Can't read this as it needs a log-in. "72 hour psychiatric observation = confiscate your gun collection"? That sounds OK. I mean if you are out there to the point where you can be locked up then taking your guns for a bit seems to me OK.

"this is in the fucking paper?! Isn't this stuff confidential? "
NO. Not at all. If the cops or the court get involved it needs to be public.

A drunk punched my 12 year old son and I had to beat him down. It hit the radio, TV, and papers. By the time I got to work the next day the story was that I had attacked a man with a baseball bat. It sucked but justice needs to be public.

Collection of 137 guns retrieved from house

Police visit home in Castro Valley as resident held at psychiatric center

By Jason Sweeney
STAFF WRITER

Article Launched: 11/28/2007 02:59:25 AM PST


CASTRO VALLEY -- Sheriff's deputies confiscated an extensive gun collection Monday night at the house of a Castro Valley man who was under a 72-hour psychiatric hold at San Ramon Medical Center.
About 10 p.m. Monday, hospital staff requested that deputies conduct a welfare check at the residence of the 60-year-old man who was under psychiatric care at the hospital, Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson said.

"They were concerned about anyone at his house," Nelson said.

When deputies arrived at the home on the 19000 block of Clement Drive, they contacted the man's wife, who told them about her husband's extensive gun collection.

"She was not kidding," Nelson said.

He said deputies found 137 firearms throughout the residence. The collection included firearms of a wide range of make, model and vintage, including World War I and World War II rifles and Italian and Belgian-made models, he said.

Many of the firearms did not have serial numbers or manufacturer information on them, Nelson said. "Some of these weapons we are not familiar with," he added.

The firearms were being held at the Eden Township Substation in unincorporated San Leandro, where agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are assisting in identifying them and determining their legality, Nelson said.

Nelson was unsure how the guns' owner had come to be under a psychiatric hold at the medical center.

A spokeswoman at the hospital said she was not permitted to release any details on the man's condition or how he had arrived there.

Nelson said that at this point there is nothing to suggest that the firearms are anything other than collector's items. Once their owner is released from psychiatric hold, he can appeal to a hearing officer to get the firearms back, Nelson said.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. No names given, no exact address. Given the weapons without serial numbers, it's not too surprising that the cops were interested enough to take them back to the shop for a closer look.

I had an acquaintance who got hit for a drug charge and then the cops found more than 60 handguns at his house. A day after the cops removed the handguns his wife shot herself in the face. They had missed 30 more guns.

She lived minus an eye and a bit of brain.

I don't know what that says but I always wonder.

What can I say- you people scare me.

There are LOTS of things cops do that aren't in the paper and shouldn't be. When your 14 y.o. gets house probation for his pot conviction, they cops come grab your 1000 year old samurai sword. That doesn't usually make the papers, thank god.

The problem is that this stuff keeps people from getting their mental health stuff treated- just in case.

I'm with small_ruminant on this one.

Hmm. I can see your point, s_r, but I can see the other side of it too. My understanding is that people are 5150'd after committing some sort of act that's dangerous to themselves or to others. It's not just "Oh man, that Joe is crazy. Let's watch him for a couple days to see if he does anything REALLY outlandish!"

So removing firearms from his house, if he's considered a danger, doesn't seem that outrageous to me. Of course, he's out of the house, so he doesn't have access to them anyway, but it still seems like a somewhat reasonable precaution. And the article states that he can get them back when he's released, so it's not like they're taking them away for good.

As for the fact that it's in the paper to begin with -- it almost seems like a slow news day/human interest type thing to me. Mostly, the angle seems to be "Hey, this maybe-crazy guy has a bunch of guns! Buy our paper!"

Another aspect is the fact that last week, some little town in Contra Costa County was evacuated because some dude had a bunch of dynamite in his trailer. So, it's a maybe slightly more newsworthy (i.e., sellable) story right now than it would have been any other time.

It's a damned if they do and damned if they don't type of thing.

After each mass murder, the local law enforcement and mental health agencies are put under a microscope and their responses to threats have been found lacking, in retrospect.

Here, even in the Kip Kinkel case, there has been a lot of second guessing, based on what was known before he killed his parents and fellow students. And there were, like 4 guns in that house.

I got nothing, in the way of answers on this one.

If it were a full on 5150 I'd be with you, mudpup, but this is a 72-hour observation, which isn't hard to get. (Screwed up prescription meds and recreational+prescription drug interactions are the ones I'm most familiar with.)

Ah. I thought they were the same thing.

My biggest problem with this is that it made the paper. That is just not right. The neighbors already knew the cops showed up, sure, but now they know why, which in this case is not their business in any way.

True enough. But they might have known already.

Anecdote: A few years ago, there was a family down the street with a severely developmentally disabled son. He was probably in his early 20s. He'd occasionally leave the house and wander the street. He always stayed on his side of the street (also my side), but he'd walk up and down the block -- and hug every woman he saw. He was kind of aggressive and insistent about it and it was really creepy because he didn't understand No, and he wasn't very communicative.

Anyhow, the cops were called on him a few times. One resulted in a 72-hour hold. I don't remember what he did that time, exactly. I do know how I found out that was the end result -- a cop told me, unsolicited. I was outside mowing. I saw the cop cars, of course. After things calmed down, one of the cops walked down to my house (5 houses away, I think) and started chatting with me. He told me the whole story, and told me that they'd taken him in for a 72-hour hold. It was most certainly none of my business, and it probably was confidential information, but that didn't stop him from telling me.

I guess my point is, you're right -- it sucks that it showed up in the paper. But a) that's what local papers do, and b) the neighbors probably already know more of the story than was printed. God knows I know a lot more backstory about my former drunken neighbors' fights than would ever make it into a short newspaper article.

I think 72-hour psych evaluation *is* a 5150. We've been talking in my classes about cases in which one would 5150 a client -- that seems to be synonymous with "hold patient for 72 hours for emergency evaluation because patient is danger to self or others." I think, by California law, you cannot be held against your will for more than 72 hours without going in front of a judge.

Also, "danger to others" is a case in which breaking confidentiality is legally required. If the guy was a credible threat to another specific person (that is, he was planning on killing A person on B date with C weapon, which he happened to have in his house), then a therapist is by law (in California, at least, and I think there are similar requirements in most states) required to inform the threatened person as well as law enforcement (at least the way the law was explained to me; I think there's some wiggle room/shades of gray with that, but I was told that standard of care would be trying to contact both).

So I would assume that's how the police got involved, which then makes it public knowledge, which would be how the paper got involved.

occhiblu, the police often get involved BEFORE the danger to others in psyche cases that end up with a 72 hour. Any cop can do it for any "mental disorder," though a county psychologist needs to validate it or something- you'd know better than I do.

Your're right, though- the 72 hour IS a 5150. I forget the code for the more permanent one. (I did find this interesting FAQ on 5150s.)

This is way out of my field, but I'm often shocked at how little medical and mental health professionals know about the legal and other day-to-day ramifications of these things. I'll probably end up doing a metafilter post on this, eventually.

Breaking confidentiality doesn't necessarily mean calling the local paper.

(occhiblu, I am not suggesting you think breaking confidentiality= journalist, but there are a lot of things police do that aren't considered newpaper-level public, especially when it involves non-public people. This should have been one of them.)

Don't journalists read the police logs? I thought so -- that's what I meant by the police being involved got the journalists involved. Legally, the psych folks would have to call the police if he was threatening to harm others; they couldn't really weigh out the consequences of that, they're just legally required to alert the police.

I think I'm assuming that the psychiatric folks got him first, then were legally required to call the police, as opposed to the police hearing about this first, then committing him, then taking his guns, because that scenario would be a bit weirder. I may be being overly optimistic.

But yeah, I agree that the newspapers publishing every call to the police may not be the best thing for society in general. (I do think, however, that preventing harm to other people *does* trump client confidentiality, however; but you're right, that shouldn't automatically involve the press.)

Could be that the psyche folks got him first- we don't know. And who were the psyche folks? Or did he walk into an ER acting nutty? Too many things we don't know. Which is a good thing.

I agree with the preventing hard to other people trumping confidentiality, just because it takes the burden of deciding off the shoulders of the therapist. It's too bad that the same rule keeps suicidal and other people from seeing anyone for help, though.

umm.. preventing HARM. not preventing HARD

It's too bad that the same rule keeps suicidal and other people from seeing anyone for help, though.

The same rule doesn't apply to suicidal people. The therapist *can* break confidentiality if he or she thinks the patient needs major emergency medical (or other) help immediately (like, the person's about to jump off a building, or the GG Bridge), but it's not required. That's a therapist's judgment call -- the therapist just has to do what he or she reasonably thinks will prevent the patient from harming her/himself. That could mean an hour of therapy, or calling a friend or relative to stay with the patient, or creating a "safety plan" with a list of people the patient could call if there's trouble, all the way up to a 5150.

And breaking confidentiality wouldn't be required if a client was making generalized-type threats. Only really if there's a clear, executable plan in place for harming a specific person.

I know that getting committed is not exactly the best thing ever, but I also don't think it's so totally the wrong thing to happen in the cases where it does happen -- and I think it doesn't happen quite as automatically as people might believe it does.

I am very glad to hear it. As I understood it, all it takes is a reasonable suspicion that you might harm yourself.

Well, probably a few too many lame-ass therapists have ruined me for life. Christ, I knew one who put his patient histories on the web, (with just initials- for confidentiality. Ugh).

(I've met some really good ones, too, or at least they had good reps and seemed like they'd be good, but no one I knew could afford to go to them. Such are market forces.)

5150 is definitely the California legal section under which you can hold someone for a short period of time - 72 hours in CA. It was 48 hours in NYC and it was still called a 5150, the term has become genericized.

In the L.A. County Hospital we called it "green-sheeting" someone, because back in the 1950s the form you had to fill out in order to do this was green.

Longer holds require weekly judicial review. I've been on these rounds - a judge comes to the hospital and speaks to the patients, then the psychiatrist makes his case for a prolonged hold. I never saw a case in which the judge held a patient who wanted to leave, but surprisingly to me, usually the long-term patients agree with the psychiatrist. The judge would ask the patient to voice their agreement and most of them did so readily.

I don't know where I stand on confiscating a 5150'd person's gun collection. By far the major risk of not doing so is the guy's suicide when he returns home. I don't believe that depriving the access to guns would deter a really determined suicide, just a spur-of-the-moment, Bad Decisions Jeans kind of suicide.

Publishing this in the paper, on the other hand, is really beyond the pale. If the guy's house got broken into I'm sure he, or his wife, could sue for damages.