Mental Health: The VT shooters mental health record?

The VT shooters mental health record?It is now Thursday the 19th of April, only 4 days after the horrible shooting at Virginia Tech. It has been reported on all the news stations that the madman "Cho" was confined to a mental hospital for 48 hours back in 2005. Last night, I heard on Fox News that 2 fellow students complained about him and a court found him to be an imminent danger to himself and others. The shrinks at a local mental hospital evaluated him and asked him about his very disturbing photos of himself holding guns to his head as well as knives to his own throat. The "doctors" also asked him about his very scary writings and videos as well. Cho claimed it was only "satire" and he was not serious about what he said in those video clips at all. Now my question is simply this, is anyone out there STUPID enough to continue to trust the mental health profession regarding the treatment of these types of patients? Thsi has happened many times in the past. It has to stop NOW!
The laws that protect the privacy of mental health records of deeply disturbed individuals needs to be changed in order to save lives. It is obvious that under the present laws we currently have in place do not go far enough to prevent tragedies such as this from happening. The quack shrinks have too much power to make the decisions in order to determine whether or not patients such as Cho are stable to be released unsupervised back into society. It is simply a matter of Cho himself to promise to take his medications and keep his therapy appointments with the QUACK shrink. If a judge were to approve his release after the psycho analysis was complete MAYBE things might have turned out differently

Answer by me
they should have never let him walk the streets after the exam

Answer by jb54
I think the issue is a bit more complicated than is being presented. Legally, "danger to self or others" is the major criteria for admission to an inpatient psychiatric facility. Many times, it is not that mental health professionals do not want to keep people in facilities longer to get better control of symptoms, but that they cannot. The issue of civil liberties also comes into play. Every person in our country has rights, and laws are set up to protect them. Most people living with a mental illness are able to function quite well in the community. This case highlights that there definitely needs to be more attention paid to how people are treated for mental illness and how we as a society balance individual rights with the welfare of the society as a whole.
I agree with your statement that this has happened too many times in the past. I heard on the radio several people interviewed who stated, "someone should have done something to help him." So, I think part of the solution is to move from it being "someone" needing to do something to, "what can I do to help make things better."

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Hi,I did the following:

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