Mentally ill shuffled, ignored

Column

I was chatting with a friend last week after early Sunday services at my church near Temple Terrace. A woman approached, pointed to my friend and said something about her makeup.

We had no idea who she was, so it seemed strange.

It soon got more strange. Over the next 20 minutes of rambling incoherence, the woman told us she had stuck a knife in a man's chest to pull out his gills. She complained someone had messed up her porn film. She said she had just returned from Pluto.

A lot of things crossed our minds as we tried to figure out what to do. She could be strung out on drugs or having a stroke. She could be a desperate mental health case, maybe schizophrenic.

Her words grew darker, with graphic ravings about violence and such. They were just random words though, strung together incoherently.

My friend slipped off to call Tampa police, and soon four officers arrived. After several minutes, she walked calmly with the officers to one of two waiting squad cars.

One officer said she would be taken to a mental care facility under the Baker Act, where she could be held for 72 hours. A few minutes later, though, she was seen walking down Busch Boulevard.

Huh?

The next day, police spokeswoman Linda McElroy said officials determined the woman wasn't a threat to herself or others and thus didn't meet the threshold for the Baker Act. They took her home to her mother.

McElroy said it happens that way more often than not.

With the way the wind is blowing in Tallahassee, it might happen even more.

"It will have a significant impact on agencies like ours," said Marsha Lewis Brown, executive director of Northside Mental Health Center in Tampa.

That's the facility where this woman likely would have been taken. She would have been evaluated by a psychiatrist, given medication, been cared for by nursing staff and assigned a case manager.

Brown said that is a Band-Aid for a long-term problem.

"After the crisis, these individuals need post-release and follow-up care," she said. "And it's not slowing down. There are increased cases of abuse, violence and other issues."

So we make them go away.

Police know this woman well. McElroy said she had been taken in before under the Baker Act. They probably will cross paths again.

And they'll probably let her go again, along with who knows how many others. They can't just lock everyone up. Even if they could, the Legislature's cuts may leave officials with no option beyond relocating the problem.

"These are the kinds of challenges we could be facing," Brown said. "We have great concerns if the reductions are made. I don't anticipate any decrease in the demand for our services."