Shield the Sick, and Society

This spring, Mark Charles Volpa Jr. locked himself in his grandmother’s bedroom. His mother, Anita, was frantic but not surprised. Three times in five years her 21-year-old son had tried to kill himself. He said he was hearing voices. After three days, Anita broke in through a window.

At her home, his condition worsened. According to the Fresno Bee, he told his mother he was injecting drugs straight into his head. She eventually took him to Fresno County’s psychiatric assessment center.

The events that followed illustrate an impassioned debate over a bill working its way through the Legislature in Sacramento. AB1421, by Assemblywoman Helen Thomson (D-Davis), would let judges, after consulting with psychiatrists and family members, compel some severely mentally ill people to accept outpatient treatments such as medication and counseling.

In recent weeks, a tireless group of mental health advocates and civil libertarians has lobbied committee members to kill the bill before it reaches the full Senate.

These opponents note that as late as the mid-20th century, psychiatrists, judges and other authorities declared that “lunatics” weren’t entitled to basic human rights and forcibly subjected them to sterilization, lobotomies or “zombifying” medications. Some reject the widely accepted evidence that medical treatment of mental illness is vastly improved since those dark days. Others contend that the bill is a symptom of a society that still doesn’t understand mental illness. They say that America’s inherent impatience, combined with drug companies’ lust for profits, has led to simplistic pharmaceutical solutions to problems stemming from poverty, loneliness and a complexity of other social ills.

One can accept all of these points, however, and still find them ultimately irrelevant to AB1421--dubbed “Laura’s law” after a young woman killed by a man whose mental illness went untreated despite the efforts of family members who knew he was unstable when he didn’t take his medications.

Mark Volpa’s mother apparently found herself in a similar position this month. She had implored officials to keep her son in the hospital, saying he clearly remained out of control. But the staff did not deem him imminently suicidal and let him go--and current law does not require any follow-up to make sure a patient is getting care.

Police say that last week Volpa was driving on a rural road just north of Clovis, Calif., when, under circumstances that remain unclear, he encountered Sheriff’s Deputy Dennis Phelps, a 47-year-old father of two. The police say Volpa shot Phelps in the face, killing him, then sped away in the officer’s patrol car.

On Saturday, a SWAT team surrounded a camper where Volpa had been hiding in a densely wooded area of the Fresno County foothills. When he tried to escape, brandishing a rifle, the officers shot him to death.

Laura’s law might have allowed Volpa’s mother to get him the care he didn’t know he needed. On June 12, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee will decide whether to approve or kill the legislation that could begin fixing the problem his story exemplifies.

These lawmakers should listen respectfully to the bill’s opponents: Yes, only a small minority of people with mental illness are dangerous. Yes, courageous people with severe mental illness often battle back to health, usually without coercion. Yes, these people’s rights must be respected.

But the lawmakers also should ask themselves this: With Volpa and a law enforcement officer dead, whose civil liberties have been protected?