Threat Reported Before Colorado Shooting

B

BarryLee

New member
The Psychiatrist treating the Colorado movie theater shooter apparently identified him as a danger to himself and others reporting him more than a month before the shooting. She reported him to Police and University Officials as required by law. Apparently the Police took no action as they stated after the shooting that they had no contact with the individual, but admit the report was made.

While I’m not sure it would have made a difference it would still have been nice to publish this information before additional regulation was passed. Also, I realize addressing mental health issues is a very difficult thing and will readily admit I don’t know all the answers. However, I do know that officials not taking action on a credible threat is a bigger problem than law abiding gun owners.

http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/crime/colo-judge-orders-release-of-documents-on-holmes/nXC4W/
 
SO the Police are passing the buck by saying that they had no prior contact with the individual, so instead of initiating a contact, they simply ignored the report...

Wonderful...

:rolleyes:
 
And the Connecticut State Police still haven't released their report on the Sandy Hook shooter, so we don't know yet if anyone had reported him as being a potential threat. And at this point, even if a report was made, I wouldn't trust the CT State Police to mention that fact anyway.

The Aurora situation certainly makes one wonder how effective all these new laws about mental health and guns will be. What's the point of making a report if the police are just going to file it away because they're too busy to follow up on it?
 
Something sounds hokey. It sounds like she reported the threat, but did not file charges against her client for the threats to her, take out a restraining order, or anything else.

If a psychologist reports that a person is a danger to society, what are the cops going to do? Until that person does something, at most they can do what, pay him a courtesy visit to ask how he is doing? There are a LOT of unstable people in our society who are potentially dangerous, make wild threats, etc.

Does a report from a psychologist about a danger equate to an arrest warrant for mental commitment into a facility? So even if the cops spoke with the guy and he didn't wig out on them and do something to get himself arrested, what more could they do other than make contact?
 
If the report is true, then blame lies at the feet of the physchologist. the doctor has first hand knowledge of his mental state and has the ability, and I would argue, the duty, to have the individual involuntarily commited to a treatment facility whereas the police are very limited to what they can do. The police can't run around arresting someone on what "they might do." She is the one who should have and could have done something. Sounds to me like the doctor is passing the buck to cover her own ass.
 
The psychologist did do something reported him to the authorities. To have him committed involuntarily, she would have to have petitioned the court and shown proof that he is a danger to society based on psychological grounds.

She did report him, which she was legally obligated to do. I can't find where in CO law that is says that she is legally obligated to try to get a person involuntarily committed.
 
TLeo said:
If the report is true, then blame lies at the feet of the physchologist. the doctor has first hand knowledge of his mental state and has the ability, and I would argue, the duty, to have the individual involuntarily commited to a treatment facility whereas the police are very limited to what they can do.
Click to expand...
Is the law on this the same -- or substantially so -- in all states? Can a psychologist have someone involuntarily committed? I'm only 69 years old, but for most of those 69 years I've been under the impression that only a psychiatrist can have someone committed. And then only with a court order.

Yes? No? "It depends on the state"?
 
Pretty sure it's a grey area when it comes to psychologist's being able to commit patients, HOWEVER, I do believe they(police) are able to petition the judge for a warrant to investigate the patients property (similar to the 'cannibal' cop even though he was reported by his wife.) if a real danger is believed to exist. He also sent a letter detailing his intent to the psychologist a week or so prior but no one bothered to read it.
 
I’m not sure what all the specific laws are, but the Doctor in this case was a Psychiatrist or at least the AP reported she was.
 
BarryLee said:
I’m not sure what all the specific laws are, but the Doctor in this case was a Psychiatrist or at least the AP reported she was.
Click to expand...
Right you are -- the article in the link says that several times. I was responding to post #7.

So the good doctor reported him -- to the CAMPUS cops. I'll assume on that campus they are sworn law enforcement with powers of arrest, but I suspect campus cops see their role a bit differently than municipal police departments.

It's also true that "the devil is in the details." The way the officer's testimony makes it sound, it appears to me from reading the article that the doctor may have herself created the impression that there was no urgency to investigate. Note that the officer's testimony was that the doctor reported Holmes not because she (the doctor) was terrified for her own safety (I'm sure threatening is a criminal offense in Colorado and could have been grounds for arrest), not because she was convinced that Holmes was about to perpetrate some dastardly deed (such as , oh, like shooting a bunch of people in a dark theater), but because it was "her duty" to report him.

I think a lot of people dropped the ball in the Holmes case, but I think some consideration has to be given to what the doctor actually reported, and how. IMHO there's a huge difference between making an "Oh my gawd this guy is an absolute menace to society and not only that he's going to kill me and you've just GOT to do something RIGHT NOW" report, and calling up and calmly saying, "It is my duty to report to you that I have a patient who said some possibly scary-sounding things."

For example, look at the Penn State fiasco with Sandusky. Supposedly Joe Paterno "did his duty" by reporting the complaint about Sandusky to his superiors (who then did nothing). Paterno has since been castigated as a wimp and a hypocrite for not doing something himself, and for claiming that he was blameless because he had "done his duty" by making the report. In the Holmes case, it sounds from the Officer's testimony (as reported) that the doctor made it clear she was making an "It's my duty" report, and I'd have to say that if I were a cop I might easily be inclined to treat that as a low priority. I would like to think I might press the doctor by asking if she really thought he was a danger or if she was only making the report to satisfy a legal requirement ... but if I were busy and the doctor didn't sound especially stressed, I might just take the report and not pursue probing questions.
 
While I understand that the LEO/s that took the 'report' have no prior indication that Holmes was a danger, I do feel that it would have been 'prudent' to initiate a contact to at least get an 'impression' of the person that was reported...

"So there Mr. Holmes, you aren't planning any dastardly acts, are ya then; there's a good fella?..."

To have done nothing whatsoever with the report seems a bit like willful negligence on the LEO's part...
 
Psychiatrist or psychologist, I still can't find any Colorado law that gives them the ability to involuntarily commit anyone to a mental hospital. In fact, it would appear that they don't have this power at all. It is not within their legal means. In fact...

COLO. REV. STAT. § 27-10-111(1). "The court or jury shall determine that the respondent is in need of care and treatment only if the court or jury finds such person mentally ill and, as a result of such mental illness, a danger to others or to himself or gravely disabled . . . ."
Click to expand...

http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/studies/state-standards-involuntary-treatment.html
http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellit...goBlobs&blobwhere=1251756979023&ssbinary=true
http://www.healthpolicysolutions.or...e-on-involuntary-commitment-better-treatment/

Even if it was, would we want people with that sort of legal power and no legal background? Talk about a 2A nightmare.

So it really isn't a grey area under CO law. Pscyhs cannot just involuntarily commit people. It must be done through the legal system.

Note that Cho had gone through involuntary commitment as well.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/08/involuntary-commitment-james-holmes-psychiatrist-blame.html
 
My first question before slamming the LEOs would be "how many reports like this do you get from mental health professionals on a monthly basis?"
If reporting is a rare thing then I would be inclined to lay blame at the feet of the LEOs for not checking on something out of the ordinary.
 
As far as I can tell, it's on both the psychiatrist and the campus police.

Involuntary commitment does require a judgment by a court, but as a first step, a variety of people are authorized to hospitalize someone who is "an imminent danger to others or to himself" for a 72-hour hold; a commitment hearing would be the next step after that.

Here's the first paragraph of the relevant Colorado statute.
CRS 27-65-105 part II
(a) (I) When any person appears to have a mental illness and, as a result of such mental illness, appears to be an imminent danger to others or to himself or herself or appears to be gravely disabled, then a person specified in subparagraph (II) of this paragraph (a), each of whom is referred to in this section as the "intervening professional", upon probable cause and with such assistance as may be required, may take the person into custody, or cause the person to be taken into custody, and placed in a facility designated or approved by the executive director for a seventy-two-hour treatment and evaluation.​
The next part specifies who may do this; it includes police, "professional persons" (which I take to mean M.D.s and Ph.D. psychologists), registered nurses, licensed clinical social workers and some other mental health practitioners. Other people -- parents, for example, can initiate the process by swearing out an affidavit before a judge, who can then order the hold. In this case, longer-term commitment would still be a separate process.

As a practical matter, taking someone into custody would involve the police as well as one of the people authorized above, unless the latter knew that the person would cooperate.

So the psychiatrist may have been remiss in not pursuing it, and the police certainly were remiss in not following up her report.
 
Last edited:
One problem, Vanya, is that a month before the shooting, there likely wasn't any imminent danger. Holmes wasn't just pulled off a bridge where threatening suicide and wasn't walking around pointing at gun at his head or other people. Having homicidal thoughts alone doesn't make the threat imminent and despite being threatened herself, Fenton didn't even try to press charges or obtain a restraining order after Holmes apparently threatened her. He didn't appear to be an imminent danger to Fenton.

Besides, how is the psychiatrist going to be able to justify that Holmes was an imminent threat when Holmes had stopped seeing her previously?

The cops did take action on her information. To keep the campus safe, they deactivated his student ID card. The receive a report that one of their faculty/staff personnel is being threatened by a student (or former student with active campus ID card) and all they did was deactivate his card. Great.
http://ktla.com/2013/04/05/holmes-psychiatrist-warned-campus-police-he-was-homicidal/#axzz2Phnp4TLP
 
DNS, I think that one can argue that the act of reporting Mr. Holmes to the campus police shows that Dr. Fenton did think he was an imminent danger. Under the rules that govern psychiatrists (and psychologists), that's the only justification for breaking confidentiality. The fact that he had stopped seeing her makes no difference to that.

And it wasn't just a matter of "homicidal thoughts." From the story you linked:
“Dr. Fenton was advising that she had been treating Holmes, and that Holmes had stopped seeing her and had begun threatening her via text message,” the affidavit said.​
I agree that it's a bit odd that she didn't pursue it, but she may well have expected that the police would take more serious action than they did.
 
It looks like what is missing is a clear protocol to be followed by law enforcement upon receiving information from a mental health professional that someone appears to be a danger to himself or others.

In reality, a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health professional is not going to be in a position to take someone into custody and deliver the person to an suitable psychiatric facility, unless the person is willing to go. That's really the job of the police. And here the action taken by the police was insufficient.

Should the police have promptly contacted the psychiatrist to begin to investigate the situation and decide what would be the appropriate follow through? Did that not happen here?

It does seem to me that some immediate follow by the police with the psychiatrist would have been a good idea. And it appears that wasn't done (although we might not know for sure).

And if I were the psychiatrist and didn't hear back from the cops, I probably would have followed up. Although perhaps a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health professional could not reasonably be expected to do so. "Fingering" a patient, or former patient, in that way probably goes against the grain for those folks. That might seem wrong to us, but it is a strong part of the culture of those professions.
 
Vanya, confidentiality can be broken and a report made to police when laws are broken, in this case, the text threats. That would be standard practice. No imminent danger to her or society need be present to file such a report.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top