Giuliani Calls for Better Mental Health Treatment
Politico reports:
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) by a gunman many view as deranged should prompt more muscular efforts to force individuals with mental illness into treatment.
News accounts in recent days have described a series of bizarre statements by the accused gunman Jared Loughner and detailed how he repeatedly clashed with authorities, particularly at the community college he attended.
"This man was crying out for someone who needed to be treated. He was being told to be treated. People were saying he was bizarre. People were saying he was frightening. A teacher wouldn't be near him without a guard being there," Giuliani said on CBS's "Face The Nation." "Gosh, you would think, at some point along the way he would have been evaluated."
"The most relevant problem was the lack of an ability to deal with what was apparently paranoid schizophrenia or schizophrenia, that should have been treated," the former mayor said. "We're making a big mistake here not changing our procedures with regard to mental illness."
Giuliani suggested that the shooting incident in Tucson, which claimed the lives of six people, may have been the result of policies that date back to the 1960s that protect individual freedom and make it difficult to force mental-health treatment on those who need it.
