Judge says she did not involuntarily commit Louisiana theater gunman

CARROLLTON, Ga. – The gunman responsible for last week’s deadly attack in a Louisiana movie theater was delivered by deputies to a hospital for a mental evaluation in 2008 after his family said he was a danger to himself and others.

But the judge who ordered John Russell Houser detained said Monday that she did not have him involuntarily committed, which may explain why he was able to legally purchase the gun he used to kill two people and wound nine others before killing himself.

Houser’s case underscores the concerns raised in the aftermath of other mass shootings involving suspects with mental health issues – and the gaps in the system meant to “red-flag” people ill-suited to own or carry a firearm.

While an Alabama sheriff said that he denied Houser’s application for a concealed weapons’ permit in 2006, there appears to have been nothing in court filings that would raise concerns in the FBI background check system.

Contrary to legal filings by Houser’s family, Carroll County Probate Judge Betty Cason said she did not order Houser to be involuntarily committed for mental health treatment at the West Central Regional Hospital in Columbus, Georgia, which is in Muscogee County, where she lacks jurisdiction.

Doctors at the hospital would have had to petition that county’s probate judge for such a commitment.

This might explain why Houser passed a federal background check in February 2014 allowing him to buy the .40-caliber handgun, despite years of erratic and menacing behavior.

Cason said she did sign an order on April 22, 2008, authorizing deputies to detain Houser and take him, against his will if necessary, to a treatment facility for a mental health evaluation.