Less
than twenty-four hours before this family tragedy, the son Gus Deeds was being
evaluated for a mental disorder. As with the tragedy at Virginia Tech, once
again Virginia’s mental health network has shown itself to be badly managed and
incapable of providing needed help in time of crisis.
Unfortunately,
Virginia’s answer to effective mental health treatment is to wait for a
mentally ill person to commit a crime then lock them up. The Commonwealth’s
prisons and jails are full of mentally ill men and women. Hundreds line up here
nightly for psychotropic drugs. Like the TV show, “The Walking Dead,” you see
them with their slow gait and zombie stare.
This
should outrage the citizens of this state. How many more Gus Deeds must there
be before people begin to address the complex issue of mental health and stop
using prisons for holding the mentally ill instead of getting those in need
adequate care and treatment?
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