The Mental Health System Can’t Stop Mass Shooters<br />Shouldn’t psychiatrists be able to identify as dangerous someone like Nikolas Cruz, the young man charged in the<br />school shooting last week in Florida, who scared his classmates, hurt animals and left menacing online posts?<br />Here in California, as in most states, patients must be a danger to themselves or others<br />because of mental illness before they can be involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital.<br />The hearing officer would probably come to the same conclusion I had,<br />that he was not dangerous because of a mental illness, and he would be free to go.<br />The mental health system doesn’t identify most of these people because they don’t come in to get care.<br />It was clear to me that he did not have a psychiatric illness<br />that would justify an involuntary hospitalization, but I was reluctant to release this man whose story echoed that of so many mass shooters.<br />He had no history of mental illness and said he didn’t want or need any treatment.
