(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
A Florida School Received a Threat. Did a Red Flag Law Prevent a Shooting? [1]
['Sheryl Gay Stolberg']
Date: 2023-01-16
Experts say that only a small percentage of people with mental illness are violent. But the young man had been involuntarily detained eight times for psychiatric evaluation since 2020. In one previous interaction with the police, he said he was “tired of the world and wants to kill everyone,” the detective wrote.
Extreme risk protection orders are civil and carry no criminal penalties; as a result, the young man was not entitled to a public defender. That troubles Chief Judge Jack Tuter of Florida’s 17th Judicial Circuit, which includes Fort Lauderdale. While he said he supported the state’s red flag law, Judge Tuter, who was not involved in the young man’s case, said he was concerned about people under 18 who lack legal representation.
“There is a due process aspect to juveniles — there always has been,” he said.
With the risk protection order and a search warrant in hand, the entire threat response team, along with a backup crew, parked themselves near the former student’s home. Hoping to avoid a confrontation at the front door, the officers watched him leave the house and served him the warrant during a traffic stop.
What they found when they searched the home surprised them. There were no guns. Detectives Carita and Campbell said they believed, but could not be certain, that the young man — aware that he was being watched — stashed the weapons that had appeared in the Instagram picture elsewhere.
That, however, is not the end of the story.
At the end of November, Detective Campbell was called to the teenager’s home to respond to an episode in which the young man “was alleged to have discharged a firearm multiple times, with one round ultimately striking his sister in the hand,” according to a police report.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/politics/red-flag-laws-mass-shootings.html
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
