The following are just some examples:.
1) In April of 1999, a schizophrenic resident of Salt Lake City, who refused to take medication had walked up to strangers and shot them dead. The gunman, Sergei Babarin, 70, killed two people and wounded five others before dying in a gun battle with the police. His widow and son said that he had refused to take his medication for schizophrenia. Even before this incident, in 1995, Mr. Babarin was arrested after he punched a 73-year-old man in a department store restroom, then tried to bite him on the face, the police said. At the time, he was carrying a loaded .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Mr. Barbarin's son, Alex, said he had asked doctors for help with his father, but was told that state laws limited involuntary commitment to people who posed an imminent danger. "It's an unreasonable liberty with people who need help," he told a news station. "You must be more preventive, because one mentally ill person can damage so many lives -- not because he intends to, but because he can't help it. (www.contac.org/contac library/rights2) .
2) The slayings in 1998 of two police officers in the U.S. Capitol, committed by Russell Weston Jr., a schizophrenic off his medication. Prosecutors are pressing the court to force him to take medication so that he might become competent to stand trial.
3) Margaret Mary Ray, who became famous as the woman who stalked television talk-show host David Letterman, refused treatment for most of the 25 years she was ill. She ended up committing suicide in 1998 by lying down on railroad tracks in front of an approaching freight train. Ray's daughter is quoted saying "I was raised the classic liberal, with the idea that you can't force anyone into treatment and you can't force anyone to take medication, I was wrong."" (www.contac.org/contaclibrary/rights2).
4) In 1999, Andrew Goldstein, 31, a schizophrenic man off his medication, violently killed Kendra Webdale, 32, a Manhattan office worker, by shoving her to her death in front of a subway car.
