If they had committed him, he couldn’t have shot people. Then they couldn’t use it for their advantage.
Committing him for a maximum of 72 hours in April would have prevented him from shooting people in November? Sounds like Maxine Waters math to me.
Wrong. A lot of people (such as you) have no conception of what’s involved in “commitment” and how long it may last, what the aftermath will be, etc. Just bc someone might be committed for an initial period (such as 72 hrs) in many states does not even begin to control what they may do months or years later. Yes, it is worth asking what opportunities may have been missed in this case, but psychiatric commitment is far from being any panacea for such cases.
He might have been committed, evaluated, and released.... or he might have spent some extended time in-patient undergoing some amount of treatment but he still would eventually be released (unless you advocate “committing” everyone for life).
Commitment does not come close to solving all of these issues in all cases, though it might have given us a “chance” so to speak. A big part of the problem is that psychiatry is far from being able to assess much less effectively treat all potentially violent offenders.