1. The Virginia Tech. shooter was allowed to live on campus again after being kicked off for misbehavior and nothing has been done to change Virginia Techs’ policies in situations such as his.
2. The Virginia Tech. shooter’s commitment hearing was held in less than 24 hours after he was picked up by police for evaluation and the hospital had no time to properly observe him because he was there on a Sunday night and only for 14 hours. The reason his hearing was held so quickly and without time for proper evaluation? Because the New River Valley holds commitment hearings Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the convenience of the 2 lawyers who switch roles each month as special justice and attorney for the person being committed and nothing was enacted in law nor policy to change this situation. So if someone is picked up this Sunday afternoon in the New River Valley, the CSB and the hospital will still only have less than 24 hours to evaluate the person. Great job of addressing the problems General Assembly, Governor and Commission on Mental Health Law Reform. I would have supported waiting 24 hours before holding a hearing to give a fairer chance in both directions but we had a special special justice from Richmond on the Commission who said it would prevent him from ordering forced drugging immediately if he had to wait 24 hours and we all know it’s all about the forced injections……not.
3. The Virginia Tech. shooter was selectively mute but was ordered into talk therapy, clearly there was no thought of what actually would work to help him. Was money given to CSB’s and others to provide alternative therapies to folks who cannot benefit from traditional treatment by the General Assembly et. al.? No. In fact, the new legislation provides no new money even for traditional talk therapy which most CSB’s in Virginia cannot afford to provide given the extremely low reimbursement rate by Virginia’s Medicaid program. The new money is all about crisis services after the fact and inpatient beds. Or is it? Because apparently the funds for LOS purchase of community inpatient funds have been cut to CSB’s as of July 1, the same day the new laws go into effect. So we will have more folks committed and less money to pay for community beds for them. Catch and release with a permanent and stigmatizing record.
4. The Virginia Tech shooter’s evaluation and hearing were both extremely short, less than 15 minutes. So presumably this was fixed in the new laws to make sure enough time is taken in evaluation and hearings to make sure everyone knows what is really going on with someone, right? Wrong. There is no requirement in the new laws that evaluators nor special justices spend more time with the people being sent for commitment and no incentive for them to given that the scandalously low fees paid to both have not been raised one bit. But, independent evaluators will now be allowed to evaluate someone by video conference which is sure to help with picking up on nuances of behavior and issues, not.
5. Well at least we must have made commitment hearings and hospitalization more trauma-informed and less likely to cause narcissistic injury which could lead to rage and acting out in someone such as Cho right? Okay, don’t make me laugh. Not even close, nothing, nada, trauma is the order of the day as it always was.
So in some, we have taken away the civil liberties of an entire group of Virginia citizens and called it the “Virginia Tech.” legislation which is offensive and stigmatizing in itself and on top of that, not even true. The legislation that was passed would not have prevented the Virginia Tech. tragedy. Not that anyone with any common sense and without a political agenda ever really thought we could prevent tragedies by changing laws. Let’s outlaw tornadoes! That will work.
