No mental health relief this year

By Guest Columnist SUSAN PERCY, an Atlanta journalist and former editor of Georgia Trend Magazine.

I was already outraged by the Georgia Senate’s failure this past session to give a committee vote to the bipartisan mental health legislation, HB 520, that passed the House by a 163-3 margin. The measure was a follow-up to the sweeping mental health bill of 2022. It would have addressed a shortage of providers.

Yet it was doomed by a Republican power struggle, more specifically by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who blocked the bill because he didn’t get his way on another bill that, among other things, would have allowed construction on a new hospital in Butts County on land owned by his father.

Surely these machinations are reasons for anyone to feel a generalized outrage and a sense of helplessness. (How do legislators get away with stuff like this? How do they sleep at night?)

But the mental health issue became personal for me last week when my grandson’s City of Decatur middle school was put on lockdown because a parent of a student at the school, a woman who is clearly in need of more mental health care than she has received, showed up at the school one morning, caused a disruption and made threats toward the school staff.

The woman was subsequently arrested by Decatur police on charges of disorderly conduct and disrupting a public school; she is also accused of striking a school employee and biting a police officer.

No kids were directly impacted. The lockdown was lifted, and the school resumed normal operations.

Disastrous, no. Disturbing, very, especially coming the same week as the Nashville school shootings. But ultimately, a satisfactory resolution – except maybe for the officer who was bitten and the employee who was hit. And the teachers and students whose hearts were in their throats when they heard “lockdown.”

But there is more to the story, according to Decaturish.com, which has done first-rate reporting on the incidents. Two days before her arrest, the woman was accused of severely beating an 11-year-old boy, also a student at the middle school. Yes, severely beating. The student was taken to a local hospital and diagnosed with a likely concussion.

She approached him near the school, but not on school property, and began attacking. A school crossing guard distracted the woman long enough for the boy to get away. Lots to be concerned about here, but especially the fact that at least 40 people witnessed the attack and did not step in.

Police found the woman, Decaturish says, standing in the middle of the road, looking disoriented. She told them she had a diagnosed mental illness. They were also told she had not taken her medication since February. She was transported to Grady for an evaluation, then released. She was subsequently charged with battery but was not in custody.

The father of the boy she beat rightly wonders how an adult woman could attack an 11-year-old child and remain free. He expressed sympathy for the woman and her obvious mental illness but wonders where the sympathy is for his son.

There’s no winning side to cheer in this sad but appalling incident. The woman needs help, of course; but a young boy suffered the consequences of her not getting that help.

Were these two events – the beating and the disturbance at a school – directly attributable to the Georgia Senate’s failure to act? No, but the legislators’ choosing to settle petty political scores rather than address a serious mental health crisis with some concrete action makes it clear where their priorities are.

There is so much to do, and so many fronts on which this issue of mental health has to be confronted, so many necessary steps that must be taken to approach a resolution.

If there is anybody in Georgia – state senator or not – who does not have personal or family experience with mental illness, I’d like to know where they live, so I can move into their neighborhood.

This is a crisis, and it is real. And while those in power are seeking cover with vague, mostly unspecified concerns over costs, the “hard-working Georgians” they love to invoke are reading emails from their children’s schools about lockdowns.

Two House members, Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur) and Todd Jones (R-South Forsyth) sponsored HB 520 and worked tirelessly, but ultimately in vain, for its passage. Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican House Speaker Jon Burns were in favor of it, but the lieutenant governor and his cronies prevailed.

Supporters, hoping to display some optimism, say the bill will be back in the 2024 session. Let us hope so, and let us hope the results are more satisfactory.

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