Patty Mojziszek: My husband didn't take his medications for his mental illness.

One of the arguments against keeping open public mental hospitals is they are expensive to operate. That is true. But in many regards closing them is more expensive.

In Illinois, if Dan Mojziszek had been forced into treatment for his serious mental illness, he would be alive today and Franklin Park (IL) would not be facing a $10 million wrongful death suit. This is the Daily Herald's account:

Police opened fire on 52-year-old Dan Mojziszek late Monday following a three-mile, low-speed chase that began in Franklin Park and ended in Northlake.

Patty Mojziszek's attorney, Frank Avila, says the family plans to file a $10 million wrongful death suit.

Avila said diabetic episodes can trigger mental illness. Mojziszek was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had undergone several stints at the Elgin Mental Health Center.

Patty Mojziszek divorced her husband in 2000 because of his mental illness and trouble with the law. She said the bipolar disorder wasn't diagnosed until after their marriage.

"His issues with the mental illness were consuming all of the money, and his court issues were growing," she said. "I thought I would end up with nothing."

Dan Mojziszek's mental illness would manifest itself in delusions and paranoia, his ex-wife said. He would make outrageous claims about the FBI and aliens.

"I would sometimes just find him sitting there alone talking about these things to himself," she said.

Patty Mojziszek said her husband "didn't take care of himself" when it came to taking medications for his mental illness and diabetes. Police interaction became routine and she found she could only relax when her ex-husband as serving time in prison.

The Topeka-Capitol Journal today is reporting on expensive upgrades in security systems at all public facilities in Kansas and Colorado in the wake of dangers posed by men with serious, but untreated mental illness.

Had Derek Potts and Aaron Snyder been under the supervision of state hospitals, Snyder would would be alive and mentally sound, Potts would not be in prison, a security guard would be alive and these expensive and inconvenient changes in security would not need to be made.

In 2007, a gunman who claimed to be an emperor, Aaron Snyder, was shot and killed by state troopers outside the office of Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter. A dozen tourists and state workers bore witness to the traumatic episode.

The sound of gunfire broke afternoon calm in 2004 at the Illinois Statehouse in Springfield. An unarmed guard was slain by Derek Potts, a college dropout with a history of mental illness.

These horror stories played a role in an evaluation in Kansas leading to a decision to upgrade security protocol at the Statehouse.

In Alabama, as in most states, the patients who in past generations would have been cared for involuntarily in public mental hospitals are living untreated on the streets. The Montgomery Advertiser reports on efforts of homeless shelters to try to comfort some of the severely mentally ill. The problem, of course, is the shelters are not equipped to help these untreated patients:

Somewhere between a fourth and a fifth of America's homeless are estimated to suffer from severe mental problems.

And because of these mental problems they have difficulty getting help. There are not enough mental health resources to provide them all beds, but their conditions often make it difficult for shelters to take them in.

It's not a common practice for the shelter to take in people with mental illnesses. Not with the erratic behavior they can bring with them.

"It's not so much not taking the mentally ill in, but you have these other guys ... you've got to take care of them," Tom Whitfield, the mission's director, said of the other shelter residents.

Although the National Institute of Mental Health said that only about 6 percent of America's overall population was classified as severely mentally ill in 2009, between 20 and 25 percent of America's homeless suffers from some form of severe mental illness, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Cynthia Bisbee said shelters aren't well equipped or trained to handle the special needs of people with mental illnesses.

"There are shelters here -- Salvation Army and the Friendship Mission that do fantastic work in providing shelter for the homeless -- but they are not equipped to deal with the seriously mentally ill."

"There's severe depression, schizophrenia. They burn their bridges with their families. If we bring (them) in here, it disrupts the whole system."

The mix of homelessness and mental illness affects a person's physical health -- the homeless neglect to care for themselves with adequate hygiene practices.

Serious mental illnesses disrupt people's ability to carry out essential aspects of daily life, such as self-care and household management, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Mental illnesses may also prevent people from forming and maintaining stable relationships or cause people to misinterpret others' guidance and react irrationally.

When will America wake up?

The Contra Costa Times is reporting today that a man (with untreated mental illness) in Pittsburg (CA) was firing his gun out of his home for no reason:

PITTSBURG — A standoff that prompted police to cordon off several city blocks in the Central Addition neighborhood for nearly six hours Monday has ended with the arrest of an Pittsburg man.

Police surrounded 793 E. 11th St. at 11:20 a.m. while they negotiated with 55-year-old Gregory Alexander, who allegedly fired a handgun outside his home, Lt. Brian Addington said. It remained unclear why he fired two rounds, but police said Alexander has a history of mental illness and threatening neighbors.

The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown, Penn. today tells the story of a woman, who apparently had a serious mental illness, being stabbed to death by her sister:

A woman told police from her Johnstown hospital bed that a verbal dispute with her sister had escalated and her sister had ended up stabbing her.

Following the stabbing, Pamela L. Tunstall, 45, of Central City, was found bleeding along Route 30. She died by the roadside as medical technicians struggled to save her.

Pamela Tunstall died of multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest, Coroner Wallace Miller said. Richards indicated that Pamela Tunstall’s background might include a history of mental illness.

From 1919 to 1933, the years of Prohibition, when the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages were banned by our Constitution, there must have been some rational Americans, ordinary people who had no money at stake in booze, who thought to themselves, "What the hell is my country doing? This ban is insane. It brings all these evils of crime and violence and it harms civic society. We were so much better off dealing with alcohol as a regulated commodity before the 18th Amendment was approved. Can't we just go back to the status quo ante?"

I've had that thought many times with regard to our nonsensical War on Drugs.

And lately, it has occurred to me how much better off our country was when we had public mental hospitals and involuntary treatment for the severely mentally ill; when we had the sense to know that people with brain disorders cannot make good decisions about their own health and the decency to force treatment upon them.

The entire result of "freedom" for people with schizophrenia and other serious mental maladies has been a disaster: homelessness, senseless crimes, family strife, suicides, murders, rapes and needless endangerment. Our criminal justice system, our prisons, jails and police departments are being overrun by this madness.

When will America wake up to realize how much better off we used to be?

When was the last time Haiti ever had any good news?

No country circumvents all natural disasters. Every one will at some point suffer from a terrible flood or an earthquake or a hurricane or a tornado or a drought or pestilence or a volcanic eruption or a landslide or a tsunami or a heat wave or a deep freeze. However, the bad news in most countries is balanced out by good news, recovery, rebuilding and a better infrastructure able to face what nature brings.

That said, I cannot remember ever hearing good news out of Haiti. Along with Bangladesh, the news is always failure heaped upon tragedy heaped upon misery. Haiti is direly poor, badly governed, overwrought with crime, filthy, massively overcrowded, terribly educated, corrupt and unlucky.

Today, a devastating earthquake rocked that godforsaken country:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- A strong earthquake hit the impoverished country of Haiti on Tuesday afternoon, where a hospital collapsed and people were screaming for help. Other buildings also were damaged.

The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 14 miles (22 kilometers) west from the capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in nearby Petionville, and a U.S. government official reported seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine.

No further details on any casualties or other damage were immediately available.

My guess, alas, is that thousands of Haitians will die from this event and tens of thousands will be left homeless. That is just the way it goes in that unfortunate land.

Passing the buck: How the Davis City Council failed to address our long-term budget mess

Correspondence from City Councilman Stephen Souza: What claim was false?

Unsolicited, I got an email today from Davis City Councilman Stephen Souza. I like Stephen personally and am always happy to hear from him. However, I was intrigued by the title of his email. On the subject line it read, "False claim."

Here is how Stephen begins:

Hi Mr. Rifkin ...

It's interesting to me that in an email sent to me alone (with no apparent cc's) Stephen addresses me as "Mr. Rifkin."

I've had many conversations with Stephen and found him friendly, relaxed and informal. I've been to his home to play poker and drink beer and sip tequila. I've had a number of off-the-cuff conversations with him regarding any manner of personal subjects. On all of those occasions, each time we have spoken and in all emails he has sent to me in the past, he always called me, "Rich," not "Mr. Rifkin." I can understand formality in a formal setting, such as a meeting of the Davis City Council. But in a one-to-one email, it is jarring that all informality has been dropped.

Now to his points:

I for the last 21+ years of service to the City of Davis have always had the interests of all Davisites above myself and contributors to my four campaigns for Davis City Council.

That may be true. However, when an elected official takes money -- in his case, thousands of dollars -- from members of a special interest group (the Davis firefighters' union) and agrees to a contract with that group which was not good for the citizens of Davis in my estimation and not good in the estimation of both of the members of the Davis City Council who were not supported in the last four years by Local 3494, his actions have the appearance of being unethical and improper and not in the best "interests of all Davisites."

Stephen continues:

In those campaigns I have been the largest contributor, $15,000 in 2004 and $6,000 in 2008. The next largest group is retired individuals, next working, next business/developer interest, and in the last two campaigns last firefighters.

Those are four distinct types of contributors:

1. The candidate himself. His giving $21,000 to his campaigns suggests he really wanted the job. That's fine. I have no problem with him giving to his own campaign if he can afford it. (Stephen, who owns and operates a swimming pool cleaning company, mentioned to me in a conversation a few months ago that he also sacrificed more, because his position on the council forced him to give up lucrative contracts with some large apartment complexes, as well.)

Not specific to Stephen, but I do wonder about some candidates who "loan" large amounts of their money to their campaigns. The potential problem with that arrangement is who gives the money to the elected official after the campaign is over. That is, the loans get paid back by someone. If people who do business with the city are repaying those loans -- that is, giving money in post-election fundraisers -- how are voters supposed to know that when they vote?

2. Retired & working Davisites who presumably don't benefit directly by his votes. There is no ethical question about these gifts. As it happens, I gave Stephen $35 for his last campaign and fit into this category.

3. Business and developer interests. This can be a problem area. One of the things which makes Stephen a highly qualified candidate for elective office in Davis is that he has a successful business which he started and operates himself. He is not just a success, but he knows how to work hard and knows what it takes to succeed in business in Davis. As such, it's natural that other members of the Chamber of Commerce would like to see such a person in office. However, if business people giving him money are also doing business with the City and Stephen is in a position to make decisions which directly affect their fortunes, that has the appearance of a conflict of interest and should not be allowed in Davis.

4. The firefighters. This is by far the worst type of campaign cash to accept and then turn around and vote on their contract. It appears corrupt, especially since the only members of the City Council who favored their last contract took money from Local 3494 and none who did not get firefighter cash in the last four years approve that contract.

The appropriate tact for a candidate for the Davis City Council is to not accept contributions from groups like the firefighters or developers. However, in the case where a member of the council has accepted funds from individuals who stand to benefit from a vote of the council, that member of the council has a moral obligation to recuse himself from such a vote. When Stephen Souza, Don Saylor and Ruth Asmundson did not recuse themselves from the vote on the firefighter contract, they failed the moral test.

Stephen goes on:

This round of contract negotiations, my second, I asked for and the Council passed a set of Guiding Principles and Objectives for Negotiations Related to Employee Compensation. They are guiding me in seeking reductions in employee total compensation.

The guiding principles were not all I would have wanted. For example, they required no changes regarding union bank hours, excessive vacations and holidays and so on. However, they had some good in them and they let the public know in advance what the majority of the City Council was hoping to get out of its secret negotiations with the labor groups. As such, I applaud the notion of guiding principals.

The problem, alas, was that the most important principle -- to fix the unfunded retiree medical liability -- was untouched by the changes in the new contract. As such, the council had its guiding principles and failed to be guided by them in this most crucial respect.

My service is to you and all Davisites. I do it in ALL Davisites favor, not in favor one person or group. Stephen

Words only go so far. When you accept money from firefighters and vote on their behalf, you have created the appearance of a conflict of interest. To me, that is unacceptable, but correctable. What Stephen Souza and his colleagues on the council ought to do is take up this question in their ethics' guidelines. They ought to make a recusal in such conflicted instances mandatory.

I have never claimed Stephen or anyone on the City Council is corrupt. I claim instead that they have allowed by their actions an appearance of corruption. And that claim, Stephen, is undeniably true.

The story is not what we consider a crime: The story is what we don't consider criminal

The New York Times is reporting that a former member of the Yonkers (NY) City Council was indicted last week on corruption charges for selling her votes on two development projects which she had previously opposed.

WHITE PLAINS — A former Yonkers city councilwoman was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of accepting nearly $167,000 in cash and gifts in exchange for dropping her opposition to two contentious developments, including a $630 million project that is the city’s largest private undertaking.

The former councilwoman, Sandy Annabi, 39, a Democrat whose term ended in December, was one of three people charged in the indictment. The other two, Zehy Jereis, 38, the former leader of the Westchester County Republican Party, and a lawyer, Anthony Mangone, 36, are accused of bilking two developers of tens of thousands of dollars and funneling the money and other favors to Ms. Annabi in return for her support.

I have no qualms about prosecuting Ms. Annabi. Her alleged offense is serious and deserves to be treated as such.

However, contrast how our laws treat what she allegedly did with how the law views an elected official who takes thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from special interest groups. The recipients of campaign money commonly reward their donors by giving them favorable treatment in contracts or zoning changes or they direct purchases of goods and services to their companies.

The City of Davis has enriched the 46 members of its firefighters' union, Local 3494, with huge salaries, exorbitant vacation and holiday schedules, thousands of hours of pay for conducting union activities, massive built-in overtime, a rich schedule of benefits, luxurious pensions and free medical, dental and vision care for life upon a very early retirement. Is it merely a coincidence that the three members of our City Council who Local 3494 funded for office voted for their contracts, while the two who did not take that money voted against the interests of the firefighters, saying the contract was not in the best interests of the citizens?

It seems to me that any elected official who accepts money from a person or group which does business with the government or person or group which benefits directly by the decisions made by that elected official should not have the right to vote on any issues affecting his donors. To me, that has the appearance of corruption and should be illegal. Yet it is not outlawed and we don't even have ethics codes to forbid it.

At the local level the payoffs to these campaign donors tend to be modest. But at the federal level, the defense contractors, farmers, lawyers and other large financiers of congressional campaigns stand to make billions of dollars in profits based on the decisions made by the Congress. Everyone on the outside believes our system is corrupt.

It's business as usual. And business as usual is outrageous.

Who was supposed to be offended?

The big non-story story in politics today regards Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada. This is the AP rendition published in the Los Angeles Times:

Washington - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized Saturday for saying in 2008 that Barack Obama should seek -- and could win -- the White House because Obama was a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

Let me try to break down what exactly was supposed to be offensive about that remark and who was supposed to be offended:

1. Barack Obama should seek -- and could win -- the White House ... That is obviously a huge compliment. No one in his right-mind finds that offensive;

2. Obama (is) a "light-skinned" African American ... That is an accurate description of the president's complexion. The comment implies that a dark-skinned black would face more prejudice from fellow Americans. That is probably true. Even if it's factually wrong, it is not offensive to think dark-skinned black-Americans face more prejudice than the light-skinned encounter;

3. Obama (speaks English) "with no Negro dialect." ... Again, that is true. Obviously, the term "Negro" is old-fashioned. But it is not patently offensive. Given that Harry Reid is 70 years old and that was surely the term most blacks called themselves during Reid's formative years, he can be excused for using a dated word like "Negro";

4. Obama (speaks English) "with no Negro dialect." ... Is it offensive to notice that there is such a thing as a black-American dialect and imply that a candidate who speaks in that dialect would have more trouble than one who speaks standard American English winning over mainstream America in a national election? No. Everyone knows that Ebonics exists and that manner of speaking is not mainstream and would hamstring any black candidate trying to win over many white-American voters; and

5. Obama (speaks English) "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." ... The inference I take from that is that Reid thinks Obama has put on a "black voice" at times. I have never heard Obama do that. However, it's not impossible to believe. I have known a number of black-Americans who consider themselves "bilingual," able to speak in a black dialect when the setting and company calls for that and at other times speak standard English. Unless Obama has never done that, the comment strikes me as one of fact, rather than one intended to offend.

Taken as a whole, Reid did nothing wrong. More importantly, Reid is a friend and ally of Obama's and there is no reason to think he had any ill intentions.

Obama quickly accepted the apology, saying, "As far as I am concerned, the book is closed."

Politically, President Obama's response is probably correct. However, I would prefer he said, "Harry Reid is not a racist; he didn't intend to offend anyone; he didn't offend me; and he has no reason to apologize for his comments."

"I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans," he said, "for my improper comments."

Politicians are the ultimate grovellers, so there is no reason to be surprised that Sen. Reid would grovel in this way. I wish, however, that some well known African-Americans will publicly say, "No sensible black-Americans find anything Harry Reid said about Barack Obama offensive."

Reid's office said he had also phoned to apologize to civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights chief Wade Henderson; as well as veteran political operative Donna Brazile. Reid also spoke with Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), both African Americans.

"The Senator doth apologize too much, methinks."

EDIT: This morning (Sunday) on NBC's "Meet the Press," Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele weighed in on the "Negro dialect" question, calling on Harry Reid to resign. Here is the NY Times account:

Steele, the Republican Party chairman, called Sunday for Harry Reid to step down as U.S. Senate majority leader in the wake of revelations of Mr. Reid’s remarks in 2008 about Barack Obama’s skin color and dialect.

Mr. Steele, who is black, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that an apology was not enough and “there has to be a consequence” for “anachronistic language that harkens backs to the 1950’s and 1960’s.”

“There’s a big double standard here,” Mr. Steele said. “When Democrats get caught saying racist things, you know an apology is enough.”

Never mind, Mr. Steele, that Sen. Reid did not say anything racist. Anachronistic, yes. Racist, no.

Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, was among the black leaders who received a call from Mr. Reid. Mr. Clyburn said that Mr. Reid should be judged on the merits of his record to respond to diversity and to advance the president’s agenda.

Exactly.

"I am an innocent man and not a pervert like these hateful persons suggest."

This murder in Billings, Montana, reported today by the Billings Gazette, is a good example of why some people who have some very serious mental disorders must stay in locked mental hospitals:

A Billings man who has been in and out of Warm Springs State Hospital was arrested without incident Tuesday on suspicion of stabbing his childhood friend to death.

Donald Eli Kruger, 35, is being held in the Yellowstone County Detention Facility on suspicion of deliberate homicide in connection with the death of Jeremiah Fritz.

If the law did not require him to be let "free" from the hospital, the person who made the decision that he was not a danger should be fired. If the law required Kruger no longer live in a locked mental hospital, that law needs to be changed immediately.

Court filings indicate a request for a mental health evaluation for Kruger was filed in that case as recently as Nov. 6.

Kruger, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, was committed to Montana State Hospital after being found mentally unfit to stand trial at least twice in the last five years.

In the latest instance, the city of Billings paid for a commitment in 2008 after Kruger was charged with assaulting two women who were walking together on the South Side. According to court records, Kruger is accused of grabbing the women’s breasts when he passed them on the street, and slamming one into a fence and punching the other repeatedly when they objected.

He was also found incompetent to stand trial in 2005 on a felony charge for indecent exposure. In that case, Kruger was accused of masturbating in front of a woman at the Montana State University Billings library.

Since the early 1990s, Kruger has been charged with more than 20 misdemeanor offenses and three felony offenses. In a number of cases, Kruger sent rambling letters to the court professing his innocence and begging for help.

One undated letter came in an envelope with a penciled drawing of a sharp-toothed skull with bulging eyes.

The letter pleads for help from Judge Pedro Hernandez and reads in part:

“(I was) tricked into entering pleas that give away rights that this court keeps taking advantage of I am an innocent man and not a pervert like these hateful persons suggest in information I was not aware was filed against me until it was to late now that I want to fight for my right for trial and showed good cause the two judges are conspiring with this cop and punishing me with crimes I can’t fight because there just ment to slander me further misleading conjectural ennuendoes with no prima facie until the cop gets involved and misrepresents information or leads witnesses in their statements . . . “

"He had been in and out of mental institutions."

Because he is an Arab and presumably a Muslim and he screamed out "kill all the Jews" on an airplane flying to Detroit, just weeks after the underwear bomber dominated the headlines on a flight to Detroit, the normal immediate reaction to Mansor Mohammed Asad is to think he is an Islamic fanatic who might be a terrorist threat.

However, there is an important part of the story -- really, the whole story -- missing from that equation. Here is the Miami Herald's account:

An Ohio man who became loud and disruptive aboard a Wednesday night flight from Miami to Detroit -- at one point telling those around him he ``wanted to kill all the Jews'' -- was removed from the airplane before takeoff and arrested.

The man was identified as Mansor Mohammad Asad, 43, who authorities say posed no potential security threat.

Miami-Dade police say he caused enough of a ``disturbance'' that the pilot had to return to the jet-bridge. When Asad was taken off the plane to be interviewed by police, he threatened officers, made racial comments and charged an officer, authorities said. He was Tasered twice.

The reaction of authorities seems to me appropriate and justified.

The ADL, however, was hyperbolic and too quick in its response:

The Anti-Defamation League, in a statement Thursday, said it was ``deeply disturbed by the alleged anti-Semitic rant by Mansor Mohammad Asad.''

``Such comments point out the fact that anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is still very much a part of society,'' Andrew Rosenkranz, the Florida regional director, said in a statement.

While I am glad the ADL speaks out against anti-Semites, I think they would have done better to have waited a couple of days to find out exactly what was going on in Mr. Asad's mind before they reached their conclusions about him.

Here is what the ADL did not know: Asad is seriously mentally ill and in all likelihood is not being treated properly for his disease. Chances are, Asad belongs in a mental hospital under the care of psychiatrists.

Asad's son, Mickey Asad, who was not traveling with his father, told The Miami Herald that his father has bipolar disorder. He told the Associated Press the elder Asad had been in and out of mental institutions when he was younger.

``It's not what it's made out to be,'' Mickey Asad told The Herald. ``I don't know, someone had to have pushed his buttons. I don't know, I couldn't explain honestly. Of course he's not a terrorist.''

We want to make this into a story about terrorism because in so many ways it fits all the preconceived notions about what the terrorists think. Islamic fanatics, after all, do want to kill all the Jews. It's possible that Mr. Asad is both a mentally ill man and an Islamist. However, if his goal was to harm other passengers on that flight or to kill Jews, he would not have stood up and made that scene. He did that because he has a very serious disease which caused him to do what he did and say what he said.

"Friends of Brandon Reuter are still mystified by the turn of events"

As tales of the mentally ill involved in tragedies go, the story of Brandon Reuter is rather typical:

A young man from a nice, loving family with a very promising future, goes off to college, develops mental illness, he is not put in a locked hospital and his illness goes untreated. Then, fairly quickly, his life spirals out of control, he gets into very serious trouble and winds up dead.

In some cases, the mental patient kills someone else. In others he becomes a homeless, substance-abusing derelict. In more, he goes to prison for a senseless crime. Whichever the outcome, it's tragic and could have been avoided had the patient been treated for his mental illness.

Here is the account of Brandon Reuter in today's San Jose Mercury News:

At a morning news conference at the Redding Police Department, Police Chief Peter Hansen and Shasta County District Attorney Gerald Benito said they had concluded that the seven officers who fired their weapons at 20-year-old Brandon Reuter had acted within police department guidelines for using deadly force.

Reuter died after being hit approximately 14 times when the officers fired about 46 rounds, authorities said.

The youth was shot after a police dog pounced on him as he bolted from the bank heist, police said. Swinging wildly at the German shepherd, he suddenly pointed what appeared to be a 9 mm Beretta handgun, police said, at a group of approaching officers. Seconds later, Reuter died in a hail of bullets.

The weapon turned out to be a BB gun.

I don't blame the cops in this case. They were doing their jobs as best they could. I don't blame Mr. Reuter, who was out of his mind. I blame the fact that we closed our mental hospitals so people like Brandon no longer get the treatment they need.

The death of Reuter, who graduated near the top of his high school class two and a half years ago, was a blow for the town of Los Gatos, which has seen a string of tragedies involving young people in the past 13 months.

There probably are just as many dumb guys as smart guys who are afflicted with serious mental illness. However, it seems like kids who finish at the top of their classes and then have their lives spiral out of control make the news more often.

Friends of Brandon Reuter are still mystified by the turn of events. When he graduated from Los Gatos High in 2007, he received an award for academic excellence. But police reports and court records tell the tale of a life that gradually spun out of control since he entered his freshman year at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

His downward turn must have been a great mystery to those who knew him when he was in his right mind. However, I suspect all those who met him after high school knew he was ill:

Reuter had prior run-ins with the law as well as a history of mental illness, authorities said. Los Gatos police said he had been placed on a 72-hour mental hold after he became suicidal in November.

According to the police department of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Reuter was arrested by campus police in March 2008 on suspicion of stealing $30,000 in electronics — including 80 iPods valued at $22,200 — from the university bookstore. Reuter, then 18, was a freshman at the school. He was later convicted and sentenced to time served.

"Why Does Pakistan Hate the United States?"

Claude Garrod, a man from Davis I've never met but vehemently disagree with when it comes to foreign policy, penned an op-ed in last Sunday's Davis Enterprise regarding Pakistan titled, "Why are Pakistanis angry at us?" I had no plans to read his column.

Mr. Garrod is a member of the Davis Peace Coalition -- a group dedicated to hating America and blaming Israel more than loving "peace". They are in league with our Islamist enemies in Iran and elsewhere. I find Garrod's point of view to be based more on his anti-American prejudices than any keen insight.

However, yesterday, I came across an article in Slate by Christopher Hitchens with almost the same title: "Why Does Pakistan Hate the United States?"

It had not occurred to me before reading the headlines that public opinion in Pakistan was an important question in the least. But since Hitchens -- who I admire, but find overly ideological -- and Garrod -- who I don't admire and find his ideology repulsive -- both thought this was a subject worth exploring, I had to reconsider. Maybe Pakistani opinion matters more than I had thought. I decided to read both pieces.

Garrod starts off with the finding that he has something in common with the people of Pakistan:

... opinion polls taken recently show that Americans are widely disliked and distrusted by Pakistanis. ... a recent poll showed that 80 percent of Pakistanis believe their country should not cooperate with the United States in the war on terror. Only 2 percent believe the U.S. has "good relations with Pakistan." In another poll, only 9 percent support U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan and most Pakistanis believe "the U.S. is the greatest threat to their country."

Garrod tries to explain why the Pakistanis loathe us. To do so, he takes on the voice of three different Pakis. (Never mind that his writing is hokey.)

The first he calls Colonel X, an army officer. Most of his animosity revolves around American friendship with India:

... since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, we've had only one bitter and aggressive enemy, namely India. ... the Indians used their army to occupy most of Kashmir ... they've brutally suppressed the Kashmiris ... the Indians encouraged rebels in East Pakistan, and finally, the Indian military supported the secessionists in order to break our country in two, the eastern half becoming the country of Bangladesh that is now dominated by India. ... You've just signed a nuclear technology deal with India that will clearly help it develop more nuclear weapons aimed at Pakistan but you wouldn't make a similar agreement with us. ...

India is a mess. It has democratic elections but is hardly a democracy. It has some first-rate software companies and more than its share of world class engineers and scientists. But it's hardly a first-rate economy. Yet compared with Pakistan, India is ideal. There is no reason why we should not be friends with India. The Indians, who were dominated by anti-Western socialists throughout the Cold War, have reduced some of their trade restrictions and, since the USSR came apart, reduced some of their anti-Western rhetoric. Our friendly relations with India is based on the fact that India has changed in the last 20 years and that we have a common enemy in the Islamists. No right-thinking Pakistani should worry that Indians no longer get their saris tied up in knots over "American imperialism."

Garrod's fictional voice then focuses on our policy of trying to dislodge the Russians from Afghanistan and the current war against the Taliban:

After the Soviets left Afghanistan, you just walked away from the chaotic mess that you had created in our country and left us to deal with 3 million destitute Afghan refugees in our poor country. ... using your cowardly drones, which put no Americans in danger, you kill increasing numbers of Pakistanis in our western provinces, creating a rising level of anger against our government and military.

Had America never sided with Russia's enemies in Afghanistan, Pakistan still would have had to deal with millions of Afghan refugees. In fact, the problem may have been worse, because the war there would have gone on longer.

The second of Garrod's fictional characters he calls Ahmad Y, a student at Lahore University:

We started with a democratic government, but in our short history we've had four military coups, each of which was encouraged and supported by the United States. Is this how you 'support democracy'?

This explanation is, of course, nonsense. Pakistan has been undemocratic for most of its history because of its widespread poverty, illiteracy, Islam and the dominant position of its military. Garrod, in the voice of the student, in his next sentence admits the undemocratic nature of Pakistan is due to the Pakistanis, not his bête noire, the U.S.:

Our fundamental problem is that we have a medieval social structure, with a small aristocracy that owns huge tracts of land, and a huge population of poor, powerless tenant farmers, mostly illiterate, with little opportunity for education.

But even that must be the fault of the United States, according to Garrod:

One of the largest landholders is the Bhutto clan, one of whose members you've helped to impose upon us as president.

That is complete horseshit. The Bhuttos (especially Benazir) had popularity in their own right, unrelated to our friendship toward them. The fact that a popular leader was not unAmerican is unfathomable to an America-hater like Mr. Garrod.

The "student" then is upset that the U.S. is not paying for his education. Instead, we are spending our taxpayer money on things which are not his personal priorities:

The U.S. has spent many billions of dollars in Pakistan, but more than three-quarters of it has gone to the army. That may suit American interests but it's not what we need. Right now, one-third of our country's young people (ages 15 to 25) have never been in school.

The third fictional character for Garrod is Mohammad Z, a poor tenant farmer. Like the student, his supposed hatred of America is because we are not giving him enough of our money:

You have done nothing for ordinary poor Pakistanis like me. All your money goes to the army and what's left over goes to corrupt politicians. The landlord takes so much of my crop in payment that I can barely feed my family. There are no schools around here so my children can't read and they'll end up being poor farmers like me. The country needs schools, but you only support the army.

It's worth noting here that a lot of rural farmers in Pakistan are Islamic fundamentalists and supporters of the Taliban. Those are the forces which have been destroying schools where girls attend, in the name of Islam. Thus, the supposition that most of the rural people hate Americans because we have not sufficiently funded their educations is dubious.

Next, "the farmer", decides that his hatred of America is really one about Islam and the Clash of Civilizations:

For years, you've been killing Muslims all over the world — in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Palestine, in Somalia and now here in Pakistan with your damn drone planes. When I was in Karachi I saw some of your shameless women with no head- covering, mixing with men like tramps.

Garrod says these views are not necessarily his own. But he never says where he differs and why. Mr. Garrod, in his own voice, says the fault all lies with the America, not with Pakistan:

Clearly, the U.S. has a major public relations problem in Pakistan, caused mainly by very erratic foreign policies dominated by U.S. electoral politics.

The unexplained last bit about "U.S. electoral politics" is an anti-Semitic comment. Garrod is infamous for his hatred of the role American Jews play in influencing U.S. policy. In essence, his view is that American Jews push the United States to be friendly to Israel and unfriendly to Muslims. And that, ultimately, is why Muslims hate us. (I don't know how he explains why so many Muslims also hate Western countries like France, which share his hatred of Jews and Israel.)

In his piece in Slate, Christopher Hitchens notes that we have a long history of friendship with Pakistan's military; and that cozy relationship caused them to resent us:

The United States made Pakistan a top-priority Cold War ally. It overlooked the regular interventions of its military into politics. It paid a lot of bills and didn't ask too many questions. It generally favored Pakistan over India, which was regarded as dangerously "neutralist" in those days, and during the Bangladesh war it closed its eyes to a genocide against the Muslim population of East Bengal. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Washington fed the Pakistani military and intelligence services from an overflowing teat and allowed them to acquire nuclear weapons on the side.

Hitchens suggests the hatred is a form of self-hatred, due to the fact that our support of a client state made them feel like dependent children:

(The Pakistani establishment) hates (the United States) because it is dependent on it and is still being bought by it. It is a dislike that is also a form of self-hatred of the sort that often develops between client states and their paymasters. (You can often sense the same resentment in the Egyptian establishment, and sometimes among Israeli right-wingers, as well.) By way of overcompensation for their abject status as recipients of the American dole, such groups often make a big deal of flourishing their few remaining rags of pride. The safest outlet for this in the Pakistani case is an official culture that makes pious noises about Islamic solidarity while keeping the other hand extended for the next subsidy. Pakistani military officers now strike attitudes in public as if they were defending their national independence rather than trying to prolong their rule as a caste and to extend it across the border of their luckless Afghan neighbor.

Hitchens suggests we abandon our historic friendship with the Pakistanis and focus on our relations with India. He implies that doing so will force the Pakistanis to stand on their own and stop acting like dependent children.

Speed the day when the Pakistanis are ... told that the support they so much despise is finally being withdrawn.

Having read both columns my conclusions is thus:

We are a convenient scapegoat for the Pakistanis. Almost all of the problems in Pakistan are the fault of the Pakistanis. They need to solve their own problems and not turn to others. However, their culture, like in most Muslim countries, is one of blame.

The great attraction of Islamism to so many Muslims is that it points the blame at everyone but themselves. It's America's fault or Israel's fault or the fault of British colonialism, etc. Until Muslims look in the mirror and realize that they need to improve their own schools, free up their own trade, democratize their own countries and liberalize their own societies in order to prosper, they will continue to fail.

"In 2006, deciding she no longer needed Depakote, Ms. Dennard stopped taking it."

In stark contrast to tragedies like that which befell Christina Eilman in Chicago, the case of Janet Dennard in New York is uplifting and heartwarming.

While they both have bipolar disorder, a serious mental illness, the difference between them is that Ms. Eilman, who was a student at UCLA, was not legally forced into treatment, while Ms. Dennard was.

Eilman ended up the victim of a terrible crime. Dennard is once again a productive citizen.

Here is Dennard's story in the New York Times. This is the key sentence: "While Ms. Dennard was at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, a court mandated that she be medicated."

She was next provided with housing at the Transitional Living Community, a shelter in Brooklyn for women with mental illness. Seriously ill people like Janet Dennard can function, as long as they have supervision. In early December, she received a permanent apartment in an S.R.O. in Queens that specializes in looking after people with mental illness.

It's a shame no one took control of Christina Eilman's life. She could have been productive, too.

Janet Dennard can still hear the hum of her sewing machine. Late at night, the memory of it lulls her back to sleep.

Ms. Dennard, 56, who loves to sew and crochet and has battled bipolar disorder for the better part of her life, does not miss the low points. But she does miss the high ones. When she channeled her elevated moods into her work, she produced scarves and hats by the armful.

“With manic-depressive illness, you’re really up or you’re drop-dead bottom,” she said recently. “When I got depressed, no one could change the thoughts I was dwelling on.”

A native of Ohio, Ms. Dennard moved to New York more than 30 years ago, with her daughter, Dannela, now 36. Ms. Dennard ran a small business from her apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn: from costuming dance companies to upholstering large pieces of furniture. After school, her daughter would help out, sewing buttons and ironing. For years, it was mother and daughter against the world. One day, that changed.

“When she had her first breakdown, the mother I knew was no longer,” said Dannela, who was 15 then.

Glass was thrown, tables upturned. Thoughts of grandeur and paranoia took over.

“When you’re in that state, you do things that hurt people,” Ms. Dennard said. “What makes you crazy are the flashbacks. You can’t make amends for all the crazy stuff you did.”

After receiving a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and being briefly hospitalized, Ms. Dennard was given a daily prescription for Depakote, an antiseizure drug also used to treat the manic phase of bipolar disorders.

In the 16 years between that first episode and a second one, Ms. Dennard’s emotions were kept more or less in check, as long she as took her medication. But family life frayed.

Dannela began dividing her time between her stepfather in New York and her biological father in Virginia. When she moved back to Brooklyn at 19, Dannela was pregnant with a baby girl.

In 2006, deciding she no longer needed Depakote, Ms. Dennard stopped taking it. With a monthly income of $1,010 in Social Security disability payments, Ms. Dennard moved out of an apartment she had shared with her partner of 15 years and into one that cost $1,300 a month. Before long, she was homeless.

With nowhere to turn, she moved in with her daughter and granddaughter, Nephteli. But her behavior became increasingly erratic, and finally Dannela reached her limit. In May 2006, Dannela asked that New York Adult Protective Services forcibly remove her mother. While Ms. Dennard was at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, a court mandated that she be medicated.

After a few months in a halfway house, Ms. Dennard briefly moved back in with Dannela before moving, first to Ohio and then to Delaware. Two years later, Dannela brought her mother back to New York.

Over the summer, Ms. Dennard moved into the Transitional Living Community, a shelter in Brooklyn for women with mental illness. It is run by the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service, one of the seven beneficiary agencies of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

A $240 grant from the fund was used to buy a vending license so Ms. Dennard can sell her handmade wares at sites throughout the city.

In early December, she received a permanent apartment in an S.R.O. in Queens that specializes in looking after people with mental illness.

Upon leaving the Transitional Living Community, Ms. Dennard was given a used sewing machine as a going-away gift. A miniature version of what she used to work on, it is a reminder of her need to get her belongings back to New York. She pays $450 a month to store three industrial-size sewing machines, fabric and supplies in Ohio; furniture and other belongings are in Delaware.

In a 12-by-12-foot room, she is already at work, sewing pillow and cushion covers for her new apartment. For Ms. Dennard, the future looks like a small sewing business, where she plans to employ people with mental illness.

She has even picked a spot, a corner between the door and the kitchen, where her larger sewing machine will soon live. Her only worry now is for ample electricity — enough to power her creativity.

"She hung around Midway Airport raving about the price of oil, exposing herself, making lewd comments and screaming at ticket agents."

The tragic case of Christina Eilman, a UCLA student who grew up in Rocklin, never would have occurred in Chicago, if the state of California had committed her to a mental hospital, where she clearly belonged and could have been treated properly.

But left "free," she wandered to Chicago and there, the Chicago Police Department did themselves no credit in how they treated her. Instead of taking her to a psychiatric clinic as their own protocol required, the CPD set her outside in a dangerous and unfamiliar neighborhood when she was unmedicated and out of her mind, where she was raped, brutalized and (probably) thrown seven floors to the ground, where she mercilessly did not die.

I cannot imagine how Chicago won't lose a huge lawsuit for this unbelievable negligence. The officers involved deserve to be fired. This is the story from Chicago Breaking News:

Christina Eilman was mentally ill.

The 21-year-old California woman hung around Midway Airport for two days, raving about the price of oil, exposing herself, making lewd comments and screaming at ticket agents, a baby and a blind man.

Then the Chicago police took her into custody, held her overnight and released her into a high-crime neighborhood, where things turned even worse.

On behalf of Eilman, whose plunge from a seventh-floor public-housing apartment in May 2006 has left her permanently brain-damaged, her parents are suing the city for $100 million, contending that police negligence placed her in harm's way without the wherewithal to seek help or protection.

The Tribune wrote about Eilman's ordeal three years ago based on the information available at the time, but as the trial approaches in March, recent court filings have shed new light on her case. Perhaps the most disturbing new detail is a police officer's account that a police supervisor told officers to take Eilman to the hospital instead of putting her in a lockup overnight, but they didn't because they said there was no car handy at the station.

Later, the same watch commander ordered a police sergeant to talk to Eilman based on the reports from other officers about her behavior. The sergeant reported back that he didn't see any signs of mental illness, and Eilman ended up in a holding cell for more than 24 hours, according to officers' depositions.

Pretrial testimony and other court documents show that several officers involved in Eilman's arrest at Midway had an ongoing discussion at the Chicago Lawn District about how to handle the woman who was behaving so strangely. One officer testified she called Eilman's parents in California, learned that she was "probably bipolar" and then relayed the information to a watch commander and the arresting officers.

Police Department policy requires officers dealing with mentally ill people to take them to a hospital for an evaluation. But instead of arranging transportation to a hospital, police ultimately sent Eilman miles away to the Wentworth District lockup, where multiple witnesses said jail guards dealt with her erratic and bizarre behavior by repeatedly telling her to "shut up." One inmate testified that black officers repeatedly shouted at Eilman, calling her a "white bitch."

City officials stand by the decision not to send Eilman to a hospital. Eilman seemed lucid and apologetic during a roughly half-hour interview with Sgt. David Berglind, said Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city's Law Department. Hoyle also cited an officer's testimony that Eilman's father, Rick Paine, had used the word "probably" when discussing whether Eilman was bipolar. But Paine recalled that he told the officer that his daughter had been hospitalized for bipolar disorder a year before.

Eilman's lawsuit is set for trial in federal court in March. It is unclear whether the city will attempt to settle the case, but no settlement offer has been made, Hoyle said.

Through their lawyer, Eilman's parents declined to comment for this story. But they have said previously that the $100 million in damages they are seeking in the case take into consideration that Eilman will never be able to live independently and that she will require costly treatment and therapy for the rest of her life.

As a result of the fall, Eilman suffered numerous broken bones and a shattered pelvis, and a severe brain injury from which she will never fully recover. In the last four years, Eilman's progress has reached a plateau, and she will remain in an impaired state, with a childlike grasp of reality, for the rest of her life, doctors say. The brain injury has only exacerbated the severity of her bipolar disorder, according to medical experts. After being treated at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Eilman now lives with her parents in suburban Sacramento, Calif.

Testimony from Eilman's friends, police officers and women detained alongside her reveal a vivid timeline of the last months of Eilman's former life: her instability in spring 2006, frayed relationships with friends and family, dropping out of the University of California at Los Angeles as her bipolar disorder crowded out her ability to study and work, and her trip to Chicago weeks later.

While city officials assert that Eilman seemed lucid during Sgt. Berglind's interview with her on the day of her arrest, the testimony of other officers paints a more complicated picture.

Officers involved in the arrest contradicted each other's statements, but one of the arresting officers testified that a watch commander instructed him and his partner to transport Eilman to a designated hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Officer Rosendo Moreno told investigators that while Eilman was being held at the Chicago Lawn District near Midway, he heard Lt. Carson Earnest tell Moreno's partner, Officer Richard Cason, to take Eilman to the hospital. But Cason responded that he and Moreno didn't have a car to transport her, according to Moreno.

In his lawsuit deposition, Moreno said he did not recall the conversation, but when Eilman's lawyer reminded Moreno of his statements to internal affairs investigators, he acknowledged it had taken place.

Quoting from sealed internal affairs documents, one of the expert witnesses hired by Eilman's lawyers wrote in a report that "Moreno admitted to telling Sgt. Skala that the Watch Commander said they should put Ms. Eilman in a car and take her to the hospital. However, he then reported, 'Rich (Cason) told him that we did not have a car.' "

When asked about that statement, Cason told investigators he did not recall that conversation and that it might have pertained to a different arrest, according to the report.

Earnest, the watch commander, denied any officers told him they believed Eilman was mentally ill. His account also differs from the testimony of Officer Yvonne Delia, who was so alarmed by Eilman's behavior that she used her own cell phone to call the woman's parents in California. Delia said she relayed to Earnest and Cason that Rick Paine said his daughter had mental health issues.

Though Earnest denied any such knowledge, he said he was aware that police had been called to Midway for two straight days to deal with Eilman, whom witnesses said was out of control, making lewd, irrational and aggressive statements to people in the terminal.

Instead of arranging transportation to a hospital, police ultimately sent Eilman miles away to the Wentworth District lockup. Rick and Kathy Paine have agonized over their own decision to stay at home, waiting by the phone for more information from Chicago police instead of jumping on a plane to come to their daughter's aid. Kathy Paine told the Tribune in 2007 that she did not know what to do because police would give her no concrete information.

Over nine telephone calls from Kathy Paine to the Wentworth District, she said, she was repeatedly told to call back later until an officer told her that Eilman had already been released.

Police escorted Eilman to the back door of the Wentworth District, which also houses an area detective headquarters. She then wandered along 51st Street a few blocks east to a takeout restaurant, where men began to gather and talk to the petite blonde, who was dressed in a skimpy jogging suit.

Witnesses said she appeared to be disoriented and behaving erratically, unable to make eye contact or track what people were saying to her. A short time later she walked to the public housing high-rise at 5135 S. Federal St., then the last remaining building of the Robert Taylor Homes. It has since been razed.

A crowd gathered around, befuddled by the presence of an unescorted white woman in a virtually all-black, high-crime area. Eilman eventually went with a group of people to a vacant apartment on the seventh floor that residents used as a communal room.

One resident, Melene Jones, said she repeatedly told Eilman to leave because the building was not safe for her. Several men asked Eilman to perform oral sex, but she refused, at one point saying she would jump out the window if anyone laid a hand on her, witnesses said.

Jones said she tried to persuade Eilman to leave because she feared something bad would happen.

"First off, because, I mean, there was nobody there with her. And second off, because she was a white girl and, I mean, it's really unusual for a white girl to be in the building and especially by herself," Jones testified. "If you live there, it's cool and you know everybody and whatnot, but if you don't and you just be there and whatnot, people, they might try to take advantage of you and whatnot."

Eventually, reputed gang member and convicted felon Marvin Powell entered the apartment and began trying to talk to Eilman, several witnesses said. He began trying to provoke her with sexual taunts and then demanded that everyone else leave the apartment. When Eilman tried to leave with them, Powell allegedly held her back and said to the others, "I'm gonna show this bitch who the real killa is," according to testimony from resident Robert Kimble.

Powell is charged with abducting and sexually assaulting Eilman. He is jailed awaiting trial.

Eilman began screaming that Powell was going to kill her, and Powell shut the door. Soon, people outside did not hear any more screaming, Kimble and others said. About 15 minutes later, residents started running through the halls of the building in an uproar. The woman had plummeted from the window, they said, and was lying in the grass below.

A very tragic, very common occurrence: all over the news

It's true that I am looking for these stories. However, it's hard not to notice how many there have been in the news recently of horrible crimes being committed by people with serious, but untreated mental illness.

Here is a sampling from today's papers:

The New York Daily News gives the details of a tragic murder of a child:

Alejandro Morales, 25, was taken to Bellevue Hospital just hours after he allegedly plunged a knife into the chest of Anthony Maldonado while they played a Playstation skateboarding game. Morales's relatives told detectives that he has a history of mental illness, according to police sources, while his neighbors in Morningside Heights' Grant Houses claimed his behavior has been erratic for years. "He was kind of [crazy]," said a neighbor too afraid to give her name. "He was sick in the head."

The Palm Beach Post reports that Paul Merhige, the man with untreated mental illness who murdered four members of his family on Thanksgiving Day, was caught hiding out in a motel in Long Key, Fla:

Paul Michael Merhige's grudge against his family was that they did not do enough to take care of him, a point that the mentally troubled man argued with them constantly before police say he executed his twin sisters and two other relatives on Thanksgiving Day, Merhige's father told police.

In an arrest report released today as Merhige made his first court appearance, his father, Michael Merhige, told police that the 35-year-old man had recently stopped taking medications and had once shot himself in the chest years earlier in an attempt to kill himself.

CTV in Ottawa, Ont. reports on the murder of a police constable:

Const. Eric Czapnik was fatally stabbed on Tuesday when he was working near the Ottawa Hospital Civic campus. Kevin Gregson, a suspended RCMP officer with a history of mental illness, is charged with first-degree murder in relation to Czapnik's death. ... Becoming a police officer was a lifelong dream for the 51-year-old father of four, who left managing a furniture store three years ago to wear the uniform at an age when most officers contemplate retirement.

An editorial in today's Austin American-Statesman argues that not treating the seriously mentally ill before they get into trouble is bad policy:

Texas has about 155,000 state prisoners. Almost 44,000 have a history of mental illness. ... We are not getting a sufficient return on our criminal justice dollars because we do not make sufficient investment in other areas, including mental health treatment and public education.

"We have a very poor mental health system," Senate Criminal Justice Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, said. "The criminal justice system largely has become the state's mental health system."

A mentally ill man, who likely should have been treated in a mental hospital, brutally murdered his daughter in Greenwich, Conn., according to this report from the Greenwich Time:

A landscaper charged in the brutal slaying of his daughter appeared in state Superior Court in Stamford Monday where he was assigned a public defender and transferred to a state prison facility. Adam Dobrzanski, 55, of 100 Sterling Road, appeared sullen and dazed as he stood before Judge William Wenzel with several court marshals.

Police believe Dobrzanski slit his daughter's throat before attempting to kill himself in a murder-suicide plot Wednesday night at the backcountry estate owned by hedge fund executive S. Donald Sussman.

After being given a code to the Sterling Road home, police found Dobrzanski in a bedroom with multiple cuts on his body and one on his throat. Police said there was blood all over the floor and furniture. Dobrzanski told officers at the scene he tried to jump out a window and set himself on fire before stabbing himself. He was treated and released from Stamford Hospital.

While police questioned him at the scene, Dobrzanski mentioned something about his daughter, leading police to sweep the mansion until they found Amanda Dobrzanski with a large cut to her neck. She was dead at the scene, police said.

"He lives in the woods across from Hi-Way Liquors ... about eight miles from the airport

That Calvin Cox would wind up living homeless in a forest should come as no surprise to anyone. The crime he allegedly committed -- "stealing, attempting to fly and crashing a fixed-wing single-engine Piper PA-18-150 plane" -- is unusal. But the fact that he will likely be sent to prison, because he had untreated schizophrenia is not. That is the conclusion for tens of thousands of Americans stricken with serious mental illness every year.

The Frederick (Md.) News-Post gives the details:

A man charged with trying to steal an airplane from Frederick Municipal Airport remains at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center. District Judge W. Milnor Roberts did not change the $10,000 bail amount for Calvin Craig Cox, 51, during a bail review Tuesday afternoon. Assistant Public Defender Roland Brooks had asked for Cox's bail to be lowered.

Cox has been charged with stealing, attempting to fly and crashing a fixed-wing single-engine Piper PA-18-150 plane about 2:30 a.m. Monday, according to the Frederick Police Department. The plane never left the ground and was found on a nearby runway, leaning forward on its nose with damage to the fuselage and propeller. Cox, who was found in the woods, has been charged with theft, second- and fourth-degree burglary and trespassing.

When Roberts asked Cox for his address, he told the judge he lived in the woods across from Hi-Way Liquors in the 6900 block of Baltimore National Pike. The store is about eight miles from the airport. Brooks told Cox he was entitled to ask for a preliminary hearing if he wanted one.

"If it's in my advantage, yes," Cox said. "I've never been through this before."

Although this was the first time Mr. Cox was arrested for a crime, it's not his first brush with the law. Just two weeks ago his ex-wife won a restraining order against him. Presumably, her judgment about Calvin was not wrong:

On Monday, Cox was served with a temporary protective order by his former wife, Therese Ann Schooley. The order was granted Dec. 18. In it, Schooley claims Cox is a dangerous schizophrenic. A hearing on the protective order is set for Tuesday.

Many years ago, there were activists who uncovered poor conditions and maltreatment of the mentally ill in many state hospitals. They worked first to improve conditions and largely succeeded. Most of those abusive situations had been remedied by the time the activists change their tact, to shutter most public mental hospitals. They succeeded in that effort, as well, as hospital after hospital was shut.

But where are they now? Where are the activists fighting for the estimated nine hundred thousand mentally ill who have wound up homeless or in prison? Is it not time we consider the experiment of closing their hospitals a failure?

If Calvin Cox had been forced into treatment for his disease, he would not have been living in the woods and he would not have tried to steal an airplane. In all likelihood, with some supervision to make sure he was taking his medications, Mr. Cox could have continued living a productive life as an outpatient.