Veteran with PTSD calls VA helpline, rants, gets arrested

[Block]

Well, from what the article says, they get put in jail for something like a night to make sure they don't follow through on their threats and then plea out with the prosecutor to be assigned to a mental health facility. I'd imagine they find a way for it to be expunged from the guy's record as long as he follows the course of treatment. Again, it shouldn't get to that point where they feel that threatening violence is the only way to get a response, but once it does I think it looks like all involved handled the situation as well as could be expected. They don't really have men in white coats to take people away anymore as far as I know, so it has to be the cops.

[Soontir C'boath]

Er, the article stated that the crises counselor had put out a court order for Broderick to visit a psychiatric hospital, of which he was never informed of having done so and which he would have went to voluntarily. He wasn't arrested until the day after while he was at his kid's day care center which again, shows they clearly didn't think he was an immediate danger to anyone.

Please quote the article where you read the part you believe you have read, because I must have read it three times and see no mention of such thing other than that his plea agreement is possibly unfair and not disclosed to the public.

[Block]

Sorry, I'm conflating all of the stories listed as far as timing, I think. Broderick has been held too long, although it does look like he settled a plea, I have no idea if it will be fair or not.

[TheFeniX]

Well, from what the article says, they get put in jail for something like a night to make sure they don't follow through on their threats and then plea out with the prosecutor to be assigned to a mental health facility. I'd imagine they find a way for it to be expunged from the guy's record as long as he follows the course of treatment. Again, it shouldn't get to that point where they feel that threatening violence is the only way to get a response, but once it does I think it looks like all involved handled the situation as well as could be expected. They don't really have men in white coats to take people away anymore as far as I know, so it has to be the cops.

What?

For 120 days, Broderick has lived like a criminal.

He's in a federal prison right now. For 4 months. There's too many people gumming up the prison system with bullshit for any kind of expediency. As noted, they waited 31 hours to then swarm a daycare with officers. Meaning if the guy actually was violent, he had ample time to make good on his threats and they decide to attempt an arrest in an area where children could have been caught in the firefight. Real American heroes.

It doesn't matter if "they usually do X" when 5 years in on the table. Because that kind of shit gives them leeway to fuck people they don't like and a way to scare innocent people into copping to charges.

While obvious threats should be taken more seriously, this shit reminds me of the kid they had on trial during my last jury duty. I don't care that the prosecutor said "we aren't seeking jailtime," the mere idea that possessing a singular (1, one) joint of marijuana, in of itself with no other charges on the table, could lead to a county jail sentence is hopelessly idiotic. Just like the umbrella "terroristic threat" law having 5 years as a possibility.

Sorry, I'm conflating all of the stories listed as far as timing, I think. Broderick has been held too long, although it does look like he settled a plea, I have no idea if it will be fair or not.

I think 4 months in a federal prison would count as more than enough for time served.

[Flagg]

Listen, If he get's 5 years, it's because of shitty mandatory minimum sentencing most likely. If not, then the judge has discretion and I doubt he'd throw a war vet with PTSD in prison for 5 years for what amounts to terroristic threats made by someone with a mental illness. But to suggest this guy isn't in the wrong is bullshit and stupid. PTSD can cause flashbacks, horrible dreams, panic attacks, and anxiety, especially social anxiety (for me, anyway), to get so bad you are afraid to leave the fucking house.

It can also cause a lot of frustration. But this asshole didn't say "Goddamnit I'm going to fucking kill them!", or "Those sons of bitches are fucking me over so bad I'm going to kill all of them and their fucking families!" Those are just outbursts to relieve stress, and if he were being gone after for something like that, I would be pissed off and be writing to my congress critters demanding his release and then waiting for their form letter.

But that's not what he did. He threatened to go on a shooting spree at a VA hospital, and that shit must be taken seriously every time. Mainly because he's a former member of the military specially trained to kill people. And if you say what he said and the person you are saying it to believes you, or hell, even strongly suspects it may be a valid threat, because of your demeanor on the phone or in person, they are required to notify authorities.

So either they found this "threat" credible due to what he said, how much detail he went into, his access to firearms, and any possible prior violent incidents within the military or arrests/convictions in civilian courts, basically if they think they have a valid, strong case against you they can win, they are going to prosecute.

And for the people saying he should get some kind of "free pass" or stern talking to or something because he has a mental illness... If the USA (or honestly most western industrial nations to my knowledge, I'd appreciate a correction if I'm wrong) released everyone with a mental illness from prison, there wouldn't be many people in prison. Mainly because many times the mental illness has nothing to do with the crime. I pretty much doubt PTSD made this guy threaten to shoot up a hospital (beyond, apparently, it being the topic of discussion when he allegedly made the threat), frustration and anger at not getting his benefits right now when he wants them not a second later is what probably (IMO) did the trick.

So I think it basically comes down to this guy being a major fucking asshole who threatened to shoot up a hospital, his lawyer tried to use PTSD as a defense, which the Judge did now allow (and it wouldn't surprise me if there were a hearing in which both the state and defense had psychiatrists and/or psychologists testify as to whether or not PTSD could cause this behavior, the judge sided with the prosecution in saying "no, I believe the state's experts, you can't use or even mention PTSD in this trial as a defense because under statute blah blah blah...) or if it's just not a defense he can use in that state.

[LadyTevar]

Back in 1989, one of my best friends realized he was having a nasty episode with this (undiagnosed, unreported, unrecognized) PTSD. He walked (!) 8 miles to the only VA in the region, getting there just after all the doctors had left. The man taking his information told him straight out, "Unless you're a danger to yourself or someone else, we have to send you home. There's no one to evaluate you right now."

My best friend's response was simple. "All-righty then...." *SUCKERPUNCH TO MAN'S FACE*

The VA employee got up, wiped his nose, and said "Ok, you're staying for observation."



THAT is what this Iraq vet needed, not a trip to prison. Whomever was on that VA Help Line totally mis-called this one, and needs to be re-trained in what's a cry for help, and what's a serious threat. The cops, the courts, and everyone else involved need to back the fuck off and just get this man help, before he eats a bullet one way or another.

[Simon_Jester]

I find the contrast interesting here with that thread we had about, oh, four months back, titled "If You Are Mentally Ill, The Police Will Kill You."

This guy's mentally ill. He cracks and starts raving about how he's going to murder people, specifically because he is not receiving treatment for his mental illness. He gets marked for arrest by the police who wait and jump him a day and a half later.

Thank heavens he had the presence of mind to NOT get aggressive with the cops. He'd become another police shooting statistic, although in that case maybe we'd be hearing about how it was the murderous evils of American law enforcement that hounded him into his grave...

[Flagg]

Back in 1989, one of my best friends realized he was having a nasty episode with this (undiagnosed, unreported, unrecognized) PTSD. He walked (!) 8 miles to the only VA in the region, getting there just after all the doctors had left. The man taking his information told him straight out, "Unless you're a danger to yourself or someone else, we have to send you home. There's no one to evaluate you right now."

My best friend's response was simple. "All-righty then...." *SUCKERPUNCH TO MAN'S FACE*

The VA employee got up, wiped his nose, and said "Ok, you're staying for observation."



THAT is what this Iraq vet needed, not a trip to prison. Whomever was on that VA Help Line totally mis-called this one, and needs to be re-trained in what's a cry for help, and what's a serious threat. The cops, the courts, and everyone else involved need to back the fuck off and just get this man help, before he eats a bullet one way or another.

So your advice to mentally ill people who do not feel like they are getting what they need/want is to commit or threaten to commit violence, both of which are felonies? You realize that if someone makes a credible threat of violence (in this case a mass shooting that could have killed dozens of innocents who have nothing to do with his benefits taking too long for his liking (or anyone's, and the system is much better now than it had been) but would die for no other reason than that they were seeing a doctor that day?) that the people who volunteer their time to man these lines and help these vets are required by law to report them, right?

What if they hadn't contacted the authorities and he actually did it and killed people? Would you honestly not be raking the crises line people over the coals? Because I sure as shit would.

And for the record, the vast majority of people with mental illness aren't lunatics like this fucker who I suspect just wanted to jump the line and make some other poor bastards wait longer, because IMO that's what happened.

[Simon_Jester]

Would it not be logical to prioritize treatment for those who, without treatment, are beginning to pose an actual threat to the safety of others?

[Flagg]

Would it not be logical to prioritize treatment for those who, without treatment, are beginning to pose an actual threat to the safety of others?

It's PTSD, not schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder. I have severe PTSD, it doesn't make you want to shoot up a hospital, it just makes life suck, even when it's treated like mine currently is. When it wasn't I had more horrible dreams, panic attacks than I do now in certain situations, and had flashbacks much more often than now.

While yes, everyone can react differently to the same mental illness, especially PTSD due to causation, I honestly think this guy is a supreme dick who like Veruka Salt wanted it NOW, and then made threats when he didn't get it. Plenty of people WITHOUT mental illness have the exact same attitude because they are just dickholes. So if mental illness isn't a requirement in acting the way this tool did, then it shouldn't even be considered, which a federal judge seems to agree with.

And why should he benefit from bad behavior and jump the line? There are civilian systems he could have used if his issues were THAT bad in the meantime. Really all he needed to do, even without insurance, is go to the closest ER and say he was going to kill himself and he'd have been admitted. I was when I took 15 Klonopin and somehow didn't even get drowsy and was released after a single night, and that was only because my mom was supervising me and I was under the care of a psychiatrist. If he's not, then he'd have likely been put on the psych ward.

[Thanas]

I find the contrast interesting here with that thread we had about, oh, four months back, titled "If You Are Mentally Ill, The Police Will Kill You."

This guy's mentally ill. He cracks and starts raving about how he's going to murder people, specifically because he is not receiving treatment for his mental illness. He gets marked for arrest by the police who wait and jump him a day and a half later.

Thank heavens he had the presence of mind to NOT get aggressive with the cops. He'd become another police shooting statistic, although in that case maybe we'd be hearing about how it was the murderous evils of American law enforcement that hounded him into his grave...

I don't see how you fucking need to treat this as a problem. I for one am glad that they got to him without injuring him. And if they had shot him the case for murderous evils would have been well-founded too.

[loomer]

There's really just one asshole - Ralin - who might give the impression no one has sympathy for the mentally ill in here, so it is a bit odd to find the views in the two threads at odd.

[Ralin]

It's PTSD, not schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder.

I had been given to understand that there's a fair bit of evidence that borderline is PTSD only called something else because females?

[loomer]

It's PTSD, not schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder.

I had been given to understand that there's a fair bit of evidence that borderline is PTSD only called something else because females?

You really don't know shit about mental health issues.

[Ralin]

It's PTSD, not schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder.

I had been given to understand that there's a fair bit of evidence that borderline is PTSD only called something else because females?

You really don't know shit about mental health issues.

Shoo troll.

[loomer]

I'm not trolling. I'm calling you on your bullshit. You do not understand BPD. That you think it's just 'PTSD but lol women' is proof of that.

[Flagg]

I'm not trolling. I'm calling you on your bullshit. You do not understand BPD. That you think it's just 'PTSD but lol women' is proof of that.

I'm not well versed on it, myself. But I know it's a much more debilitating illness that has the very strong potential of having symptoms that can cause a level of danger to the sufferer and those surrounding them than I feel like is being relayed in this sentence. But Aileen Wuornos who killed 7 men in north Florida and was unfortunately murdered for it was diagnosed with it.

Unless they have dicked with the diagnosis, anyway.
Sorry, but though I truly respect the profession for its trying to understand and treat illnesses of the mind, it's such a subjective science that even whether something counts as a symptom or not is often up for argument. That said, it's helped, and probably more than it's hurt. I hope.

[PainRack]

I think Flagg didn't read that the victim didn't know about the court order mandatory visit. Essentially, this is a legal measure to force people to seek medical treatment, because they are felt to be at risk to themselves or others.

His failure to comply with an unknown appointment is what landed him in this mess. It's a bureaucratic snafu , one that's extremely common. Hell,nobody told me I have a gastro follow-up for my colonoscopy and if it wasn't for the electronic online search, and me trying to get another date for my psych TCU, I would never have known.

(Well, except for my sms reminder which has....issues if it's the first TCU and etc.. )

Are we so cruel to say a person is at fault for not knowing about his doctor appointment, that nobody apparently told him?

And I have electronic records. The VA is still using bloody paper!!!

[Ralin]

I'm not trolling. I'm calling you on your bullshit. You do not understand BPD. That you think it's just 'PTSD but lol women' is proof of that.

No, I don't truth be told other than second hand from having a good friend who suffers from it. I had read awhile back that the symptoms are similar and that there's an argument that many people diagnosed with BDP (who are disproportionately women for some reason) could just as easily be diagnosed as PTSD and that the separate diagnoses might have as much to do with entrenched sexism as anything else.

I don't know the arguments back and forth enough to know if that's bullshit. Thus me mentioning it to Flagg. Who is presumably much more up on the subject than I am. As you could damned well figure out.

[Flagg]

I think Flagg didn't read that the victim didn't know about the court order mandatory visit. Essentially, this is a legal measure to force people to seek medical treatment, because they are felt to be at risk to themselves or others.

His failure to comply with an unknown appointment is what landed him in this mess. It's a bureaucratic snafu , one that's extremely common. Hell,nobody told me I have a gastro follow-up for my colonoscopy and if it wasn't for the electronic online search, and me trying to get another date for my psych TCU, I would never have known.

(Well, except for my sms reminder which has....issues if it's the first TCU and etc.. )

Are we so cruel to say a person is at fault for not knowing about his doctor appointment, that nobody apparently told him?

And I have electronic records. The VA is still using bloody paper!!!

You're right, I did miss that. If they have a notice sent that is postmarked too late for him to have made it to the appointment, then it should clear his name. But if they don't, then he could have gotten it, and it could just as easily have been torn up and thrown away by him. Not that I buy that, as I've been set up for appointments without notification until I got a call confirming the appointment a day or two before I was supposed to be there. So I get that part. Still absolutely no excuse for what he did.

[Simon_Jester]

Speculatively, maybe it's that Borderline Personality Disorder just gets diagnosed as "is a violent asshole" when men have it, because that's what BPD plus testosterone looks like? It may be that men react to their BPD by being aggressive and threatening more often, so that the violence distracts attention from other facets of the condition, whereas women may still be aggressive but also exhibit other behaviors more often?

[Everything below is not in any meant to contradict the issue about the guy not showing up for an appointment he allegedly didn't know he had]

Thank heavens he had the presence of mind to NOT get aggressive with the cops. He'd become another police shooting statistic, although in that case maybe we'd be hearing about how it was the murderous evils of American law enforcement that hounded him into his grave...

I don't see how you fucking need to treat this as a problem. I for one am glad that they got to him without injuring him. And if they had shot him the case for murderous evils would have been well-founded too.

It's mostly that I perceive an irony in how much sympathy the mentally ill normally get in threads like this when chucked in jail by a system that refuses to treat them, versus the (nonzero but lesser) amount they get this time. And I was thinking, if the police had shot him, would anyone who now thinks he's in the wrong think he'd been in the right retroactively?

Would it not be logical to prioritize treatment for those who, without treatment, are beginning to pose an actual threat to the safety of others?

It's PTSD, not schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder. I have severe PTSD, it doesn't make you want to shoot up a hospital, it just makes life suck, even when it's treated like mine currently is. When it wasn't I had more horrible dreams, panic attacks than I do now in certain situations, and had flashbacks much more often than now.

While yes, everyone can react differently to the same mental illness, especially PTSD due to causation, I honestly think this guy is a supreme dick who like Veruka Salt wanted it NOW, and then made threats when he didn't get it...

And I disagree based on the information available so far. Aside from the part where you personally assure me that PTSD people don't wind up more likely to threaten violence because of their condition, did you have any other supporting evidence for that?

[This is not to say you don't know more about PTSD than I do. I'm simply trying to determine if you have other lines of supporting evidence or if that is the only one we should be talking about]

Plenty of people WITHOUT mental illness have the exact same attitude because they are just dickholes. So if mental illness isn't a requirement in acting the way this tool did, then it shouldn't even be considered, which a federal judge seems to agree with.

That doesn't sound like a logical way to make that decision.

I don't have to have Tourette's in order to cuss someone out in public, but it helps. I don't have to have a gastrointestinal problem in order to leave shit on someone's floor, but it helps. I don't have to have dementia to end up pounding on someone's door at night and refusing to leave because I think it's my house and it's actually theirs, but it helps.

A person in perfect mental and physical health COULD do any of those things, just like they could threaten to shoot someone in order to get their way. But a person with a mental or physical health problem is far more LIKELY to do those things, for obvious reasons.

So if I'm on trial for the aforementioned cussing, floor-shitting, or door-pounding, then hell yes my physical or mental infirmity would be evidence that should be brought up in the trial. The illness is a major part of any discussion of whether I had mens rea, and to what extent I had control of my actions. Which is in turn an important part of determining how to respond to the infraction that's being judged as a crime.

And why should he benefit from bad behavior and jump the line?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but part of the purpose of even having a large psychiatric organization attached to the VA is for cases like this. In other words, to prevent veterans who got their sanity shot off in the war from ending up in jail as threats to public safety due to untreated mental illness. And if that's my goal, I'd start with the veterans who actually are threats to public safety.

It's not about him. It's about everybody else- everyone who is in danger if he's not treated, and everyone who stands to profit from him leading a productive and functional life if he is treated. A lot of people in the line could say the same thing, but they're less likely to crack and do something irreversibly stupid and destructive in the immediate future.

So you put out the hottest hair-on-fire case first.

There are civilian systems he could have used if his issues were THAT bad in the meantime. Really all he needed to do, even without insurance, is go to the closest ER and say he was going to kill himself and he'd have been admitted.

Perhaps he didn't think of threatening to commit suicide, and only started threatening violence when he got frustrated and lost his temper? Is "unstable temper and loss of self-control under stress" not sometimes associated with PTSD? Could have sworn it was.

And granted, suicidal ideation is ALSO associated with PTSD... but to me it sounds like this guy wasn't engaged in a premeditated plan to get what he wanted by threatening someone with death, because if he had he would have led with the threats instead of only bringing them up after spending a bunch of time being told no one could see him.

[Thanas]

It's mostly that I perceive an irony in how much sympathy the mentally ill normally get in threads like this when chucked in jail by a system that refuses to treat them, versus the (nonzero but lesser) amount they get this time. And I was thinking, if the police had shot him, would anyone who now thinks he's in the wrong think he'd been in the right retroactively?

It is almost as if that would depend on how the scenario of the police shooting them went down.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, having a warrant go out for his arrest because he missed an appointment he (allegedly) didn't know he had, and having a squad of armed men show up at his son's daycare to arrest him well after the fact, sure sounds like a good start to making him sympathetic in such a scenario.

What I'm saying is, if this guy were shot dead, I like to think we'd all agree that he was a victim of a bad system.

As it stands, some, even many, of us are saying that. But some are saying "to hell with him, he's an asshole."

[Thanas]

Well, having a warrant go out for his arrest because he missed an appointment he (allegedly) didn't know he had, and having a squad of armed men show up at his son's daycare to arrest him well after the fact, sure sounds like a good start to making him sympathetic in such a scenario.

Indeed, it also is not a 100% guarantee that he will get shot, or even something that makes it more likely than not that he gets shot.

[Simon_Jester]

Very well, yes. What of it?

I mean, I'm not disputing what you just said, I just don't see how it interacts with my point.

Do you disagree with my statement that I'd expect Broderick to get closer to 100% sympathy here if he had been shot by police than he's getting given that he hasn't?

[Although on reflection I'm sure we have a few people rattling around who are reflexively pro-police-shooting, so maybe that is not strictly true]