Quote:
Originally Posted by pariah1107
No. Typically a 72 hour mental health evaluation and civil commitment hearing are necessary to medicate someone involuntarily. He would not be given psychotropics for the sake of appearance by any responsible health professional. It would be necessary only if he was a danger to himself or others, which in this case is a statement of the obvious.
My guess is he was evaluated by mental health officials over the weekend prior to his arraignment on Monday, and it was deemed necessary to pacify him. Thorazine is a powerful, older, antipsychotic and rarely used because of its side effects, more likely he was sedated with haldol. Seeing the suspect in court he did exhibit some symptoms of psychotropics including heavy eyelids, dizziness (head bobbing), enlarged pupils, and shuffling (though that may be from the leg irons).
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It was a rhetorical question, based on your insinuation that he was given thorazine in order to prepare for an insanity plea, which might not be an obviously ridiculous statement to some on this board.
I hate threads like this, as they just create angst for everyone - I am certain that I should have never posted, but feel compelled to respond to the resulting comments. This guy killed a bunch of people and hundreds of relatives and friends are grieving - my heart goes out to them. It also goes out to the family of the perpetrator. I understand the gun control debate, but some of the comments about mental illness are just mind-numbing. They make it clear what a huge road we have ahead of us if we are going to address the problem of mental illness in any meaningful way.