Revelations that a College Station man at the center of Monday's shootout bought his guns legally but was mentally ill has mental health professionals and law enforcement officials renewing their call for more resources to treat people before they become a danger to themselves or others.
One of the loudest voices calling for better funding is Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, who runs the largest mental health facility in Texas - the Harris County Jail, where a quarter of the population requires psychotropic medications.
Those who deal with the mentally ill work to keep them from deteriorating to a point where they would cause a catastrophe, Garcia said.
"If not for the condition, these people would not pick up a firearm; they wouldn't be thinking about taking their own lives," he said.
Thomas Alton Caffall III, 35, on Monday fatally shot two people after a constable came to his door with an eviction notice. Caffall was killed by police in the ensuing gunfight.
He passed the background check to legally buy at least two guns, according to the gun store he bought from. In the wake of the shooting, family members have said Caffall was suffering from mental illness.
The Houston Police Department responds to more than 25,000 mental health calls a year, said HPD Lt. Michael Lee, about of them 100 involving someone with a gun in a "full-blown mental health crisis."
"The vast majority of what we see are suicidal people," Lee said. "Something like what happened (at College Station) is very, very rare, thank God."
HPD crisis teams
In Houston, officers are trained in crisis intervention and there are several special squads, like the Crisis Intervention Response Team, Lee said.
The teams pair an officer with a mental health professional who rides along to keep the situation from escalating into chaos. The clinician brings patience and a deeper understanding of mental health to treat the condition, not arrest the person.
The approach has worked to keep some of the county's mentally ill from returning to jail each time they have a crisis, said the sheriff.
"It's really the condition creating the tragedy and the mayhem; that's why (crisis teams) need to have a prominent role in today's law enforcement strategy," Garcia said.
Last year, he expanded the program by assigning three deputies to it and said more money for mental health professionals should be a priority.
"We need more treatment available out in the community," Garcia said. "We need more continuity of care between the work we do to stabilize them in our facilities and when those folks go back out."
Some of those inmates cycle in and out of the jail after being arrested during breakdowns, then are released after being stabilized on medication.
The sheriff noted that state funding reductions have continued to cut services for the uninsured at mental health facilities, like Mental Health Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County, contributing to an increased jail population.
One quarter of the Harris County jail population, about 2,200 inmates, need medication for mental illness. Less than 6 percent of the general population suffers from serious mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Lack of communication
Federal law has for decades prohibited those who have been found mentally ill by a court from buying or owning guns. But for years the background checks that dealers ran had a loophole: States were not required to report to federal officials that an individual had a mental condition.
"A background check is only as good as the records you can search," said State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who backed a 2009 law to improve reporting in Texas.
Court clerks now report court-ordered inpatient mental health treatment, acquittal by reason of insanity, commitment to a mental health institution, appointment of a guardian for an incapacitated adult or determination of incompetence to stand trial.
Texas better than most
Since 2010, the Texas Department of Public Safety has reported 205,148 individuals to the FBI as federally prohibited persons, based on court orders dating back as far as Sept. 1, 1989.
Since 1998, background checks have prohibited 9,007 mentally ill people from buying guns nationally, according to the FBI.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization that has spearheaded the effort to make states report court-adjudicated mental illness, ranks Texas as one of the better reporting states. But the group also estimated there are still thousands of mentally ill people in Texas whose names should be in the system.
Mental health advocates say resources for treatment are more important than legislation.
"It's a health condition, and if it's treated, there are really good outcomes," said Lynn Lasky Clark, president and CEO of Mental Health America of Texas.
Chronicle reporter Cindy George contributed to this report.
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brian.rogers@chron.com twitter.com/brianjrogers
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