OPINION:
Making America great again must start with cleaning the streets of our greatest cities. Too often, it’s impossible to walk more than a few blocks without confronting someone with obvious psychological disorders.
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing his Cabinet to come up with ways to persuade states and courts to protect the public from the disturbed people who shout obscenities at passersby or harass pedestrians who decline to give them money.
This is more than a mere nuisance, as distemper can turn violent in the homeless encampments that have multiplied in every Democratic-led city. Liberals are willing to discuss the issue only in terms of “decriminalizing mental illness” or treating the mentally ill as victims of society or overzealous cops. The left created this problem.
In Maryland, for instance, anyone who commits what would otherwise be considered a crime can have an emergency evaluation petition filed on his behalf, resulting in a temporary visit to a psychiatric facility. If a judge grants the petition, “there are unlikely to be any penalties” imposed for the original offense, Maryland family lawyer LaSheena M. Williams told The Washington Times.
It’s a free pass that carries real-world consequences. In 2023, a Montgomery County, Maryland, man stopped his car on a busy street, removed all his clothes and jumped naked onto a moving ambulance. Local officials refused to provide further details about what happened because the “records requested relate to medical or psychological information [and] therefore … cannot be released.”
The same man was arrested and charged a few months ago at the private elementary school where he worked for allegedly assaulting two officers in a parking lot scuffle. The school had no idea about the man’s unsettling past because, as Ms. Williams said, an emergency evaluation petition is “unlikely to come up in a background check.”
It’s irresponsible to allow privacy laws to shield dangerous people from accountability for felonious conduct, especially when they are applying for a job working with minors.
In Manhattan last year, a man purportedly punched a woman in the face, breaking her jaw and knocking out several teeth. The incident drew widespread attention after the victim made a viral TikTok video, yet a judge overlooked the purported perpetrator’s history of troublemaking and released him. He had been charged in two earlier assaults that were dismissed after he was found unfit to stand trial.
A decade ago, a local volunteer organization resorted to a protracted legal battle to find out about the suspect’s frequent stays in mental hospitals, yet nothing was ever done to rectify his hostile behavior.
Americans should never fear they might be clobbered on the back of the head anywhere in the country, let alone in their own neighborhoods. Parents should be able to send their children to school without wondering whether a staff member is going to have a psychotic break.
The administration’s reevaluation of relevant policies ought to encourage change in states such as Maryland that “resolve” run-ins with the law under the veil of mental health treatment. This scheme conceals histories of belligerent outbursts from business owners performing routine background checks on prospective employees, putting the rest of us at risk.
Commonsense reform is needed to hold culprits accountable for what they have done. While they are held away from society, that’s a great time to offer rehabilitation. If successful, they are welcome to reintegrate, but only after they pay their debt to society.
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