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Portsmouth 911 call prompts talk on guns and mental illness City man hospitalized for psychiatric care

Portsmouth Herald (NH) - 7/30/2016

PORTSMOUTH – A local man was hospitalized for psychiatric care Thursday night after making suicidal threats, saying he wasn't afraid of being shot and a friend told police he'd previously seen a gun in the man's house.

The call comes amidst debate over whether a provision in the new Medicaid expansion law mandates the reporting of some mentally ill people to a federal database used to conduct background checks for the purchase of firearms. While the legal debate is ongoing, Portsmouth Police Chief David Mara described several options available to police that could result in the removal of a firearm from the home of a person in the midst of a mental health crisis.

Police were first called to the Portsmouth man's home on Thursday at about 4 p.m. when someone reported receiving a text from him that contained a suicidal message. A responding officer radioed that the resident said he was fine and didn't want to speak with police.

Almost five hours later, police dispatchers reported a therapist made a 911 call to report receiving a suicidal voicemail from the same man. Shortly after, another person called police to say they received a suicidal message from the resident that included his saying he was not afraid of being shot by police, according to emergency radio communications.

An officer radioed from the scene that the man’s roommate responded with a key to make entry and said he’d seen a gun in the house about a year earlier. The man was found in safe physical health but, according to police, he was brought to the hospital for emergency psychiatric care.

Police Capt. Frank Warchol said no gun was seen in the home and based on interviews conducted by a responding officer, “there was no indication to believe there was one.”

Mara said, generally speaking, if there were a weapon, it could be confiscated by police “under certain circumstances.”

“We would not be trying to confiscate a weapon for any other reason than public safety,” he said.

Mara said the first priority at a scene where a gun owner is having a mental health crisis is to get the person treatment. “We don’t do enough for mentally ill people,” he said.

The second priority, he said, would be to “get the weapon so they don’t harm themselves or others.”

Mara said responding officers can ask if there are any weapons in the home and if police can “hold them for safe keeping.” Concerned family members can also transfer weapons to police, he said.

If a police chief receives information about someone being involuntarily admitted to a hospital for psychiatric care, Mara said, that chief can revoke the person’s license to carry a concealed weapon. But in New Hampshire, he reminded, a license is not required for gun ownership.

Again speaking in general terms, Mara said if a gun owner is talking about harming him or herself, weapons found on scene can be “taken for safe keeping.” If someone with a weapon makes “specific threats” to harm someone else, the chief said, the person can be arrested for criminal threatening and a judge can be petitioned to order the surrender of all firearms as a condition of bail.

“So it all depends on the circumstances,” Mara said. “There are so many variables.”

In a July 8 letter to Chief Justice Linda Dalianis, Attorney General Joseph Foster reported the state’s new Medicaid expansion law, approved by Gov. Maggie Hassan, expands the state’s authority to report people with specific mental health histories to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is used to approve gun purchases. Foster said under the Medicaid expansion law, the state has a new obligation to report people for inclusion in the national system if they have been involuntarily committed, found incompetent to stand trial, or not guilty by reason of insanity.

Last week, Howard Zibel, general counsel for the New Hampshire Supreme Court disagreed.

In a July 22 letter, Zibel wrote to Foster that the new Medicaid expansion law is “not sufficiently clear on its face for the judicial branch to begin the reporting that you request.”

“This letter reflects an administrative determination of the (judicial) branch,” the lawyer for the state’s highest court wrote, while advising that the legal debate can be brought before a judge.

Zibel’s letter also notes the chief justice received a joint letter from the Disabilities Rights Center of New Hampshire and the ACLU of New Hampshire, both “espousing a different interpretation of the statute” than the attorney general.

No litigation involving the debate had been filed as of Friday.