From what little I've seen in the news, his English teacher did sound the alarm but there was little that could legally be done.

I haven't watched much in the last 24 hours as I'm on pathos overload so there probably has been some more info on this that I've missed.

The mental health laws will vary from state to state but here in Louisiana I believe only a family member can go to the local coroner's office and file an order for protective custody (allows LEOs to pick someone up and take them to the hospital to be evaluated), if the family is not willing to do that then there's not much the college could do.

Even then it's tricky. I have run across families that were trying to get a perfectly sane family member picked up and locked up because they wanted to get a hold of some property.

A lot of mentally ill folks don't get into the "system" unless they have repeatedly run afoul of the law and even then it's not a lot that can be done.

The system is skewed towards incarceration, not treatment. (That's not me being a liberal, that's reality).

Unfortunately, the way the system is set up the only way to get this guy off the streets for any length of time was to arrest, convict and sentance him for some crime. That means he'd have to commit a pretty serious crime which of course is exactly what happened in the VT case, he just didn't survive to make it into "the system".

Psych hospitals are geared toward emergency stabilization and outpatient referal only, and if he doesn't have insurance, he as to wait for a public bed (good luck).

I repeatedly have to explain to wigged out families that I cannot legally hold their mentally ill family member any longer because they are not exhibiting dangerous behavior at that time.

Yeah, I know from experience that he's probably going to stop taking his meds and decompensate, but at that moment there's nothing objective to hold him on.

There are multiple factors in this tragedy that are broken.

Unfortunately, they won't get anymore attention once the news cycle turns and something else gets the public's attention.

For the record, in my postings on this issue some of ya'll have given me some good objective points to think about.

Some have validated my thoughts on the subject, others have given me pause to think.

For those, I thank you.