In Arizona, officers can take witness statements into account when determining whether to detain individuals who may be dangerous to themselves or others. Individuals taken into custody due to a mental-health crisis are taken to an emergency psychiatric facility, stabilized, and referred for treatment. If family members or friends are concerned about a loved one’s behavior, they can use our state’s petition process to request that the person be committed. Nancy and Doug Reuter believe that Arizona’s methods of detaining and treating mentally ill individuals saved their son Joel’s life on two separate occasions. Now, they are asking lawmakers in Washington to adopt Arizona’s system in hopes that individuals struggling with mental illness will find help before it is too late.
Nancy and Doug say that Joel Reuter received treatment and ongoing monitoring of his mental health while living in Arizona, but once he moved to Washington, he was not able to get the help he needed. Friends say he began making threats and acting erratically, but because Washington requires that commitments be ordered by a county official, Joel was not detained. Instead, Joel was hospitalized and released after a suicide attempt and a high speed car crash. Less than a month after his hospital release, Joel began firing a 9mm handgun from his balcony. Police officers spent hours trying to negotiate with him, but Joel believed he was shooting at zombies. When Joel fired from his balcony again, snipers returned fire. The Reuters do not blame the police for what happened, but they do strongly believe that Joel would be alive today if Washington’s mentally ill detainment laws were more like Arizona’s.
“You have to literally get to the point where they’re going to kill themselves or someone else to get them into help,” says Doug Reuter about Washington’s current system. He is lobbying lawmakers to alter the state’s civil commitment law to include individuals with “persistent or acute disabilities,” not just mentally ill individuals in a crisis. Changing the law would allow mentally ill individuals to be treated sooner. Doug and Nancy desperately hope that lawmakers will hear their story and change the law, but after seeing other parents in similar situations come and go, the Reuters are also realistic about their chances. But, says Doug, “We have to try.”
