail right on the head. Why is that such a bad thing to you anyway? You do understand that when someone dies they're done right? No coming back. So, why do you feel it's necessary to give the offender another shot at life?

Because I believe the reason for prison is public safety and rehabilitation. I believe that people can in fact better themselves and become valuable members of society. Is that the case for everyone? No, of course not. But if someone is no longer a danger to society what is the point of further imprisoning them beyond sadism?

[Kamakazie Sith]

The yearly reassessments make it a possibility. An unacceptable possibility.

Dude, the guy was crazy enough to decapitate someone else and then eat chunks of him. No panel is going to release him if there's even the slightest doubt.

This is true. Maybe they're just following standard procudure, but I can definitely see where the relatives of the victim are coming from.

[FSTargetDrone]

Vince Li has had a history of mental health issues and abortive treatment:

Accused in bus beheading fled hospital during treatment, court told

PATRICK WHITE

March 5, 2009

WINNIPEG -- In early September, 2005, Toronto police picked up a "dishevelled and confused" Chinese immigrant as he wandered aimlessly along the city's Highway 427.

Over the previous months, the hard-working, church-going Winnipegger had begun hearing what he thought were commands from God.

The orders started as general advice, but gradually morphed into more bizarre instructions - buy land he couldn't afford in Thompson, Man., travel to Toronto for work, and dispose of all his personal belongings, according to a psychiatric report released yesterday in the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench.

Failing in his Toronto job search, the man was apparently commanded to return home. So he began walking. For several days, he followed the sun along Toronto's highway system until police found him and, against his will, took him to the emergency room at William Osler Health Centre in Etobicoke.

Within 10 days, Vince Li said that he fled the hospital and returned to Winnipeg, defying doctors who had begun treating him for schizophrenia, according to the report.

Nearly three years later, during a similar hallucinatory road trip, Mr. Li hacked his seat-mate aboard a Greyhound bus more than 100 times with a four-inch buck knife before dismembering and cannibalizing Tim McLean's body.

At day two of Mr. Li's second-degree murder trial yesterday, prosecutors continued asking why he was allowed to leave the Ontario hospital, even as Mr. Justice John Scurfield repeatedly dismissed their line of questioning.

After a day and a half of testimony, the trial will close this morning when Judge Scurfield decides whether Mr. Li should be held criminally responsible for the murder.

Both defence and prosecution argued that because Mr. Li was suffering a major psychotic episode involving "command hallucinations from a voice that he believed belonged to God," he should be found not criminally responsible.

Judge Scurfield will likely concur, a decision that would exempt Mr. Li from jail, sending him instead to a mental health facility in Selkirk, Man.

But questions about why a future killer was discharged in 2005 will linger, especially among Mr. McLean's family.

"Why are the details of his release so fuzzy?" Carol deDelley, Mr. McLean's mother, demanded outside the court yesterday.

Even if doctors at William Osler could not divine his murderous potential, why was he permitted to leave against medical advice?

"Nobody has a perfect instrument to determine whether someone is a future risk," said Stephen Hucker, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, who is not involved in the case.

The Etobicoke hospital did not return calls for comment yesterday.

According to forensic psychiatrist Jonathan Rootenberg's evaluation, Mr. Li disputed his 2005 schizophrenia diagnosis.

"I didn't think I was sick," Mr. Li is quoted as saying. "I lost my temper one night and they gave me a needle and I slept for two or three days. When I woke up, I saw the doctor, who told me I should stay longer, but I got scared; I took my stuff from the nurse and took the bus back to Winnipeg."

Despite being placed on a Form 3 certificate - an involuntary admission document that forces patients thought to pose a risk to themselves or others into a psychiatric facility for up to 14 days - Mr. Li defied doctors by leaving after just 10 days.

Patients can appeal a Form 3, but there is no public record indicating that Mr. Li did so.

"If he was still under certificate and it was thought that he might harm himself or others, the doctors can call the police," Dr. Hucker said. "But there is always that tension between the rights of the individual and the rights of the rest of us."

[Flagg]

Wait, so the guy was under mnadatory observation and the doctors let him leave without calling the police? And why the fuck aren't they on trial?

[Kamakazie Sith]

Wait, so the guy was under mnadatory observation and the doctors let him leave without calling the police? And why the fuck aren't they on trial?

Because they didn't know he was dangerous at the time I guess.

[Imperial Overlord]

He was there on an involuntary admission, which you can only get by being believed to be a threat to yourself of others and is pretty hard (too hard) to get. During the worst stages of my brother's schizophrenia, before he voluntarily committed himself and got treatment, he was prone to sudden bouts of rage which were pretty scary and he couldn't be involuntarily committed (if he had one of this rage fits in front of cops, then an involuntary commitment might have happened). I've only seen voluntary facilities, so I have no idea how or why this guy was able to get out of an involuntary commitment.

[Napoleon the Clown]

No mental illness is "curable". Mental illnesses can go into remission, or can be kept under control with medication and counseling. If this guy gets put into a mental institution, he'll probably remain there for life. Keeping him medicated and keeping him going to counseling sessions will be much more difficult if he's a "free" man. In an institution, they'll be able to ensure he gets proper nutrition, the proper medication, and counseling. I've known of one man who, do to schizophrenia, became convinced that his wife was a demon and he had to kill her. So he killed her. Odds are, this man will never be released. Even though when he spoke with my high school psychology class he acknowledged that he had been delusional at the time. When it comes to mental illness of that severity, it becomes very difficult to get determined as safe to release.


I'd say a better analogy than cancer would be a heart attack. If someone has a heart attack while driving and they kill someone when they crash, should they be held criminally responsible? Or they have a seizure without any prior history? It's the same basic idea. A fundamental problem with their physiology caused someone else to get injured or killed. If they were mentally whole, they'd not have performed the action.

Or, as another analogy: Lets say that you're in an unfamiliar city with a reputation for murders and other violent crimes. A figure approaches you and appears to be carrying a gun that's pointed at you. Their entire demeanor is threatening to you. Now, if your reaction resulted in the death of the person approaching you and it turned out they held something like a cap gun, would you be a murderer? You've just taken what was in all reality, an innocent life. But your perceptions told you that you were in danger. If Vince Li truly believed that the passenger was a demon and that there was a threat to his life and the lives of other passengers, how is he any different than the hypothetical above?

The brain of someone afflicted with schizophrenia is fundamentally different from a normal brain. Wiki article with LOTS of citations The chemicals in the brain are at levels far outside the norm.


All that being said, if he's ever had a point where he was considered to be stable and he stopped treatment on his own, he certainly needs to be admitted permanently. There needs to be willingness to be compliant with doctor's orders if he will ever be released, and if that isn't there he needs to have compliance forced on him. For his sake and the sake of those around him.



As to whether or not institutionalization will result in him being treated like a human being and being taken care of depends on the quality of where he's sent. Institutions don't exactly have a stellar history, though.

Ultimately, the difference between being put in a mental institution vs a prison cell will be whether or not he ends up killing himself down the road.

[Phantasee]

That was a very good overview, Napoleon. Thanks.

For your last point, though, I was thinking there's a greater chance of his fellow inmates killing him, in prison.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Well, in prison the guards tend to watch the prisoners anyway. Yeah he'll be in more danger in prison, but if he's institutionalized they'll take care of his mental illness. Untreated, he'd be very likely to attempt suicide. Schizophrenia has a, shall we say, alarming suicide rate.


Prison would just increase the odds of a violent and premature death. And likely result in his fellow inmates getting freaked the fuck out. Psychotic episodes can be... scary.

[Dominus Atheos]

If you put someone with a mental illness like he has into the general prison population without giving him the help he needs to control it, someone is probably going to die.

[Master of Ossus]

Wait, so the guy was under mnadatory observation and the doctors let him leave without calling the police? And why the fuck aren't they on trial?

There goes the "Psychiatrists know when people are safe enough to release" argumet.

[Darth Wong]

Fuck that, Flagg. This guy is an unacceptable risk to society.

Says you and what degree?

You make it sound as if a psychiatric diagnosis is on the same level of reliability as a blood test. This is a science where they aren't allowed to test their theories with controlled experiments due to ethics rules, for fuck's sake.

As for his guilt, should someone who believes God told him to commit murder really be considered not guilty by reason of insanity? He may have been nuts, but he still understood what he was doing, and to whom he was doing it, and that it was murder, and that it was illegal. The 9/11 hijackers thought God was telling them to commit murder too; if they survived, would they also have been not guilty by reason of insanity?

[DPDarkPrimus]

The issue raised in the article is that he's going to be able to try and get a psych evaluation to be let out EVERY YEAR and that he has not been given a criminal record.

This guy could get out of the institution in two, three years and just walk away and go somewhere else and get a job as a school janitor or something and no one would ever know that oh hey, this man beheaded another man he had never met before and dismembered him because he believed that if he didn't he would come back to life and seek revenge against him.

This is pretty much the fear that the victim's family is drumming up.

[Big Phil]

Is this actually a big semantics debate? Would everybody be happy if "not" was deleted from the verdict and it read "guilty by reason of insanity" with the end result being the same, a padded room with armed guards at the door?

I'm fairly sure that's the first point I made, which caused some excitable people to react badly.

[mr friendly guy]

Wait, so the guy was under mnadatory observation and the doctors let him leave without calling the police? And why the fuck aren't they on trial?

There goes the "Psychiatrists know when people are safe enough to release" argumet.

You two bring up a good point though. If psychiatrist can be charged for negligence in cases where we decide someone's mental illness is "controlled" enough to be released, and given that psychiatry isn't an exact science, which psychiatrist would be brave enough to say, "ok he can go out".

[Flagg]

Wait, so the guy was under mnadatory observation and the doctors let him leave without calling the police? And why the fuck aren't they on trial?

There goes the "Psychiatrists know when people are safe enough to release" argumet.

That's why a judge should be the ultimate determiner on whether or not a person like this is released based on testimony from psychiatrists.