The killing of a US visitor in Beijing, which police believe was
committed by a man with schizophrenia, has raised fears over the handling of
suspects with mental health problems.
The man An Libo was arrested
shortly after an attack downtown on Wednesday in which Howard Thomas Mills, 62,
was stabbed to death.
According to The Cincinnati
Enquirer, Mills was from Indian Hill, Ohio. On July 3 he arrived in Beijing on
a business trip with his wife, a senior technologist at Procter and Gamble.
The US embassy in Beijing,
however, declined to confirm any of the details when contacted yesterday.
The capital's public security
bureau said on its micro blog that the 34-year-old suspect in the killing is
from Zhaozhou county, Heilongjiang province, and had arrived in Beijing by
train that morning.
What concerned many people was
the news that An was also detained last year for a similar, but non-fatal
attack in Shanghai, where, after being deemed mentally ill, he was put on a
train home and effectively released back into the community.
Investigations into Wednesday's
attack, which happened at the east entrance of Qudeng Hutong in Xicheng
district at about 3:20 pm, are under way.
However, legal and health
professionals warn that there are no strict guidelines for how police should
deal with suspects with mental health disorders, which means that many people
could be slipping through the cracks.
An associate professor in Beijing
specialising in criminal investigation, who did not want to be identified,
explained that, under the law, suspects who display telltale symptoms should
receive a medical test. Those diagnosed with a severe mental illness should be
admitted to hospital, he said, while those deemed "less serious" are
usually released into the care of relatives.
"However, some authorities,
especially in major cities, are inclined to send people with mental problems
home, as they don't want to be responsible for the medical and supervision
fees," the professor said.
Criminal records provided by a
Shanghai police officer, who did not want to be identified, show that An was
detained in the city's Zhabei district in January 2011 on suspicion of
intentional injury with a knife and robbery.
"First, we get expert
testimony to see whether a suspect really is mentally ill," he said.
"If so, the suspect should be sent to hospital for treatment in that
district."
An was evaluated at the Shanghai
Mental Health Centre, which diagnosed him with schizophrenia and said he could
"not be held criminally liable" for the robbery or stabbing.
A spokesman for the city's public
security bureau was unavailable to comment yesterday. The authority has so far declined
to say why the man was sent home.
According to Zhaozhou police, An
arrived home on Aug 6 escorted by three Shanghai officers. He was placed in the
care of his father, who is in his 60s, and was visited regularly by police.
However, his sister, Sun Liying,
who lives in a different village, said yesterday there was no way her elderly
father was in a condition to suitably care for him. Before traveling to Beijing
on Wednesday, she said An had told their father he was simply going to Daqing
city.
Experts are now highlighting his
case to draw attention to the lack of unified regulations in the judicial
system for people with mental health issues.
"Different cities have
different rules," the associate professor in Beijing said. "Major
cities such as Beijing and Shanghai can easily cope with cases (like An's) in
line with their regulations, but instead they often send mentally ill people
home to save money.
"However, in some poor
areas, they do not have guidelines to deal with these kinds of problems at
all."
Huang Xuetao, an attorney in
Shenzhen, Guangdong province, who specialises in cases that involve mental
health, agreed and added that many families are unable to properly care for
such people, emotionally or financially.
"In the case of those patients
who pose a serious threat to the public, authorities must intervene in their
supervision, and not just send them back home," she said. "Some of
these people could be a threat to themselves, their families and others."
A revised Criminal Procedure Law,
which includes articles on mental health, will come into effect in January.
However, Liu Ruishuang, an associate professor at Peking University's health
science centre, said it still lacks practical and specific measures.
"We urgently need specific
rules to cover mentally ill people," he said. The government is still
working on a mental health law, yet Liu said introducing professional
regulations would be quicker and more effective. "The management of
mentally ill people involves many administrations, so balancing every
department's interest is indeed a complicated challenge," he added.
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