Confusion Over Laws Impedes Aid For Mentally Ill
U.S. Panel Reports on Va. Tech; House Passes
Gun-Control Bill
By Chris L. Jenkins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 14, 2007; A01

Authorities' abilities to identify potentially
dangerous mentally ill people are crippled across the
nation by the same kinds of conflicts in privacy laws
that prevented state officials from being able to
intervene before Seung Hui Cho went on his rampage at
Virginia Tech, according to a federal report
commissioned after the Blacksburg shootings that was
presented to President Bush yesterday.

Because school administrators, doctors and police
officials rarely share information about students and
others who have mental illnesses, troubled people
don't get the counseling they need, and authorities
are often unable to prevent them from buying handguns,
the report says.

The report was released on the day that the House of
Representatives passed a bill designed to make it more
difficult for people with mental health problems, such
as Cho, to buy firearms.

Lawmakers said the measure, the first major
gun-control legislation since 1994, would improve the
national gun background check system by requiring
states to report their list of mentally ill people who
are prohibited from buying firearms to the National
Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Cho, who killed 32 students and faculty members April
16 before turning a gun on himself, had been deemed
mentally ill and a danger to himself in December 2005,
but that information was not available in the computer
systems used by the outlets that sold him guns.

The Democrat-backed legislation was crafted in
coordination with the National Rifle Association,
increasing its chances of becoming law, lawmakers said
yesterday.

The federal report released yesterday was commissioned
by Bush, who ordered Education Secretary Margaret
Spellings, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike
Leavitt and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to
meet with school officials, mental health experts and
local leaders in 12 states to figure out how to better
address some of the issues raised by the Virginia Tech
case.

The report found that teachers and school
administrators fear they might be breaking the law if
they share student information. In many cases, the
report said, officials have more power to share
information than they realize.

"One of the most important things we found is that
many of the obstacles are perceived," Leavitt said.
"People don't understand what they can share and what
they can't share and that we need to do a much better
job educating educators, the mental health community
and law enforcement that they can, in fact, share
information when a person's safety or a community's
safety is in fact potentially endangered."

In a statement, Bush said that record-sharing among
officials in health care, law enforcement and other
areas "must improve."

Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger said that
"based on my quick review, the report unearthed the
deep complexities of the issues facing college
campuses today. We believe that this will further
inform the national and our state discussion on the
nexus between societal safety and personal freedoms."

One of the nation's leading advocacy groups for the
mentally ill said that the report doesn't reveal
anything that wasn't already known and that it ignores
the need for more funding for people with mental
health problems.

"We don't need any more commissions or task forces. We
know what to do," said Michael J. Fitzpatrick,
executive director of the National Alliance on Mental
Illness, based in Arlington. "The president's task
force report is a disappointment. It repeats much of
what we have known for years. It talks about
encouraging people to get help when they need it --
when the real problem is that help often is not
available."

Others said that the report heightens concerns about
how to protect the privacy rights of those who are
deemed mentally ill while giving family members access
to pertinent information.

"It's becoming a bigger and bigger issue," said Mary
Zdanowicz, executive director of the Treatment
Advocacy Center in Arlington. "There are a lot of
families getting frustrated."

In addition to making suggestions on mental health
issues, the report also recommends that schools
develop procedures for quickly notifying students when
emergencies occur.

Virginia Tech officials waited more than two hours to
alert the more than 25,000 students that two students
had been fatally shot that morning. By then, Cho was
in another campus building, where he killed 30 more
people.

The report and gun-control legislation come as
Virginia conducts its own investigation into the
shooting. Relatives of shooting victims have raised
concerns about that investigation, saying that they
should be represented on a state panel.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said yesterday that he had
been in regular contact with many family members since
early May and had offered to put them in touch with
the panel.

"I really felt that in my dialogue with family
members, I had connected everybody who wanted to be
connected with the panel," Kaine said.

Kaine said he didn't think it would be appropriate to
name a relative to the panel. "I kind of view the
panel in a way kind of almost like a jury. They are
sitting in judgment, and it is a tradition in juries
-- folks with a direct connection to the event are not
on the jury," said Kaine, noting that there is no
Virginia Tech representative on the panel.

Staff writers Tim Craig and Michael Abramowitz
contributed to this report.



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