Attacks prompt action from Calif. lawmakers

Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

The California Legislature must do more to deter the type of violence that left six young people dead over the weekend near the University of California, Santa Barbara, Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday.

That includes establishing statewide protocols for all law-enforcement officers who are called to check on mentally troubled people, they said.

Additional steps also are needed to identify young people with severe mental illness and get them needed services, said state senators, who spent 35 minutes eulogizing the students at the state Capitol and expressing frustration that such rampages continue despite previous efforts to end the problem.

Meanwhile, two Assembly members proposed legislation that would create a gun-violence restraining order for use when family members and friends notify law enforcement about someone who is threatening violence.

Currently, therapists can tell law enforcement when they fear a client is at risk of committing a violent act. That can lead to the individual’s being prohibited by law enforcement from buying or owning firearms.

The proposed legislation would allow family members, friends and intimate partners to ask authorities to intervene. Law enforcement would then have the ability to investigate threats and ask a judge to grant an order prohibiting firearms purchase or possession.

Under current law, there is no prohibition on firearms ownership unless the suspect meets the standards for an involuntary civil commitment to mental-health treatment.

“There is a lot we can do to prevent these kinds of horrific events in the future,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who has spent much of his time in the Legislature addressing mental-health concerns.

Among them, he said, more money could be provided in next year’s budget for detecting and treating mental illness.

The lawmakers’ comments came after 22-year-old community college student Elliot Rodger killed six university students in the Isla Vista community Friday after posting an Internet video describing his plans. The attacker died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.

Authorities say Rodger stabbed to death his three roommates then fatally shot two women outside a sorority house and another student who was working in a deli.