Civil commitment bill dies

SEATTLE – A father who lost his suicidal son in a violent standoff with police said he’s disappointed that a bill in the Washington Legislature that would have made it easier to detain mentally ill people who are in crisis apparently won’t pass this session.

Doug Reuter, whose son Joel was killed after opening fire at Seattle police officers in 2013, said he has not given up hope that lawmakers will change the state’s Involuntary Treatment Act by adding the failed bill to one that is still being considered by lawmakers in the second half of the 2015 session.

Reuter had testified before legislative committees that if Washington’s civil commitment act, which states a person can be detained if they are a danger to themselves or others, had been expanded to include people who have a “persistent or acute disability,” his son might still be alive. House Bill 1451 sought to make that change to the law, but it has failed to move forward.

“This is the criteria that allowed us to get Joel help in Arizona not once but twice,” he said. “It saved his life twice and allowed him to get well enough to finish college and get his dream job in Seattle – which he was very successful at for six years before going off his meds and decompensating back to a point of attempted suicide and eventually being killed by the police.”

But Mike De Felice, supervisor of the public defense team at the King County Civil Commitment Court, opposed the bill. He said if the measure had passed, it would have increased pressure on a system that is “bursting at the seams.”

“Having new grounds to detain people would have compounded existing problems and spread thin the limited resources in the system,” he said.

De Felice said he disagrees with the premise it’s difficult to detain mentally ill people who are in crisis. He said the court has seen a steady increase in the number of cases it has handled in the past seven years.

Reuter agreed the state’s lack of funding for mental issues was an obstacle.

One of the reasons the bill failed was because Washington’s infrastructure for treating mentally ill people could not handle the number of people who would need treatment if it had passed, he said.

“Even if the Legislature fully funded that bill, the infrastructure could not handle it,” Reuter said.

He said another bill that is still in play, HB1450, would be a perfect way to start phasing in treatment. That bill allows the court to commit someone who meets the criteria for involuntary mental health treatment to a “less restrictive alternative.”

Treating people in crisis in an outpatient setting would mean they can get the medications they need without the costs and problems associated with hospitalization, Reuter said.

“Right now, people cycle in and out of beds numerous times a year,” he said. “Two weeks of hospitalization only to be released and allowed to decompensate and land back in the hospital again is not a good use of hospital beds and it is cruel punishment for the mentally ill.”