On Thursday, a judge deemed Bronx resident Waldo Mejia unfit to stand trial and ordered him into psychiatric treatment. His alleged crime is shocking, even by the depraved standards of mental health mayhem in New York.
According to police, 14-year-old Caleb Rijos was walking to school one morning this past January when Mejia, unprovoked, fatally stabbed Rijos in the chest.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An innocent victim is murdered, a family permanently traumatized, and a perpetrator who should have been the responsibility of the mental health system becomes entrusted to the criminal justice system instead.
During this year’s state budget cycle, legislators have been weighing Mayor Adams’ proposal, put forth by Gov. Hochul, to expand access to involuntary psychiatric care.
According to a poll published earlier this week by The Association for a Better New York, 88% of New Yorkers support this change. Democrats actually favor it at a higher rate (90%) than Republicans (81%).
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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Stephen Eide is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He is a 2024-25 public scholar at the City College of New York’s Moynihan Center.
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