Belmont University student Jillian Ludwig was walking on a track in a local park when she was shot and critically wounded.

The Nashville district attorney called on Wednesday for the Tennessee legislature to make it easier to commit someone to a mental institution after a man who was previously released for incompetence to stand trial was accused of shooting an 18-year-old college student in the head.

Belmont University student Jillian Ludwig, of New Jersey, was walking on a track in a local park when she was shot and critically wounded at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Metro Nashville Police. They arrested Shaquille Taylor, 29, after surveillance video and witness statements pointed to him as the shooter.

“Taylor was shooting at a car when a bullet hit Ludwig in the head as she walked on a track in a park across the street,” police said on social media when announcing the arrest Wednesday.

  • girlfreddy@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

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    In 1963 President John F. Kennedy signs the Community Mental Health Act to provide federal funding for the construction of community-based preventive care and treatment facilities. Between the Vietnam War and an economic crisis, the program was never adequately funded (this is the last bill JFK signs before his death)

    In 1965, with the passage of Medicaid, states are incentivized to move patients out of state mental hospitals and into nursing homes and general hospitals because the program excludes coverage for people in “institutions for mental diseases.”

    The California Legislature passes the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in 1967, which makes involuntary hospitalization of mentally ill people vastly more difficult. One year after the law goes into effect, the number of mentally ill people in the criminal-justice system doubles.

    President Jimmy Carter signs the Mental Health Systems Act in 1980, which aims to restructure the community mental-health-center program and improve services for people with chronic mental illness.

    Under President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act repeals Carter’s community health legislation and establishes block grants for the states, ending the federal government’s role in providing services to the mentally ill. Federal mental-health spending decreases by 30 percent.