CO - Mentally ill man slits throat of CU student in Boulder, CO

BarnGoddess said:

Why oh why do we let these people off as legally insane?

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5683314,00.html

The student will live after surgery, but this man was out in the community after being found innocent because of insanity in a prior attempted murder charge. Now he's trying to be placed in a job. When will we learn?

Video here:

http://cw2.trb.com/

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OneLostGrl said:

If one is truly insane, I am all for the insanity defense- Insanity is very real, that much I know.

BUT I don't think they should be let back out into society with a history of violent crime.

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The victim, Michael George Knorps, 17, from the Chicago area, was gashed in the throat and underwent an hour-long surgery but was expected to recover, said CU-Boulder chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson. The wound was described as non- life-threatening...

Some witnesses told the Daily Camera of Boulder that they initially mistook the episode for staged drama.

"Everyone thought he was doing a skit or something, but it ended up being real," said Cory Ravelson, a CU freshman.

After the attack, police said, the assailant ran away, shouting he had bomb-making materials in his backpack and screaming about the world coming to an end.

A Boulder County sheriff's deputy and a Boulder police officer who happened to be near the UMC chased the man, who began stabbing himself with what was described as a steak knife.

The officers used a Taser stun gun to subdue the suspect, who suffered multiple stab wounds and was taken to a hospital in serious condition.

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The suspect, Kenton Astin, 39, of Boulder, was taken into custody and treated for stab sounds.

The university said the man drove to the campus, walked to a terrace outside the student center and then showed a knife while talking or yelling incoherently.

He grabbed the student from behind and cut his throat, the school said. The student was able to break free.

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Astin, who was born Jerry Buckley, but has changed his name several times, was diagnosed with schizophrenia about six years ago...

“There was no history of schizophrenia in the family,” [Astin's father] Buckley said. “He always did well in grade school. He learned quickly. He always won the spelling bees; out of the 54 students together he would win the spelling bee. But otherwise, we didn’t know he had it until it came out about six years ago. He was having some severe problems when we found out about it.”

Those severe problems are a reference to Astin’s criminal record – particularly an incident in March 2001 that resulted in charges of attempted first-degree murder, assault, felony menacing and possession of a controlled substance. Astin was found not guilty by reason of insanity on all charges, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigations records...

Police said Astin didn’t like the way the man looked so he took a knife out of his bag and tried stabbing him in the chest.

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After more than two years of postponed hearings and "incompetent" findings, a state mental hospital has found a man accused of stabbing a University of Colorado freshman in the neck in 2007 competent to stand trial, finally moving his case forward.

Kenton Astin's attorney, however, told a judge Friday that he disagrees with those findings and that hospital workers have told him they're concerned Astin will stop taking his medication if he leaves their facility and returns to the Boulder County Jail.

"If he goes off his medication," public defender Matthew Connell said, "it will take a week or so for him to become psychotic again."

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Astin, who recently was ruled competent to proceed to trial after being found incompetent for more than two years, told a judge Thursday that he wants out of the state hospital, and therefore refuses to enter an insanity plea.

"Having a second (not guilty by reason of insanity) adjudication, I would expect to be in the state hospital for 20 years," Astin said. "That's what they told me, and I'm not ready to commit to that."

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Astin raced onto the campus in his Jeep Cherokee the morning of Aug. 27, 2007, on a mission and started shouting things like, "We are Columbine," psychiatrist Karen Fukutaki testified.

"He said this young man turned and told him he was crazy and then turned and walked away," Fukutaki said. "Then he ran up behind the student and slashed him in the throat twice."

Boulder District Judge Gwyneth Whalen found Astin not guilty of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault by reason of insanity, following the three-hour trial...

Astin was committed to the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo until doctors decide he's no longer a danger to the community.

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