Greyhound: Apart from that, how was your experience today?

[Admiral Beez]

Couple of years??? That's not how it currently works. This guy won't be seeing the light for a long time.

Unless someone has documented examples of similiar situations where the assailant is getting out quickly, then this law is a waste of everyone's time.

Actually, that is how it works.

Remember that woman who was stabbed at the TTC stop in Riverdale in 2008? Well, the fellow did the exact same thing in 2003, and was released after the courts deemed mentally ill. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...-by-stranger-at-riverdale-streetcar-stop.aspx

To quote the police “He was put into the mental health system, released and then went out and did exactly the same thing,” Toronto police Detective Derek Young said this morning. ‘‘This was another completely unprovoked attack.”

So, the Greyhound Guillotine will likely be out in society within 3-5 years maximum.

 

[doady]

Mike Harris' legacy lives on!

 

[AKS]

The agreed facts also presented some of Li's background. He was born in China in 1968 and came to Canada in 2001. He became a citizen in 2005. He graduated from a business college, but never got a job in his field.

He didn't have many friends and was divorced in 2006. Li had "mental problems," according to those who knew him, but they had not known him to be violent

Yaren said Li was briefly hospitalized in 2003 or 2004 after he was picked up by Ontario Provincial Police, who found him walking along a highway "following the sun" as ordered to by God.

His former wife said he used to be gone for long periods of time, took unexplained bus trips and sometimes rambled. He was hospitalized briefly but never sought medical attention.

It really makes you wonder. He came to Canada in 2001 and they gave him citizenship in 2005. They seem to know he has mental problems, but they gave him citizenship? :O So sick people and refugees get citizenship, but people who are sane and able to work hard and support their own living are refused. Seems a bit out of wack. Sounds like we want the less fortunate to take care of cuz we have tons of money to take care of them. Those that are skilled and work we don't need cuz they can take care of themselves so they shouldn't need to move to Canada. They can fend for themselves in other countries instead.

 

[toraerach]

Mike Harris' legacy lives on!

Exactly. People need to keep in mind their own prejudices when it comes to mental illness. People with schizophrenia don't go around killing people left and right. By and large, they are harmless people who have to struggle with an awful illness and all of the discrimination that comes with it. They should not all be locked up because they might kill or hurt someone just because a few people with scizophrenia have killed or hurt people. It's like saying all Muslims should be locked up because they might be in Al-Qaeda, or that poor people should be locked up because there's a greater chance a person living in poverty might commit a crime. Like with poverty, you can avert these incidents by providing people with scizophrenia with the support they need. Make sure they have doctors and medication available to them. Make sure they have a place to live and a means of supporting themselves. Give them a place to go when things get tough. Fund more research into the causes behind scizophrenia and develop means for them to get better. They just want to live normal lives.

What this man did was awful - but it is the exception rather than the rule. Don't take your anger with one man out on one of the most excluded and stigmatized groups in our society. This man needs to be put in an institution where he can be rehabilitated - where he can get his illness under control. Get a court order that says he must stay on his medication, and if he doesn't, then put him away for willingly putting himself and others into danger.

People deserve punishment only when they can control what they're doing. When they lose control, they need help.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Mike Harris' legacy lives on!

Wasn't it Bob Rae who closed all the mental assylums, thus releases these guys onto the street?

Sure, Harris might not have provided sufficent wellfare or public housing for those released, but the entire premise of releasing mentally ill people who can't take care of themselves is suspect.

I wonder how long it will be before people and politicians stop blaming all their civic woes on Mike Harris.

 

[Admiral Beez]

People deserve punishment only when they can control what they're doing. When they lose control, they need help.

So, I'm addicted to alcohol, drink too much, drive my car, lose control and run over your sister. Do I need punishment or help?

I do not care why you did the crime, only that you intended to do it, and did it.

 

[nfitz]

Actually, that is how it works.

Remember that woman who was stabbed at the TTC stop in Riverdale in 2008? Well, the fellow did the exact same thing in 2003, and was released after the courts deemed mentally ill. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...-by-stranger-at-riverdale-streetcar-stop.aspx

According to a much more recent article http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/583267 in the 2003 incident, "he punched a 65-year-old man in Dufferin Mall." So it doesn't seem comparable at all. Elsewhere I've seen discussion that he was only out 6 months before the second incident. 4 years for punching someone, seems to be a harsher penalty then he would have had had he actually been tried.

 

[gnille1]

Exactly. People need to keep in mind their own prejudices when it comes to mental illness. People with schizophrenia don't go around killing people left and right. By and large, they are harmless people who have to struggle with an awful illness and all of the discrimination that comes with it. They should not all be locked up because they might kill or hurt someone just because a few people with scizophrenia have killed or hurt people. It's like saying all Muslims should be locked up because they might be in Al-Qaeda, or that poor people should be locked up because there's a greater chance a person living in poverty might commit a crime. Like with poverty, you can avert these incidents by providing people with scizophrenia with the support they need...

People deserve punishment only when they can control what they're doing. When they lose control, they need help.

Well said.

It appears if most people here had their way we'd lock up everyone with a mental illness. Hey, here's an idea, why don't we put them all in something called an "asylum" or an "institution" and subject them to shock therapy until they stop doing this? Yeah, that should work! Because apparently mental illness is a choice, and these things happen not because of lack of support for people with mental illness, but because somebody WANTED to do it.

Threads like this take away from UT cred.

 

[toraerach]

So, I'm addicted to alcohol, drink too much, drive my car, lose control and run over your sister. Do I need punishment or help?

I do not care why you did the crime, only that you intended to do it, and did it.

Driving drunk is against the law - being schizophrenic isn't. When someone has a mental illness, especially schizophrenia, the whole matter of intent is problematic. Unlike an alcoholic or a drug addict, a scizophrenic person has no choice in the matter. There is no rehab, there is no cure. There are ways of easing the burden and making sure they have it under control - but when these services are not available to the person (as was apparently the case here), it indicates a failure as a society to confront the issue. We've seen massive cuts to mental health funding over the past few decades - we've let this happen.

That being said, I don't think this guy should just be let lose. Send him to a mental health facility where he can receive the help he needs, and keep him off the streets as long as he's a danger to himself or others. Rarely, a released mental patient will commit a crime again, but that doesn't mean we should assume all released mental patients will.

Hate the illness, hate what it does to people, work to help them, and vote with them in mind, but don't hate the people.

I think a better comparison (instead of a drunk driver) would be a driver whose epileptic. Maybe they've never had a seizure before, maybe they haven't had one in a long time, but for the sake of argument let's say they somehow have their liscence. Now, if that person gets behind the wheel of a car, has an seizure, and runs over your sister, should they be punished?

 

[Admiral Beez]

When someone has a mental illness, especially schizophrenia, the whole matter of intent is problematic. Unlike an alcoholic or a drug addict, a scizophrenic person has no choice in the matter.

Intent and choice are separate issues. The fellow who pushed those kids in front of the subway intended to do it. He may have felt he had no choice but to do it, but he still intended to do it. The fellow who killed on the Greyhound bus intended to kill. Sure he had no choice in his mind, but that's not intent, that's choice.

 

[Hank]

The fellow who pushed those kids in front of the subway intended to do it.

'Intention' as you've described it is not the test in law. Under the law you have to have not only committed the crime, you have to have understood that your actions were wrong and understood the consequences of those actions. That's the reason that we don't throw 5-year olds in jail for murder; sure a 5-year old that shot a friend with a gun he found in his parents' dresser may have 'intended' to shoot his friend (in the sense that he intended to point the gun and pull the trigger), but he didn't understand the consequences of that action, so we don't find him criminally responsible. Even if he knew that by shooting his friend his friend might 'die', he may just not fully understand what that concept means. It's the same with people that are mentally ill and commit crimes; they're acting voluntarily in the sense that no one else is physically forcing them to do what they're doing, but they may not understand that what they're doing is wrong.

This doesn't mean, of course, that we should let violent people roam the streets because they don't know what they're doing is wrong. What it does mean is that we should be more interested in helping these people to get better than in throwing them in jail for life. Custody should be a last resort when we're basically certain that none of the other options will work and this person will be a danger to himself or others.

 

[kEiThZ]

I have no problem with the Greyhound killer not getting a jail sentence as long as he is kept locked up in a proper facility far, far away from me. I don't want to have the displeasure of sitting beside him on the day he forgot to take his medication and gets another 'episode'. I really don't see how a sentence in a loonie bin would be any different than prison. The effect is the same, the individual is removed from society for a long time.

 

[toraerach]

I have no problem with the Greyhound killer not getting a jail sentence as long as he is kept locked up in a proper facility far, far away from me. I don't want to have the displeasure of sitting beside him on the day he forgot to take his medication and gets another 'episode'. I really don't see how a sentence in a loonie bin would be any different than prison. The effect is the same, the individual is removed from society for a long time.

Well, hopefully, he would be able to get the medical attention he needs - medical attention that you can't get in prison. And of course the whole system for getting out of a mental institution is different. But as far as you or I am concerned, yes he would be locked up and away from us for as long as he's assessed to be a danger. If/when he is released, hopefully he gets the support and supervision he needs so that we can avoid another tragedy like this.

 

[ganjavih]

Threads like this take away from UT cred.

It's more a matter of not understanding the nature of schizophrenia, which is understandable. It's difficult to appreciate and understand how out of touch with reality these unfortunate people can become. This was a horrible incident, but it's been clear from the beginning, the purpetrator cannot be held criminally responsible.

So what happens now? The mental health and legal systems have a joint responsibility to ensure public safety. A team of psychiatrists and lawyers will review the case every so often to determine the best course of action.

 

[AKS]

'Intention' as you've described it is not the test in law. Under the law you have to have not only committed the crime, you have to have understood that your actions were wrong and understood the consequences of those actions. That's the reason that we don't throw 5-year olds in jail for murder; sure a 5-year old that shot a friend with a gun he found in his parents' dresser may have 'intended' to shoot his friend (in the sense that he intended to point the gun and pull the trigger), but he didn't understand the consequences of that action, so we don't find him criminally responsible. Even if he knew that by shooting his friend his friend might 'die', he may just not fully understand what that concept means. It's the same with people that are mentally ill and commit crimes; they're acting voluntarily in the sense that no one else is physically forcing them to do what they're doing, but they may not understand that what they're doing is wrong.

This doesn't mean, of course, that we should let violent people roam the streets because they don't know what they're doing is wrong. What it does mean is that we should be more interested in helping these people to get better than in throwing them in jail for life. Custody should be a last resort when we're basically certain that none of the other options will work and this person will be a danger to himself or others.

hm...okay so how about in this instance with religious cults/terrorists? The suicidal manics rammed the plane into the world trade center in the name of "god". Since they are not right of mind, they considered the Americans evil and a threat to society. Would that be considered murder or mentally ill?