XPost: alt.survival, talk.politics.guns, nyc.transit
XPost: alt.journalism, soc.culture.african.american

Accused subway slasher Kemal Rideout’s rap sheet goes back 15 years,
including attempted rape, assault, criminal mischief and forcible
touching, plus a serious history of mental illness.

For New Yorkers wondering why he was still walking around, the Legislature
has a kind of answer: It just passed the Clean Slate Act, automatically removing older offenses from the public record.

So (if Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the bill) the next time a lunatic left to
roam maims or kills, the public won’t realize how badly the system has
failed.

What state lawmakers won’t do is address the disastrous “mental health revolving door.”

Rideout, now charged with three counts of felony assault, has five prior arrests in New York; in four of them (including the rape case), per law enforcement sources, he got off by pleading “not responsible” by reason of mental disease or defect.

Which didn’t send him in for mandatory treatment until he was no longer a public menace, but rapidly back to the streets.

Even his own aunt says he’s crazy.

Yet he has been free to terrorize New Yorkers.

Time and again, state lawmakers have refused to make it easier for
families, law enforcement or the courts to involuntarily commit
dangerously mentally ill individuals for psychiatric treatment.

Instead, Albany’s given us no-bail laws that let wrongdoers (sane or not)
avoid jail until trial.

They’re enrolled in alternatives-to-incarceration programs where
compliance isn’t enforced.

Heck, the only reason Rideout is sitting in Rikers today is that he counts
as a “flight risk” because when nabbed, he was carrying an overnight bag stuffed with clothing and toiletries.

It’s long past time to nail this revolving door shut: Any verdict
involving dangerous mental illness should automatically lead to prolonged commitment — with the state funding the thousands of inpatient psychiatric
beds needed to make good on such a rule.

We do these sad souls no good by turning them out on the streets.

Think of Jordan Neely, dead on an F train though he was on the city’s “Top
50” roster of homeless people who desperately needed help — people who repeatedly cycle in and out of treatment and shelters.

Mayor Eric Adams is pushing to involuntarily hospitalize more homeless New Yorkers with chronic and untreated mental illness; state and city
lawmakers should back him up.

And, yes, expand his pilot B-HEARD pilot program, a non-police response to
911 calls involving suspected mentally ill persons.

No one wants the jails and prisons to substitute for proper treatment of
the dangerously mentally ill.

But doing nothing instead, and leaving them loose to endanger the public
and themselves, is madness in its own right.

Barbara Brooks
23 June, 2023

Violent, mentally ill people with repeated offenses need to be locked up permanently in a facility where they can work, get mental health treatment
and grow their own food for exercise. A lot of these guys could work and
stay out of trouble in the right environment. The state could provide
security while a variety of public and private groups could run the
facilites so that families and patients have a choice. However, they are
a danger to the public and do not belong in jails, but must be babysat, probably for the rest of their lives. Hopefully businesses can be found
to employ them so they can help pay child support, offset the costs and
earn spending money.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/23/nyc-subway-slasher-cause-to-close-mental- health-revolving-door/

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