The hallucinatory classes

A minor story that I found at the Philadelphia Inquirer's web site provides yet another illustration of an increasingly hopeless problem. Police were forced to shoot a "homeless" man whose homelessness was a symptom of his chronic mental illness.

From a call box in the below-ground concourse of the Municipal Services Building, he kept calling - and hanging up.

Calling - and hanging up.

After the 40th time, a police officer was dispatched at 8:25 to see what was going on.

What started as a response to disorderly conduct ended with two police officers fatally shooting the homeless man - the 12th person killed by city police this year.

Police were withholding the identity of the 59-year-old man pending notification of his family, said Sgt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman.

Evers said the man had no identification on him and had to be identified using fingerprints.

Homicide and Internal Affairs units are investigating the shooting. Both officers, whose names were not released, have been on the force for more than 20 years.

After arriving on the scene, a foot-patrol officer was joined by a bike officer. Evers said that as the foot-patrol officer approached the man, he was again using the emergency call box.

"He confronted him, saying, 'What are you doing? You can't do that,' " Evers said.

A security guard inside the municipal building, who did not give her name, said she saw the officers chase the man through a tunnel leading to the concourse.

Once he was outside and near a bench where he often slept, the man pulled out a utility knife.

Evers said the knife was the type used to cut drywall or carpet. "The officer tells him over 50 times to drop the knife," Evers said.

Police said he lunged at the officers. They fired, hitting the man in the torso.

The victim was pronounced dead at Hahnemann University Hospital at 9:02 a.m.

I've seen and had an occasional close encounter with this type of person. They're in a paranoid, hallucinatory and hostile state, and they often seem to be yelling at no one in particular, as if carrying on angry conversations with demons only visible to them. But because they have eyes, they can see other people, and if you get too close to them in a crowded train station, you might find yourself suddenly factoring into their demonology and become a target for an incomprehensible torrent of threatening abuse. Now, the poor guy who does this might only think he is defending himself, and he might see a perfectly harmless citizen as a menacing alien to be engaged in immediate combat by any means necessary (one "homeless" man in New York felt compelled to saw another man's chest open with a nearby contractor's power saw), and then we all wonder "why?" The left pontificates about "housing rights" for the "homeless" (or proposes criminalizing knives) while the right demands crackdowns on crime in the streets. The problem is, this is no more ordinary "crime" than a rabid dog biting someone is a "behavioral problem." It's illness, and it goes untreated because of a twisted interpretation of rights theory on the one hand, and a desire to save money on the other. Yes, mental hospitals are very expensive, and rights theory has made them more so. As a result, the guy who got shot to death in Philadelphia can be (and probably has been) committed for a couple of weeks to get "stabilized" on his meds, then released so that he can start the process of getting un-stabilized all over again. Of course, when they release him, they'll give him a piece of paper (called a "prescription"), and they'll tell him to take it to a pharmacy to have it filled, and take it as directed. (Riiight! And they'll do this with a straight, bureaucratic face -- as if he's no different from a guy who went to a clinic to get treated for strep throat! I say this because I've witnessed it firsthand.)

Hallucinating in public is perfectly OK, and yelling at total strangers is, well, free speech or something. Try calling the cops if a crazed "homeless" man with fire in his eyes calls you Satan and threatens you. Even if you're not laughed at, nothing will be done. Because nothing can be done. They might ask him to move, but only normal people (college drunks and the like, who show up in court and actually pay their fines) are going to be arrested and booked on disorderly conduct charges. Not that I blame the cops. Putting myself in their position, I'd probably do the same thing. As I explained in another post about "homeless" "crime," I saw how the system worked firsthand:

When I served as a Berkeley Police Review Commissioner, I used to hear laments from officers who just didn't know what to do with crazy people when they were the subjects of complaints. Some -- not all -- were called "homeless," and this was reflected on police cititions with the word "NOMAD" appearing as the "address." The cops knew they'd never show up for court, and they didn't want them to. They didn't want crazy filthy homeless people urinating in their nice clean police cars either.

Do I blame them? Hardly.

One time, a homeless man broke into my car, tore open a bag of dog food I'd left inside, ate some dog food, washed it down with engine coolant I had in the back seat, then passed out. I know this because the next morning when I saw a man sitting in my car and angrily told him to get out, he promptly puked all over himself and the front seat -- and after he staggered away I saw the open coolant container and dog food bag along with the mess he'd made. I say this not to engage in mindless homeless-bashing, but to illustrate a simple fact of life: no one wants to deal with mentally ill, dysfunctional people. I'm not sure the problem is that they slip through the cracks so much as it is society's game to ignore them in the hope they'll just go away. Only when they finally do something really serious do they get attention. Until then, there really is no system.

And in Philadelphia, one of them finally did something serious enough to get attention.

Needless to say, the jailers don't want members of the hallucinatory class in jails, and the wardens don't want them in prisons. And obviously, the nice people who run mental hospitals don't want them there.

What should be done about the hallucinatory class? Go on ignoring them by calling them "homeless"? Most citizens -- you know, the decent normal people using the train stations to go to and from work and stuff like that -- pretend they're not there. They hope that if they just ignore them, they won't become targets of their hallucinations.

But what about not seeing something that is clearly there? Isn't that almost hallucinatory behavior? I said almost because the good citizens actually can see these people; they just deliberately avoid seeing them. I don't blame them one bit, as I do the same thing myself. Avert my eyes. I ignore them in the hope that they'll just go away. Not seeing them is a good, common sense way to get around when you have to wait in train and subway stations in the big city.

I realize that they don't belong anywhere -- and that they are not welcome in any of society's nice clean institutions. So they must wander the streets instead while ordinary people are forced to hallucinate them out of existence.

Hallucinating them out of existence may be fine for ordinary people, but is it good social policy?

posted by Eric on 07.04.09 at 11:25 AM





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Comments

IT seems to me that the problem of the homelss crazy became more manifest in hte late '70's when do-gooders petitioned for their rights to act crazy in public, and to roam freely.

What about the "it feels good, it must be good" crowd who think the chemically-imbalanced shouldn't feel the need to stay on their medication?

Mental illness is a sad affliction, but there are medications and other support systems for those people, but how much can society do to encourage the mentally afflicted to use them.

Rob   ·  July 4, 2009 03:12 PM

... and how exactly does this navel-gazing over the "hallucinatory class" jibe with this blog's longstanding opinion in favor of legalizing drug use?

Does anyone doubt that the ranks of the hallucinatory homeless will swell if hard drugs are legalized?

If nothing else, the presence of these people in public acts as a warning - the only such message with the emotional punch of much "drugs are cool" media and cultural messages.

Ben-David   ·  July 4, 2009 03:29 PM

Forty years ago, many of those whom we call "homeless" would have been housed in state mental hospitals. The hope was that de-insitutionalizing these mental health warehouses would occur along with outpatient care and access to medications.

It didn't turn out that way. For one thing, many do not like taking meds,a stance which given some of the side effects of meds, has some validity.

"Free to be you - and me" turned out in their case to be a chimera.

Gringo   ·  July 4, 2009 05:18 PM

""Free to be you - and me" Wasn't that the rallying cry of those with multiple personalities? ;)

Rob   ·  July 5, 2009 07:38 AM

There were very real injustices in the various systems of commitment to state mental institutions. But the near-total success of new rules to empty them out has been the saddest impact of libertarian social action so far.

Several years ago, I was surpirsed to see plenty of these cases in western Germany and Belgium. Euros will always call us crazy, but the fact that wandering crazies are not being held up there as more examples of the failure of America tells me that they know they have a problem, too. Perhaps the rest of the world just has madness so "well acculturated" that they don't need to mention it? That's the typical line.

It's hard to imagine an approach to institutionalization that would not be prone to abuse by governmental authority. The usual supporters have so much faith in designated power that they never bring it up. How do you suppose it could be managed fairly? The courts and the medical profession have pretty well muddied their credentials on this. I'm glad I'm not in charge of it.

comatus   ·  July 5, 2009 01:13 PM

Some problems have no good solutions.

Until we can cure them, well, the only solutions are to kill them or put them in an institution for the rest of their lives or until they are not dangerous (which of those is more cruel is a good question).

But I would suggest that one of the biggest reasons they're on the street is money.

It's very expensive and they don't have insurance to pay for it, the gov't doesn't want to shell out the money (they don't vote very much either), so they're set free.

Veeshir   ·  July 6, 2009 03:43 PM

comatus has it right. Some problems have no good solutions.

That tends to infuriate people. But it is true anyway and should be said more often.

To simplify I propose we call these people the Highly Erratic. HE.

Saying the wardens, jailers, and the nice people at the mental hospitals don't want them may be true. But it diverts the discussion. What those worthies "want" isn't in their job description.

They aren't to decide who stays in jail or prison or mental hospitals. The legal system and the state decides.

If you want more of the HE people confined change the laws. If not, not.

The "how" of confinement is a cost issue. The "if" is a guess the legal system makes about the HE's future behavior. Our concept of civil rights makes the decisions difficult. If the state were all powerful the answers would be easy.

If an identified HE is not to be confined how carefully do we monitor them? How carefully are we to be monitored?

Remember in the novel 1984 when Winston Smith learns his boss can switch off the monitors? Smith is amazed, he had never thought anyone could do such a thing.

K   ·  July 7, 2009 12:53 AM

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