UNE medical student stabbed to death in library

[CCmetal94]

Fatal stabbing of UNE medical student in Massachusetts library shocks campus

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[Lannister]

That is absolutely horrific.

 

[Osminog]

Yao has one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the Northeast. His family must be loaded.

 

[Gorne]

Yao has one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the Northeast. His family must be loaded.

If his family is funding his attorney they should be liable for the multi-million dollar wrongful death suit which is sure to come.

 

[Wordead]

If his family is funding his attorney they should be liable for the multi-million dollar wrongful death suit which is sure to come.

 

[samac]

This is a horrible situation. What possesses someone to do that in a library? Was he a student too? I couldn’t quite figure out if he was a random person on the street or a classmate? If this was on the DO side of things I would make a totally inappropriate OMT comment.

 

[samac]

Yao has one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the Northeast. His family must be loaded.

Yao is the person who did it. Not his attorney?

 

[Osminog]

Yao is the person who did it. Not his attorney?

I said "Yao has," not "Yao is." Lol...

 

[samac]

I said "Yao has," not "Yao is." Lol...

And kids today I learned I can’t read!

 

[Goro]

This is a horrible situation. What possesses someone to do that in a library? Was he a student too? I couldn’t quite figure out if he was a random person on the street or a classmate? If this was on the DO side of things I would make a totally inappropriate OMT comment.

My read is that Yao was mentally ill. As a parent, my heart is broken reading that story.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

Just horrific. Hope he gets a life imprisonment.

 

[DBV]

We really have to ban knives in libraries

 

[Anti-PD1]

My read is that Yao was mentally ill. As a parent, my heart is broken reading that story.

And he should be prosecuted as a person with full capacity.

 

[moisne]

And he should be prosecuted as a person with full capacity.

I doubt it... From what his classmates/neighbors, it seems like he was clearly mentally unstable. A tragedy

 

[Microshaft]

I doubt it... From what his classmates/neighbors, it seems like he was clearly mentally unstable. A tragedy

Maybe. I doubt very much he will get off completely by reason of insanity though. He obviously belongs in a crazy facility.

 

[sammiesings]

so tragic.

other news outlets report the two went to high school together. wonder if he recognized her/targeted her?

otherwise, the randomness of this is also terrifying.

 

[Dr. Scribe]

Stories like these are why I am becoming more and more paranoid as I get older. Is nowhere safe? My heart goes out to the victim and her family/friends.



........On a side note, Yao has to be the oldest looking 23 year old ever and he deserves to burn in the hottest place in Hell.

 

[Osteoth]

Can always look forward to upbeat and positive news on sdn...

 

[Mad Jack]

This is absolutely and unfathomably awful. The defendant appears to not just be some average Joe pulling an insanity defense, he has a long and well established history of severe mental illness. This is ultimately one life tragically lost and another one that will likely rot away behind bars because of the failings of our mental health care system. It's senseless and tragic, I'm lacking in words. I just pray for her family, I can't even imagine.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

this is a perfect example of why the problem is not weapons, it’s woefully inadequate treatment of mental illness. All his neighbors knew he was dangerous and reported him to police, and nothing was done. Now a young woman is dead.


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[libertyyne]

this is a perfect example of why the problem is not weapons, it’s woefully inadequate treatment of mental illness. All his neighbors knew he was dangerous and reported him to police, and nothing was done. Now a young woman is dead.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Idk, if the dude had a bazooka maybe more people might be dead.

 

[Redpancreas]

this is a perfect example of why the problem is not weapons, it’s woefully inadequate treatment of mental illness. All his neighbors knew he was dangerous and reported him to police, and nothing was done. Now a young woman is dead.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Idk, if the dude had a bazooka maybe more people might be dead.

It’s clearly both so let’s make some common sense reforms to guns and get better at reporting uncontrolled mental illness.

 

[WingedOx]

it’s woefully inadequate treatment of mental illness.

Not sure "treatment" is the right term. It's resources and laws that don't allow prevention of situations like this. In most cases like this, there's not much the treating MH providers can do until something bad happens if the patient is determined to be nonadherent to treatment, as was likely the case here.

 

[Giovanotto]

this is a perfect example of why the problem is not weapons, it’s woefully inadequate treatment of mental illness. All his neighbors knew he was dangerous and reported him to police, and nothing was done. Now a young woman is dead.


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Ew, are you really going to come in here and turn this into a political debate? If he was capable of getting his hands on a AR-15 (to protect his 2nd amendment, duh) this story would look completely different.

 

[Gorne]

It makes perfect sense. The rich parents want to drop loads of cash to defend him, but when it comes time to take responsibility for his actions, they’re going to say they had nothing to do with it and the “poor” murderer is going to have nothing to offer the family. If you financially support his trial, you should have to support him for all legal fees.

 

[LADoc00]

Wow, this story is insane. Life is stranger than fiction moment.

Of course anything like this never occurs to all the paranoid guys like myself to spend their entire lives preparing for such random attacks....

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Ew, are you really going to come in here and turn this into a political debate? If he was capable of getting his hands on a AR-15 (to protect his 2nd amendment, duh) this story would look completely different.

Let’s avoid the political debate. Because I could just as easily say that if campus carry were allowed, it would be much easier to stop these people and would deter at least some of them. So rather than get all into that, let’s just leave it alone. No one who will chime in on something like that is likely to be open to changing their views.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Ew, are you really going to come in here and turn this into a political debate? If he was capable of getting his hands on a AR-15 (to protect his 2nd amendment, duh) this story would look completely different.

I am not going to get into any debate with an adult who starts their statement with “ew.”


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[Rekt]

This is absolutely and unfathomably awful. The defendant appears to not just be some average Joe pulling an insanity defense, he has a long and well established history of severe mental illness. This is ultimately one life tragically lost and another one that will likely rot away behind bars because of the failings of our mental health care system. It's senseless and tragic, I'm lacking in words. I just pray for her family, I can't even imagine.

this is a perfect example of why the problem is not weapons, it’s woefully inadequate treatment of mental illness. All his neighbors knew he was dangerous and reported him to police, and nothing was done. Now a young woman is dead.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Not that I disagree with these sentiments, but I'm genuinely curious what you both would think is adequate treatment. This argument is thrown around all the time. I agree that US psychiatric care is absymal, but what interventions could prevent this? Do you truly believe that a man as mentally disturbed as this one, randomly stabbing a girl twenty times, could be fixed or saved?

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Not that I disagree with these sentiments, but I'm genuinely curious what you both would think is adequate treatment. This argument is thrown around all the time. I agree that US psychiatric care is absymal, but what interventions could prevent this? Do you truly believe that a man as mentally disturbed as this one, randomly stabbing a girl twenty times, could be fixed or saved?

I would have the psych people comment on this, but when I was in med school, I saw plenty of people involuntarily committed to a psych facility if they were unable to care for themselves or were dangerous to others/self. Article said the guy was banging on people’s doors, they were scared he’d attack their kids, and he had at one point stopped bathing and said strange things. That sounds like florid psychosis to me, and a reason to keep this person in a facility to keep himself and others from harm. We have several patients like this in our psych ward at any given time.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Mad Jack]

Not that I disagree with these sentiments, but I'm genuinely curious what you both would think is adequate treatment. This argument is thrown around all the time. I agree that US psychiatric care is absymal, but what interventions could prevent this? Do you truly believe that a man as mentally disturbed as this one, randomly stabbing a girl twenty times, could be fixed or saved?

Before the Reagan era, he would have been institutionalized fit a long period of treatment before this occurred in the past. People are often sent out to the community long before they are ready due to lack of beds and finding, which is great for those that can function in the community, but there are many that are questionable in regard to their ultimate potential to harm themselves or others.

 

[Wordead]

It makes perfect sense. The rich parents want to drop loads of cash to defend him, but when it comes time to take responsibility for his actions, they’re going to say they had nothing to do with it and the “poor” murderer is going to have nothing to offer the family. If you financially support his trial, you should have to support him for all legal fees.

Yes parents should have to pay for their kids mistakes. Sounds like a sound principle that we should enact across the board.

 

[787593]

We really have to ban knives in libraries

 

[787593]

I say we take the dangerous mentally ill and.... wait for it.... PUSH THEM SOMEWHERE ELSE

 

[Stagg737]

Not that I disagree with these sentiments, but I'm genuinely curious what you both would think is adequate treatment. This argument is thrown around all the time. I agree that US psychiatric care is absymal, but what interventions could prevent this? Do you truly believe that a man as mentally disturbed as this one, randomly stabbing a girl twenty times, could be fixed or saved?

I would have the psych people comment on this, but when I was in med school, I saw plenty of people involuntarily committed to a psych facility if they were unable to care for themselves or were dangerous to others/self. Article said the guy was banging on people’s doors, they were scared he’d attack their kids, and he had at one point stopped bathing and said strange things. That sounds like florid psychosis to me, and a reason to keep this person in a facility to keep himself and others from harm. We have several patients like this in our psych ward at any given time.

The issue isn't getting this guy into a unit (usually), it's keeping him in a unit for a long enough period to legitimately stabilize him to the point that he's ready to re-enter society and then ensuring he maintains compliance. Mad Jack already touched on it, but the unavailability of beds is a huge factor and I've seen many patients who were barely "stabilized" and d/c'd because they were "stable" and the unit needed the bed for other, sicker people. That's all assuming that individual actually becomes stable enough to function in society, and the number of long-term beds available is an even more dire situation than acute beds.

The other issue is compliance. I can't count the number of patients I've seen in my limited experience who were stable and functioning well, then went into a severe psychotic state because they felt they were stable for years and no longer needed their meds. Then there are the people who stop taking their meds because they can't maintain access to them due to their social situation. So even when we do "fix" someone enough to function properly in society, maintaining that state can be an even greater challenge.

To the bolded question, I've seen patients who were as psychotic or worse than this individual (he was able to carry out an action to kill someone, I've worked with people who had the functional mindset of monkeys flinging poop or worse) return to a relatively normal functional level after adequate treatment. I've actually run into one of them outside the hospital, and you'd probably never guess they'd been an inpatient or doing the things they were if you hadn't seen them when they were psychotic. Is it possible this individual could be/have been fixed/saved? I think so, but there are a lot of factors involved in any of these cases and I don't feel comfortable with my knowledge of the case or my current clinical knowledge/skill to legitimately say whether this particular individual could have been "fixed". Either way, I think the mental health reasoning for violent acts is both a valid consideration and a cop out in terms of the arguments that are often made, as it's only a single component to a much broader and complex issue that I won't get into further.

 

[Mad Jack]

The issue isn't getting this guy into a unit (usually), it's keeping him in a unit for a long enough period to legitimately stabilize him to the point that he's ready to re-enter society and then ensuring he maintains compliance. Mad Jack already touched on it, but the unavailability of beds is a huge factor and I've seen many patients who were barely "stabilized" and d/c'd because they were "stable" and the unit needed the bed for other, sicker people. That's all assuming that individual actually becomes stable enough to function in society, and the number of long-term beds available is an even more dire situation than acute beds.

The other issue is compliance. I can't count the number of patients I've seen in my limited experience who were stable and functioning well, then went into a severe psychotic state because they felt they were stable for years and no longer needed their meds. Then there are the people who stop taking their meds because they can't maintain access to them due to their social situation. So even when we do "fix" someone enough to function properly in society, maintaining that state can be an even greater challenge.

To the bolded question, I've seen patients who were as psychotic or worse than this individual (he was able to carry out an action to kill someone, I've worked with people who had the functional mindset of monkeys flinging poop or worse) return to a relatively normal functional level after adequate treatment. I've actually run into one of them outside the hospital, and you'd probably never guess they'd been an inpatient or doing the things they were if you hadn't seen them when they were psychotic. Is it possible this individual could be/have been fixed/saved? I think so, but there are a lot of factors involved in any of these cases and I don't feel comfortable with my knowledge of the case or my current clinical knowledge/skill to legitimately say whether this particular individual could have been "fixed". Either way, I think the mental health reasoning for violent acts is both a valid consideration and a cop out in terms of the arguments that are often made, as it's only a single component to a much broader and complex issue that I won't get into further.

In this particular case, it seems valid. In most mass shootings, it's questionable at best.This guy has been in and out of the system for years and has ample opportunity for intervention. In many other incidents, there is no contact with the mental health system and thus the intervention opportunities are murkier.

 

[Winged Scapula]

POLL:

1) continue with political discussion and thread gets moved to SPF
2) continue with political discussion and thread gets closed
3) stop political discussion
NB: 4) Nutmeg

 

[Mad Jack]

POLL:

1) continue with political discussion and thread gets moved to SPF
2) continue with political discussion and thread gets closed
3) stop political discussion

Wasn't trying to be political. I was just sort of taken aback at the visceral reactions by some other posters to a guy with serious mental illness that probably should have been helped sooner, thus averting a traffic situation that never should have happened. I don't feel like that's a political statement, it's just my way of saying "What a ****ing shame, this is completely senseless."

 

[Winged Scapula]

Wasn't trying to be political. I was just sort of taken aback at the visceral reactions by some other posters to a guy with serious mental illness that probably should have been helped sooner, thus averting a traffic situation that never should have happened. I don't feel like that's a political statement, it's just my way of saying "What a ****ing shame, this is completely senseless."

Who says I was responding to you (and you alone)? I wasn't meaning to single any one in particular out.

We received some complaints/reports so I'm just putting this out there that ALL parties who are turning this into a political discussion should be aware of the complaints and help us decide what to do.

 

[Mad Jack]

Who says I was responding to you (and you alone)? I wasn't meaning to single any one in particular out.

We received some complaints/reports so I'm just putting this out there that ALL parties who are turning this into a political discussion should be aware of the complaints and help us decide what to do.

Oh that's fair. I just wanted to clarify as much for anyone else in the thread as for yourself.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Oh that's fair. I just wanted to clarify as much for anyone else in the thread as for yourself.

NP.

Just cranky because my bladder is pressing on my frontal lobe. I'm sitting in a plane next to a large man who is man-spreading and it feels like more work to ask him to move than hold it for 30 more minutes. I'll just keep curled up here in my little cubby next to the window.

 

[W19]

NP.

Just cranky because my bladder is pressing on my frontal lobe. I'm sitting in a plane next to a large man who is man-spreading and it feels like more work to ask him to move than hold it for 30 more minutes. I'll just keep curled up here in my little cubby next to the window.

Why aren't you in the business class section?

 

[DrDarce]

Damn, on a side note props to the people in the library for restraining the guy until the cops came. Must have been tough not to beat the crap out of him...

 

[Mad Jack]

Why aren't you in the business class section?

That's money that could go to shoes

 

[Mad Jack]

NP.

Just cranky because my bladder is pressing on my frontal lobe. I'm sitting in a plane next to a large man who is man-spreading and it feels like more work to ask him to move than hold it for 30 more minutes. I'll just keep curled up here in my little cubby next to the window.

My heart goes out to you

 

[Perfect Hair Day]

Let’s avoid the political debate. Because I could just as easily say that if campus carry were allowed, it would be much easier to stop these people and would deter at least some of them. So rather than get all into that, let’s just leave it alone. No one who will chime in on something like that is likely to be open to changing their views.

SDN really needs to add a "love" button.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Why aren't you in the business class section?

Right?

Some things are worth splurging on; Biz class for a 4 hr flight is not one of them IMHO

 

[RTC19]

Terrible doesn't even begin to cover this. Thinking and praying for that gal's family.

 

[WingedOx]

The issue isn't getting this guy into a unit (usually), it's keeping him in a unit for a long enough period to legitimately stabilize him to the point that he's ready to re-enter society and then ensuring he maintains compliance. Mad Jack already touched on it, but the unavailability of beds is a huge factor and I've seen many patients who were barely "stabilized" and d/c'd because they were "stable" and the unit needed the bed for other, sicker people. That's all assuming that individual actually becomes stable enough to function in society, and the number of long-term beds available is an even more dire situation than acute beds.

The other issue is compliance. I can't count the number of patients I've seen in my limited experience who were stable and functioning well, then went into a severe psychotic state because they felt they were stable for years and no longer needed their meds. Then there are the people who stop taking their meds because they can't maintain access to them due to their social situation. So even when we do "fix" someone enough to function properly in society, maintaining that state can be an even greater challenge.

To the bolded question, I've seen patients who were as psychotic or worse than this individual (he was able to carry out an action to kill someone, I've worked with people who had the functional mindset of monkeys flinging poop or worse) return to a relatively normal functional level after adequate treatment. I've actually run into one of them outside the hospital, and you'd probably never guess they'd been an inpatient or doing the things they were if you hadn't seen them when they were psychotic. Is it possible this individual could be/have been fixed/saved? I think so, but there are a lot of factors involved in any of these cases and I don't feel comfortable with my knowledge of the case or my current clinical knowledge/skill to legitimately say whether this particular individual could have been "fixed". Either way, I think the mental health reasoning for violent acts is both a valid consideration and a cop out in terms of the arguments that are often made, as it's only a single component to a much broader and complex issue that I won't get into further.

The other missing link is our ability to legally take the necessary steps to help him. I have a patient who's about 20 years older than this kid, but similar background. Lots of attempted breaking into homes, paranoia, violent threats, some hx of attacks (with a knife, too IIRC). We had him on the unit recently, and he knew the system well enough to say what he needed to say to prevent us from holding him longer than we were legally allowed to hold him without going to court, and we would have had a difficult time winning the court case seeing as though his risk of violence is more chronic than acute, and an extended hospitalization isn't going to change the fact that he's going to toss his meds in the trash the moment he gets out of the hospital. The courts could mandate outpatient adherence to meds, but enforcement of that is between difficult to impossible.

To make matters worse, the legal system tends to have a poor grasp of what we actually do in mental health. Prior to the guy getting himself hospitalized, my clinic got an angry phone call from a judge stating that the patient was agitated and would need to be seen in my office for an outpatient visit or he'd be thrown in jail for noncompliance with his parole/probation (the status of which I'm still not sure about since hospital risk mgmt told me I couldn't call the judge to confirm what was going on with him and his case without the patient's consent, and the patient didn't have a working phone). Of course the judge didn't seem to have a clue that I have no way of mandating he take any meds even if I see him since there was no court order saying such. The whole thing was a clusterf-ck. If I hear about this guy on the news in the next couple years, I'll be shocked but not surprised, if you get my drift. He's in the last month moved to Colorado where they've had 3 dead law enforcement officers this winter from perps with questionable mental health histories, so good luck to you guys out west...

 

[Gorne]

Yes parents should have to pay for their kids mistakes. Sounds like a sound principle that we should enact across the board.

Your reading comprehension isn't quite there, but that's fine. Such a broad claim was never made. I insinuated that if the parent's are going to financially support his defense (or anyone who is willing to financially support his defense), should also be forced accountable when it comes time to pay reparations for the actions the "money" is defending. This is just purely opinion.

What isn't just opinion though and you'll actually find countless examples of this with a quick google search, is his parent's role in the matter. While the parent's aren't responsible in a criminal court, they are going to be sued in civil court for wrongful death if even a shred of evidence can suggest they played a role financially or through negligence. Did he use his parent's money to buy the knife? Are the parents making payments on the vehicle he drove to the library? Did the parents notice signs of psychotic behavior throughout childhood and do nothing? So yeah, parent's can be sued and found responsible for the stupidity of their children.