“Yet mental health assessment and intervention is so very hard to get in this country.”
I seriously doubt that inability to get MH care was this guy’s problem. A) there’s community mental health centers all over the country that provide free services to patients who can’t afford it; B) virtually every major college/university also provides ample MH resources to his students. It’s inconceivable Holmes didn’t have access to such services as an undergrad at UC-Riverside or at UC-Denver as a doctoral student. So your general observation may have validity, but I don’t think that solving that issue would in any way have affected this guy’s behavior etc.
My point was not that mental health treatment is lacking, but that families and friends of the seriously ill have no power to get treatment for an unwilling patient.
As laws now stand, the dangerously ill cannot be stopped until they either commit an offense or are hauled by law enforcement before a judge who decides whether danger exists at the time of the hearing. I speak as one who has had to instigate proceedings, including arrest and evaluation by the court.
Even then, those living in a fantasy role are sometimes able to convince a judge it’s just a family dispute. Fortunately, it worked for us.
Nobody killed with that rifle he had hidden in the truck, crazy as a loon and angry at the world, driving all over the state.
There was plenty of treatment available, but there is also a brick wall between that help and the knowing adults who have no legal power to force the loony into it.
Sorry I was not clearer.