Law Culprit in Fatal Stabbing

The death of Velasta Johnson is indeed a shocking tragedy (“Escapee From Hospital Held in Fatal Stabbing of Woman,” Jan. 18). Those in various kinds of contact with the accused, Kevin Kolodziej, must feel, rightly or wrongly, the burden and weight of, “If only . . . “ And it could be said that if any one of those people had acted differently, her death may have been prevented.

However, the real culprit in this tragedy is the law and the interpretation of the law that makes dangerousness almost the only grounds on which a mentally ill person may be hospitalized and treated involuntarily. And even dangerousness, as this case illustrates, can be interpreted away so that there is no meaningful law that ensures treatment for the ill person and protects both that person and the public.

The law, as it is presently enforced, allows many of the most severely ill to go untreated and protects the Mental Health Department in its decisions of neglect. A person has the right under the law “to be crazy.” Families often must watch helplessly as their ill relatives deteriorate. It can be nightmarish for both.

It is estimated that Ventura County has 950 homeless mentally ill people. The shock is not just that this tragedy happened, but that it doesn’t happen more often when severely disturbed people are left to roam and suffer their illness untreated. The double tragedy is that Kevin Kolodziej, if found guilty, is a murderer, and with treatment he would not have become that.

The California Alliance for the Mentally Ill and its local Ventura County AMI affiliate have tried with limited success to change the law. The American Civil Liberties Union is a major force against this effort. They are attorneys who have little understanding and appreciation of illnesses such as schizophrenia. The public must become informed and demand that the law be changed.

LOU MATTHEWS

Ventura