VA - State Senator Creigh Deeds Stabbed in Bath County Home

[Reader]

Three nearby hospitals with psychiatric units had room for Deeds’s son on Monday

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...aeccaa-51fd-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html

At least three hospitals near Bath County had available beds the day before the son of Virginia state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds apparently stabbed his father and then shot himself to death, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Deeds’s condition was upgraded to good at a Charlottesville hospital as investigators and mental-health officials continued to search for an explanation of what happened. Austin Deeds, who was 24, had undergone a psychiatric evaluation on Monday, but officials initially said he was not admitted to a hospital because no bed was available.........

Officials with Western State Hospital in Staunton, Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Harrisonburg and the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville — all within two hours of Bath — confirmed Wednesday that the facilities had been in a position to accept Deeds’s son but were never asked to.

More at link.....

 

[AlwaysShocked]

"The Virginia State Police offered new details Wednesday on the attack. Police said the altercation took place outside the Deeds home. They also disclosed that the sheriff’s office had been called to the home Monday for “a non-emergency call for assistance,” but they would not detail the purpose of the call or confirm that it was to transport Austin Deeds to his psychiatric evaluation."

This is from the above posted article.

In a different article from earlier today it said the father had obtained the order for the psych exam and that the father had made the call on Monday to the sheriff's department for the "non-emergency assistance".

"The day before the Deeds' story took a tragic turn, Creigh Deeds sought an Emergency Custody Order, according to reports in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Washington Post."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...aeccaa-51fd-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html


How very sad for the father who was apparently known to be very caring in regard to this child.

 

[belimom]

Deeds returns to Richmond determined to reform mental health system

RICHMOND — State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, determined to rebound from a personal tragedy that left him gravely injured and his son lost to suicide, returns to the Capitol this week on a mission to fix the state’s mental health system.

Deeds (D-Bath) has proposed two bills intended to address what went horribly wrong in November, when his 24-year-old son, Austin, known as “Gus,” stabbed the senator and then fatally shot himself....

....One of Creigh Deeds’s bills, SB 260, would extend the period of time that authorities can hold a person under an emergency custody to 24 hours, up from the current maximum of six. The other, SB 263, calls for establishing a registry that would provide real-time information on available beds in public and private psychiatric facilities. The state has spent several years working on such a registry, which it expects to be fully implemented in March.

Deeds also proposed a bill, SB 287, that would make it a felony to provide a firearm to someone who is prohibited from possessing one.

More at http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...705-11e3-8963-b4b654bcc9b2_story.html?hpid=z3