Lex Luthor
05-09-2007, 05:33 PM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18525242/
A portion of the article ....
'In need of hospitalization'
By 2005, Cho, an English major at Virginia Tech, had frightened teachers and classmates with his macabre and violent writings. He referred to himself as Question Mark, never made eye contact and rarely spoke. But it wasn't until two undergraduate women complained that Cho sent instant messages and left cryptic lines from "Romeo and Juliet" on their dry-erase boards that Cho came to the attention of police. Although the girls decided not to press charges, police met with Cho on Dec. 13 and warned him to leave the women alone.
That night, Cho e-mailed a roommate saying he might as well kill himself. The roommate contacted police, who brought Cho to the New River Valley Community Services Board, the government mental health agency that serves Blacksburg.
There, Kathy Godbey examined Cho and found he was "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization," according to court papers. That was enough to have Cho temporarily detained at Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Clinic in Christiansburg, a few miles from campus, until a special justice could review his case in a commitment hearing.
New River Valley's Mike Wade maintained that the community services board's responsibility ended there.
"Unless, out of the commitment hearing, the judge issued outpatient treatment specific to our agency, that's where it ends with us," said Wade, the board's community liaison. "Since we weren't named the provider of that outpatient treatment, we weren't involved in the case."
A day later, on Dec. 14, 2005, Paul M. Barnett, the special judge, decided that Cho was an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness and ordered him into involuntary outpatient treatment. It is a practice that Terry W. Teel, Cho's court-appointed lawyer and a special judge himself, said they use "all the time" in Blacksburg. Special justices such as Barnett are lawyers with some expertise and training who are appointed by the jurisdiction's chief judge.
A portion of the article ....
'In need of hospitalization'
By 2005, Cho, an English major at Virginia Tech, had frightened teachers and classmates with his macabre and violent writings. He referred to himself as Question Mark, never made eye contact and rarely spoke. But it wasn't until two undergraduate women complained that Cho sent instant messages and left cryptic lines from "Romeo and Juliet" on their dry-erase boards that Cho came to the attention of police. Although the girls decided not to press charges, police met with Cho on Dec. 13 and warned him to leave the women alone.
That night, Cho e-mailed a roommate saying he might as well kill himself. The roommate contacted police, who brought Cho to the New River Valley Community Services Board, the government mental health agency that serves Blacksburg.
There, Kathy Godbey examined Cho and found he was "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization," according to court papers. That was enough to have Cho temporarily detained at Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Clinic in Christiansburg, a few miles from campus, until a special justice could review his case in a commitment hearing.
New River Valley's Mike Wade maintained that the community services board's responsibility ended there.
"Unless, out of the commitment hearing, the judge issued outpatient treatment specific to our agency, that's where it ends with us," said Wade, the board's community liaison. "Since we weren't named the provider of that outpatient treatment, we weren't involved in the case."
A day later, on Dec. 14, 2005, Paul M. Barnett, the special judge, decided that Cho was an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness and ordered him into involuntary outpatient treatment. It is a practice that Terry W. Teel, Cho's court-appointed lawyer and a special judge himself, said they use "all the time" in Blacksburg. Special justices such as Barnett are lawyers with some expertise and training who are appointed by the jurisdiction's chief judge.