Veteran with PTSD calls VA helpline, rants, gets arrested

[Dominus Atheos]

Army combat veteran’s call for help lands him in jail

TARBORO, N.C.
For years, Ryan Broderick has been trapped inside his mind, watching a constant reel of explosions that rocked the Army vehicles he had scrubbed of blood during three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since January, Broderick has been stuck inside a real jail, fortified by cinder blocks, surrounded by barbed wire. The government that Broderick upended his life to serve locked him up in Edgecombe County, N.C., about 75 miles east of Raleigh.

In the eyes of federal officials, Broderick posed a threat to America and should be treated as a criminal.

Broderick, 31, of Fayetteville, N.C., is being prosecuted for comments he let fly during a call to speak with a counselor at the Veterans Affairs suicide crisis hotline. He was frustrated and sleep-deprived.

His words were clear: If he didn’t get the help he needed for his post-traumatic stress disorder, he would bring a gun to the VA hospital and Fort Bragg and start shooting.

Little more than a day later, a dozen or so agents swarmed around him in the parking lot of his son’s day care center. He will stand before a judge on Monday in Raleigh to learn his fate on a charge of communicating threats. Over the last month, Broderick prepared to make a plea for mercy before a jury. Court filings late Friday show the government and Broderick have reached a plea agreement, though the terms are not clear.

“I was just trying to get help,” said Broderick, a native of Canada who enlisted in the Army after high school. “I had no intentions of hurting anyone.”

Like so many of America’s soldiers returning from combat over the last decade, Broderick has tried to swallow unspeakable memories. And like thousands of others, he has tried in vain to get swift and needed care from a beleaguered VA medical system.

The lucky find a way to cope. Others, such as Broderick, have struggled to live with all they saw and did. As the wars wound down in 2011, as many veterans were killing themselves as soldiers were dying in combat.

To help, Congress ordered the VA in 2007 to set up a 24-hour crisis help line to talk veterans off the edge. Since 2007, veterans and their friends have dialed the suicide hotline about 1.7 million times to have a counselor coach them through a crisis.

But for some, that call to the crisis line triggered an unwanted response. A search of federal court records across the country found charges against at least six other veterans whose rants on the crisis line or to a trusted VA medical provider brought arrest and imprisonment.

A spokesman for the VA said crisis hotline staff try to keep the veterans’ calls private. But if the caller makes a threat against the VA or its staff, VA police are notified. From there, crisis counselors have no say; the veteran’s fate is in the hands of law enforcement and federal prosecutors, a spokesman said.

The decision to prosecute Broderick was made by lawyers in the office of Thomas Walker, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Walker declined to comment on Broderick’s case, as did a spokeswoman for the FBI.

The crime of communicating a threat is a felony that carries a sentence of up to five years. For Broderick, now in the Army Reserves, a possible conviction felt like a death knell. It would mar his military record and complicate his chances of good employment. It would also jeopardize his service in the reserves, a commitment he had hoped to fulfill until he could retire.

“I felt like I sacrificed so much, lost friends, gave up my whole 20s to help people and fight for this country,” Broderick said. “(The least they could do) is give me a sit-down with a counselor once a week. That’s all I wanted, to vent and talk to somebody about what’s going on in my day.”

Randy Cargill is a West Point graduate and a federal public defender whose client was arrested after a call to the VA crisis line in 2011; the case eventually was deferred while the client got psychiatric help.

“It is wrong to offer confidential help with one hand and throttle those who accept the offer with the other hand,” he said.

Broderick found himself at a breaking point on Jan. 29. He hadn’t slept in three days, and just a month before, he had thought about killing himself. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the ground and buildings shake around him from another mortar attack.

After months without steady work, he finally had a promising job interview the next day. He hadn’t seen a therapist and had no medicine to help with anxiety or sleep.

“The weight was too much,” he said in an interview from the Edgecombe County jail. “I felt like I was crashing.”

In an instant, he went from revered veteran to accused criminal.

Grim duty

When Broderick enlisted in the Army, he knew the next several years would be turbulent. The twin towers of the World Trade Center had fallen; America’s leaders had launched a war on terror, and soldiers by the thousands were in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Still, to Broderick, an Army life seemed ideal. It promised structure, stability and role models absent from his childhood.

Broderick’s first combat tour came quickly, about a year after joining. Broderick was responsible for maintaining the Army’s vehicles in Iraq, a seemingly benign assignment. But as soldiers traversed desert regions littered with improvised explosive devises, cleaning vehicles was a grim duty.

Broderick scrubbed Humvees and tanks stained with blood left by the wounded. Sometimes, he would find severed limbs or chunks of skin.

The next five years brought two more deployments, another to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. During his final tour, Broderick got word that his best friend, deployed separately, had been killed by a mortar attack.

In three tours, Broderick spent 41 months in war zones.

The last assignment delivered a bright spot. Melanie Delgada, a buoyant Puerto Rican native, was working at Kandahar Airfield base in military intelligence. In a war zone, their intimacy grew quickly. Several months later, Delgada learned they were having a baby.

When Adrian was born in August 2011, Broderick tried to push aside the misery of combat and angst of readjusting to life in Fayetteville. For a little while, life made sense.

Not better at home

Broderick’s hopes for calm quickly ended. In late 2011, a friend in his unit was shot and killed by another soldier. Weeks later, a comrade hung himself. Soon, another suicide at Fort Bragg.

Army officials were worried, too. They spread the word about the crisis line, posting stickers and pamphlets around bases.

Broderick never thought he’d need it. He was delighted to be home with his young family. His end-of-service date approached, and he was trying to figure out his next move.

The answer became clear in the summer of 2012. Broderick and several hundred soldiers from his unit were standing in formation during a safety briefing when another soldier opened fire on a commanding officer. The superior was killed; the soldier then turned the gun on himself.

“Everyone around me was dying,” Broderick said. “I had no one to talk to, no one to vent to. It was just weighing on my soul.”

Before his discharge that August, Broderick, too embarrassed to admit to commanders he was having a hard time, saw a private psychiatrist. He described the night sweats, the constant violence in his dreams, the relentless paranoia.

He told the psychiatrist it felt like a weight around his neck. The doctor had a name for it: post-traumatic stress disorder.

Short-term help

Each week in the summer of 2013, Broderick sat in a circle with generations of veterans, connected to each other by the diagnosis of PTSD. America’s wars had given each of them an invisible injury. Even for the veterans whose combat days were decades behind, those memories robbed them of sleep.

For the first time in months, Broderick felt like he wasn’t alone.

“These people could really relate to what was going on with me,” Broderick said.

He had enrolled in classes at Fayetteville Community College with the hopes of becoming a respiratory therapist. His grades were good. He and Delgada reveled in their time together with Adrian.

Two months later, the sessions ended. Broderick said it was designed to be a short-term group. He asked to be enrolled in another group, but all the VA could offer him at the time was an anger-management class. Broderick knew his anger was rooted more deeply, in his combat experience. Soon, with no support, he started to unravel.

Broderick said he couldn’t get the VA to understand how urgent his needs were. He saw another VA psychiatrist. Another confirmation of PTSD. She apologized for what he was enduring.

He told her he really needed to see a therapist on a regular basis. Instead, Broderick said he was given another appointment: an intense physical to figure out if he had a traumatic brain injury. Broderick said he constantly badgered the VA with requests to meet with a therapist; he said every time he called, he was scheduled for another appointment for something unrelated to his PTSD.

“I thought they would do more,” he said. “After the diagnosis, I thought they would jump into action, but that was it. I was just lost.”

A threatening call

When Broderick picked up the phone on Jan. 29, he hadn’t slept in days. Nightmares greeted him each time his eyes shut. A month before, right before Christmas, he’d thought about killing himself.

This day, though, he was just angry he hadn’t gotten the help he needed. He felt betrayed, forgotten. He wanted to talk to a counselor.

A VA employee in the health resource center in Kansas took Broderick’s call. Within minutes, Broderick lashed out.

“I’m telling you, every day that goes by I get angrier and angrier. I want to (expletive) kill people,” Broderick said, according to a transcript of the call in court records. “So this is what I’m going to tell you, if I don’t get no (expletive) help soon, I will come through the (expletive) VA and start shooting that (expletive) up.”

Broderick’s rant continued for 10 minutes before he got what he wanted: a crisis line counselor medically trained to understand his condition. She reminded him that he had an appointment set up with a psychiatrist at the VA on Feb. 3; it had been arranged when he called on Dec. 23 contemplating suicide.

During 56 minutes on the phone with the crisis specialist, Broderick calmed down. He told her he didn’t mean what he had said and thanked her for listening, according to court documents.

The crisis specialist was worried, though. The crisis staff reached out to colleagues in Fayetteville, initiating an involuntary commitment, a court order that would require Broderick to be checked into a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

Broderick said he was never told that a commitment order had been taken out on him. He said he would have welcomed the treatment and would have reported to the VA voluntarily.

A crisis specialist from the VA called him the next day to ask how he was feeling. According to court records, the specialist noted in her records that Broderick was not homicidal or suicidal. She noted he was “thankful for the contact,” according to court records.

Broderick spent the next day oblivious to the case brewing against him. He and Delgada had lunch and ran errands, including one on Fort Bragg’s base. The couple then went to pick up their son.

Delgada saw the blue lights first. She recalls thinking there must have been a terrible crash.

Broderick and Delgada soon realized they were the emergency. At least 10 uniformed officers, federal and local, swarmed around them with assault weapons.

A hundred memories of guns drawn and shots fired raced through Broderick’s mind as the officers ordered him and Delgada out of the car and onto their knees.

Broderick willed himself to be calm, thinking if he made any unwanted movements or comments, someone might open fire into his son’s day care.

Federal officers searched the car but found no weapon. Broderick had pawned a handgun weeks before to pay some bills. After the officers cleared the car, Delgada was released.

Broderick’s arrest came 31 hours after his frantic call, according to court records. His arrest came less than 10 minutes after the order for psychiatric commitment lapsed.

Life ‘on hold’

For 120 days, Broderick has lived like a criminal.

He is allowed to see sunlight once a day. He shares a bunk room and showers with men accused of doing things he finds despicable.

He has seen Adrian, 3, several times through a thick bulletproof window. He feels ashamed each time he visits, but he’s afraid his son will forget him if he suspends the visits. At the mention of his son, Broderick cries.

“I had to put my whole life on hold,” Broderick said. “No school, no work. I do not know what the future holds.”

Jail is aggravating his PTSD. He can’t sleep in the bunk he is assigned for fear of being caught off-guard by an attacker. He drags his mat to the wall, instead, and presses his back against the concrete wall.

One benefit to being in jail is that he was prescribed medicine to help with anxiety and depression. He has yet to see a therapist.

Over the last several weeks, federal prosecutors filed motions to block Broderick’s attorneys from telling a jury anything about his PTSD. They have also asked a judge to bar any evidence about recent problems with the Veterans Affairs administration’s ability to see and treat patients.

Until late last week, Broderick said his lawyers prepared for trial, having been unable to negotiate a manageable plea arrangement.

He knew going to trial was a gamble. So was going to Iraq and Afghanistan.

For months, all Broderick wanted was for the courts to see in him what he sees in the mirror: a man broken by war.

Locke: 919-829-8927

THREATS, OR CALLS FOR HELP?
These veterans were also prosecuted after calls for help, court records show:

▪ Sean Duvall, a Persian Gulf War veteran with PTSD, wanted to kill himself so badly that he fashioned a homemade explosive device to help him finally end it all. Homeless, unemployed and depressed, he wandered the streets of Blacksburg, Va. In June 2011, he called the crisis line and confessed to the counselor that he wanted to kill himself and had a way to do it. He asked her to send the police to get the bomb from him and to help. The police came and took Duvall to the hospital. Within weeks, though, federal prosecutors decided to charge Duvall with possessing a destructive device. He eventually received a deferred prosecution for getting treatment.

▪ Alphonso Wynn is a Vietnam veteran who battled homelessness. His life started to turn around, though, when he was admitted to a VA program that provided employment and housing for veterans. One day, Wynn, mentally and physically exhausted from his workload, called the VA crisis line to confide that his boss’s demands were killing him and he might need to kill his boss first. A day later, federal officers arrested Wynn and charged him with communicating threats. A jury in Arkansas found him guilty. He spent nine months in federal prison before being released on supervised probation. “I wasn’t going to carry out that threat,” Wynn said by phone. “I was just blowing off some steam. They took it too far.”

▪ Dennis Ruble and fellow Gulf War Marine Frank Harmon called the VA crisis hotline in October 2010, drunk and angry. Ruble had been unable to get the care that he needed for his PTSD. On the call, he told the counselor that they were trained killers and threatened to come down to the VA Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio, and start shooting. The crisis counselor talked the men down and urged Ruble to go to the VA hospital and check himself in to get the help he needed. When the men arrived at the hospital, federal investigators arrested them. Lawyers for the men negotiated sentences that involved several months in a treatment facility, followed by supervised probation.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/nation-world ... rylink=cpy

Because, as always, 'Merica.

[Flagg]

He threatened to shoot up a hospital, no doubt only killing people who have no idea who he is or what his situation is. I have severe PTSD (diagnosed) from stuff that happened to me in public school, should I be allowed to call and make threats that I'm going to shoot up public schools because I get really frustrated at not being able to sleep for days due to horrible dreams I have about various incidents seared into my brain at public school, including being hit in the back of the head with a backpack full of textbooks that sent me flying down a flight of stairs?

I also have PTSD from incidents that happened when I was in the hospital for 6 weeks in Florida in 2005 due to abuse from burnt out nursing staff in the recovery ward and a religiously insane Doctor who literally got into my face and screamed at me the day after an unnecessary surgery (that has essentially caused much if not most of the abdominal problems I'm still dealing with today), calling me "An ungrateful punk who wouldn't accept the Lords help and miraculous healing!", and did so every morning he came to "check on me" until I was finally released 10 days later? As well as the nurses who were abysmal to the point where on 3 occasions dirty needles were left on my lunch tray because they didn't give a shit and were cruising along until retirement and constantly lied to my doctor about me being rude (when my mother was there the entire time (she's a nurse!) and not only was ignored when she said shit flat out didn't happen (so was basically being called a liar, like I was), but was repeatedly approached by Doctor RoChristo to try and get her to side with him and "make me acknowledge that I was healed by the loving Forgiveness of Christ, as opposed to him being a shitty doctor who got the diagnosis so wrong that when the GI doctor in Seattle looked at my files he laughed at what a stupid conclusion they had come to, did one test that showed it was my gallbladder, because early onset of gallbladder disease runs in my family and they ignored my mom every time she brought it up, and removed it in fucking outpatient surgery with 3 tiny cuts as opposed to gutting me like a trout), because one day she found me covered in my own cold vomit because none of the people responsible for cleaning patients up after incidents like that had bothered to respond to my call light being pushed 5 times in 3 hours? Should I be allowed to call the hospital administrator pissed off and threaten to come down there and shoot the place up after not getting sleep for fear of hospital dreams where I'm the one doing surgery on myself with a gun to my head being forced to eat everything I cut out, down to eyeballs?

Lot's of people have PTSD for lot's of reasons, this guy has it due to a violent incident at war (so he got to volunteer for his PTSD) and I have a ton of sympathy for him and his situation and know how fucking frustrating getting in to see a shit psychologist is, let alone a good one. Up until he threatens to go shoot up a hospital full of innocent people that don't know who he is, what his problem is, and have problems of their own. He's not a special fucking snowflake and the sooner he realizes that the better, because apparently he's managed to go through 31 years of life without being informed of that fact.

So I guess what I'm getting at is... Fuck this guy. He should of course have his PTSD and "frustration" (because no one gets frustrated by bureaucracy, am I right?) be considered as mitigating factors, but just because you saw bad shit and experienced bad shit doesn't give you the fucking right to go around threatening to kill innocent people because stomping your feet and throwing a shit-fit on the phone hasn't gotten you what you want. Asshole.

[TheFeniX]

I doubt anyone is going to come in here and say threatening to shoot up a hospital should have no consequences. But 5 years in federal prison and prosecutors trying to block his ability to make a defense? I'm siding with the asshole on this one. Well, the asshole with PTSD in this case.

[Simon_Jester]

I think he can make an excellent case for "not guilty by reason of insanity." There is no evidence of criminal intent (he didn't actually plan a crime). And he has been repeatedly diagnosed with a mental illness that does sometimes cause people to become agitated and frustrated, to have violent fantasies (more like nightmares), and to be seriously afraid that they may pose a threat to themselves or others.

It would have been infinitely better if he could have kept a grip on himself, and said "Look, I have been repeatedly diagnosed with mental illness, it is specifically the Army's responsibility that this is the case, I am honestly worried that I might lose control and hurt people if I don't get treatment, I will NOT GO AWAY until I get treatment scheduled."

But then, if he could keep a grip on himself 100% of the time, then he would not have a serious mental illness, pretty much by definition.

The perverse thing is, if he pleads insanity, he gets the exact treatment he was trying to get with the threat...

[Ralin]

Good fucking riddance. Every psychiatrist I've ever seen has told me they're obligated to break confidentiality and report me if they think I'm going to harm myself or others, and from the looks of it he wasn't even speaking to a therapist when he made his threats. Good job on the VA and I'm glad the Iraqis don't have to worry about him anymore.

[Joun_Lord]

Fucking hell. This is dumb.

This guy needs help, not prison. He needed to be taken in, sure, he made threats. But he did so because he NEEDS HELP.

Yes, he shouldn't have made threats but he was frustrated, hurting, tired, and afraid. He would have never got to this point he had gotten the help he needed in the first place.

And Flagg, buddy, I sympathize with you about horrible violent shit that you've experienced in school, mostly because I went through the same things including literally in the case of being knocked down a flight of stairs with a backpack, and in hospitals, had my own shitty mentally scarring hospital stays(including one that was so fun I wound up clawing and chewing open my arms because of how fucked out the head I was in there, my arms were so bad I lied to people and said I was in a bike wreck while on vacation when I got out), but us being bullied by gorillas that escaped from the zoo and psychotics with medical degrees is not really the same as what this poor bastard went through.

Dude spent over 3 years of his life in war, washing away blood and guts of people including some he knew. Getting home has just been a roller coaster of death and misery with so many people around him dying by their own hands.

I can without a doubt say his pain is greater then mine or yours and thats not making light of your pain nor my own just a statement on just how bad his shit is that religious nutjobs trying to pray away the pain, be it physical in your case or mental in mine, seems not as bad in comparison.

This guy didn't even seem to want to do the shit he said, he said what he said because he needed an attention, he needed someone to listen and give him some help. Its like the nutters who cut themselves, take drills to their hands, or swallow a bunch of pills but don't kill themselves. Either they are pretty much screaming for help or didn't take the time to google effective ways of suicide.

[loomer]

Good fucking riddance. Every psychiatrist I've ever seen has told me they're obligated to break confidentiality and report me if they think I'm going to harm myself or others, and from the looks of it he wasn't even speaking to a therapist when he made his threats. Good job on the VA and I'm glad the Iraqis don't have to worry about him anymore.

Yeah, the VA aren't exactly the good guys here. No one here is a good guy, but they sure as fuck aren't. Unfuck your thinking.

[Ralin]

Good fucking riddance. Every psychiatrist I've ever seen has told me they're obligated to break confidentiality and report me if they think I'm going to harm myself or others, and from the looks of it he wasn't even speaking to a therapist when he made his threats. Good job on the VA and I'm glad the Iraqis don't have to worry about him anymore.

Yeah, the VA aren't exactly the good guys here. No one here is a good guy, but they sure as fuck aren't. Unfuck your thinking.

Sure they are. They helped get an Iraq vet thrown in prison and prevented a possible mass shooting. Can't argue with those results

[Mr Bean]

Sure they are. They helped get an Iraq vet thrown in prison and prevented a possible mass shooting. Can't argue with those results

See that's the bit some of us have issues with. Time was when you had a possible psychopath you put him in a mental institution not a prison. But I'm sure Cell Block D will straiten him right out and make him a productive member of society.

[The Romulan Republic]

From the context, I'm guessing he's rabidly anti-military or at least anti-Iraq war, since he makes a point of saying how its good that they put an Iraq war veteran in jail.

Edit: In other words, I don't think he cares about helping the person in question. This is wanting to see him hurt for something he did that the poster disagrees with.

[The Romulan Republic]

Also, the above should not be construed as support for the Iraq war on my part (well, I support intervention against ISIS but not the 2003 invasion). I simply am not prepared to go so far as wanting someone to go to prison simply for being a soldier in it.

[Block]

Unless I'm misreading, these guys get brought in for safety's sake and then plea to psychiatric treatment. I don't see a problem with how it's handled.

[TheFeniX]

Unless I'm misreading, these guys get brought in for safety's sake and then plea to psychiatric treatment. I don't see a problem with how it's handled.

There is just so much incredibly fucking wrong with this line of reasoning, I have to wonder if you didn't think for 5 seconds before posting or just don't give a fuck.

The US mental health care and justice system is so fucked up, you have to commit a felony to get treatment? You'll have to excuse me if I have little faith in this system.

You have to risk felony conviction, 5 years in a federal prison, spend your downtime before trial in said federal prison, and hope the prosecutor doesn't think your just another free + mark on his conviction record, just so you can get counseling after military service? I won't even go into how this dumb-shit thinking is why laws grant for stupidly long convictions for stupid bullshit to scare people into confessing even when not guilty rather than risk trial and prison time.

Besides:

Over the last several weeks, federal prosecutors filed motions to block Broderick’s attorneys from telling a jury anything about his PTSD. They have also asked a judge to bar any evidence about recent problems with the Veterans Affairs administration’s ability to see and treat patients.

shows how little the prosecutors give fucks about people in obvious need of help. Why not just throw people with PTSD in the federal pen, not my fucking problem right? The prosecutors literally want to remove the defendant's ability to testify in his own defense. Real civic minded paragons of justice we got here.

I've got retired military friends with PTSD. They've gone through this shit. Dealing with an overburdened system that used them to drum up votes and lambast opponents (SUPPORT THE TROOPS!). Luckily, they all had family and some money tucked away to piss away because the system that fucked them up doesn't give a shit after they've cashed in their chips, because actually supporting the troops is for campaign slogans. Spending military budgets on shit that doesn't kill people? That's for beatnicks.

I don't agree with Broderick's threat and he should see consequences for it. But I can damned sure understand how you can be on your last fucking rope and just want to do SOMETHING to get people to help you. But nah, let's just make them cop to FELONY CHARGES and we'll get them the help they need, even though we won't.

This bullshit is why absolutely undefendable shit like this happens. No one gets people the help and/or counseling they need. They toss them into a box and turn them into actual criminals, not just ones who say incredibly stupid things.

Really though, I shouldn't be surprised it's this terrible when I live in a country that runs for profit prisons.

[loomer]

Good fucking riddance. Every psychiatrist I've ever seen has told me they're obligated to break confidentiality and report me if they think I'm going to harm myself or others, and from the looks of it he wasn't even speaking to a therapist when he made his threats. Good job on the VA and I'm glad the Iraqis don't have to worry about him anymore.

Yeah, the VA aren't exactly the good guys here. No one here is a good guy, but they sure as fuck aren't. Unfuck your thinking.

Sure they are. They helped get an Iraq vet thrown in prison and prevented a possible mass shooting. Can't argue with those results

So are you a fucking idiot or just an asshole?

[Ralin]

So are you a fucking idiot or just an asshole?

Someone who doesn't like scumbags who took part in Bush's war and threaten to go on shooting sprees if they don't get health care?

[Soontir C'boath]

Yes, they are required to call the police and what not, because ideally they should be the ones able to make sure the patient do not hurt himself or others, BUT after that they should be escorted to a mental hospital, not be charged and sent to jail/prison...

What part of PTSD is a mental illness do you not understand?

[Ralin]

Yes, they are required to call the police and what not, because ideally they should be the ones able to make sure the patient do not hurt himself or others, BUT after that they should be escorted to a mental hospital, not be charged and sent to jail/prison...

What part of PTSD is a mental illness do you not understand?

What part of "threatening to go out and shoot a bunch of people is a crime you should go to jail for" do you not understand. Mental illness is not and should not be a defense for crap like that, even if said mental illness didn't come from taking part in a war of aggression against people who suffered a hell of a lot more because of it than he did.

[Soontir C'boath]

The person was clearly desperate for help and not necessarily in the right state of mind given his sleep deprivation and illness combined, you are going to say anything to get attention. The sad part of all this is he apparently forgot he did have an appointment a few days later and it took his violent ranting to finally get a crisis counselor to talk to him so in a way, it had worked.

What actually fucked him in the end, was the fact that he had apparently not known there was a court order for him to visit a psychiatric hospital and when he missed his appointment for that, it was then when cops showed up and arrested him.

So no, he wasn't necessarily arrested for threatening people, he was arrested because he didn't show up to the hospital as ordered.

Broderick’s rant continued for 10 minutes before he got what he wanted: a crisis line counselor medically trained to understand his condition. She reminded him that he had an appointment set up with a psychiatrist at the VA on Feb. 3; it had been arranged when he called on Dec. 23 contemplating suicide.

During 56 minutes on the phone with the crisis specialist, Broderick calmed down. He told her he didn’t mean what he had said and thanked her for listening, according to court documents.

The crisis specialist was worried, though. The crisis staff reached out to colleagues in Fayetteville, initiating an involuntary commitment, a court order that would require Broderick to be checked into a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

Broderick said he was never told that a commitment order had been taken out on him. He said he would have welcomed the treatment and would have reported to the VA voluntarily.

A crisis specialist from the VA called him the next day to ask how he was feeling. According to court records, the specialist noted in her records that Broderick was not homicidal or suicidal. She noted he was “thankful for the contact,” according to court records.

[loomer]

So are you a fucking idiot or just an asshole?

Someone who doesn't like scumbags who took part in Bush's war and threaten to go on shooting sprees if they don't get health care?

So it's both an idiot and an asshole, then. Your parents must be very proud, you fucking twit.

[Block]

Unless I'm misreading, these guys get brought in for safety's sake and then plea to psychiatric treatment. I don't see a problem with how it's handled.

There is just so much incredibly fucking wrong with this line of reasoning, I have to wonder if you didn't think for 5 seconds before posting or just don't give a fuck.

You're wrong on both actually. I'm not saying he should have to go to these lengths to get treatment. I'm saying that once it got to the point where he was actually threatening people, I don't have a problem with how the VA staffers involved handled it. There need to be massive reforms to the mental health system, to the VA, and to a number of other institutions. I'm not denying that, but that had nothing to do with how the crisis counselor should have handled the immediate situation.

[TheFeniX]

You're wrong on both actually. I'm not saying he should have to go to these lengths to get treatment. I'm saying that once it got to the point where he was actually threatening people, I don't have a problem with how the VA staffers involved handled it. There need to be massive reforms to the mental health system, to the VA, and to a number of other institutions. I'm not denying that, but that had nothing to do with how the crisis counselor should have handled the immediate situation.

Neither your post nor my response alluded to any wrong-doing by the VA staffers. They acted like any reasonable person would: report potentially dangerous individuals to the authorities. What I take issue with is what you said past "safety's sake." The idea of needed to get so ground down by the system as to require the commission of a felony to hope you get the help you need is a broken line of reasoning to begin with. The idea that the American justice system, based on their track record, has any vested interest in helping people goes full circle to brutal hilarity. Unless you're filthy rich that is. If there's enough press, you might get the kid's gloves treatment, but that's a dangerous bet to take when the alternative is being mentally ill in a federal prison.

Based on how retired vets are treated in this country, it's pretty clear the government has no interest in helping them. Or helping them only enough that they can claim they give two shits. You only have to look at the Federal government's war on their retirement and disability benefits that's waged forever. Once you've put down your M-16 you're useless to them and they'll do everything they can to keep from wasting anymore money on you.

Worthless sacks like Ralin are at least upfront about about their bullshit. Politicians love to play the military support card, then bend ex-military over a barrel at the first opportunity.

[Soontir C'boath]

Block, if you actually read the article, it was up to the prosecution office's decision to press charges which I frankly wonder if they would have gone through if Broderick actually went to the psychiatric hospital as he was court ordered to do. He was seeking psychological help and putting him in prison as a punishment for his cry for help at the end of the day, doesn't help anyone. It wastes taxpayer money to put him on trial and spend time plea bargaining, putting him in jail/prison, and providing medical services that a mental hospital could have provided instead in what would undoubtedly be a better environment.

FFS, it took them a couple days to finally deliberate and arrest him which showed he wasn't an immediate danger to anyone.

[Block]

Block, if you actually read the article, it was up to the prosecution office's decision to press charges which I frankly wonder if they would have gone through if Broderick actually went to the psychiatric hospital as he was court ordered to do. He was seeking psychological help and putting him in prison as a punishment for his cry for help at the end of the day, doesn't help anyone. It wastes taxpayer money to put him on trial and spend time plea bargaining, putting him in jail/prison, and providing medical services that a mental hospital could have provided instead in what would undoubtedly be a better environment.

FFS, it took them a couple days to finally deliberate and arrest him which showed he wasn't an immediate danger to anyone.

I did read the article. You and Fenix seem to be picking nonexistent nits.

[Soontir C'boath]

Block, we are not disputing what the VA did. However, your second sentence in your first post implies that his arrest and prison sentencing was the right way to go.

[TheFeniX]

I did read the article. You and Fenix seem to be picking nonexistent nits.

Unless I'm misreading, these guys get brought in for safety's sake and then plea to psychiatric treatment. I don't see a problem with how it's handled.

You seem to have backpedalled into "the VA made no mistake" (which of course, no one has said otherwise) into somehow claiming your post was solely about the actions of said VA who has no decision power in deciding either who gets "brought in" nor the nature of a plea bargain. At most, they would provide testimony. The rest is handled by law enforcement and the court.

You have a pretty flawed definition of nitpicking.