APD Finds Stolen Property and Arrests Suspect

Misplaced Compassion….it is a problem! I’m in favor of helping out drug addicts by forced rehabilitation and a job program. Also I favor helping out the mentally ill who never asked to be so handicapped. But just allowing this shit to continue is helping nobody. This guy repeatedly breaking into peoples’ places could be spreading covid. Where is the compasssion for the regular working folks? Are we all just supposed to be cool with ripoffs? Huh?!!

Blaming everything on mental illness or drug addiction is getting old. Mental health issues are FAR less common than Humboldt County Mental Health would have you believe. Most drug addiction comes from bad choices. I believe one MUST pay for their crimes first and foremost. If it is actually determined they have mental health disorders verified by multiple competent sources (definitely not just the quacks at HCMH) or drug addiction by multiple competent sources than treatment MUST be mandatory and must be verified as successful by multiple competent sources before any judge can have the right to let them out of appropriate incarceration. In no way should society be forced to give any criminal a pass regardless of the cause. If treatment cannot be successful, neither should criminals be released. It will get far worse as long as the current methodology is allowed to continue.

So true

The question of when a “mentally ill” person is just an asshole is an important one. (Kym, please forgive me using that word, which has come into widespread usage as it is so often called for nowadays.)
For centuries, if someone would not cooperate with others, observe the social rules, and otherwise behave as a welcome member of society, s/he would either be banished, ostracized, or punished– sometimes with death. Unless such a person was clearly mentally challenged — in which case s/he might have been nurtured, protected, and gently corrected well into adulthood, as an overgrown child– bad behavior would mean being considered immoral– wrong– bad– evil– that is, an asshole. Other than faddish episodes of the popularity of possessions by evil spirits causing someone to act anti-socially, in general, for most of history, each person was responsible for his/her own moral decisions, and if he was an asshole, it was understood that he would be punished and should suffer– he asked for it.
Right up through the 1960s, when i grew up, this concept that there was a right way to behave, and if you did it, you would be rewarded with a good life, and if you rebelled, you’d have trouble– this concept ruled Western society. If a family was religious, you learned to walk with God; if not, you merely walked with Good– that is, if you were from a good family that raised you right. Which i believe at one time was most families.
But then came the concept of mental illness. Of course, such illness itself has always manifested in many ways; but the popularity of blaming bad behavior on brain or chemical imbalances grew until basically, some people can’t even admit there are assholes anymore. To them, NOBODY wants to behave anti-socially or to be unpopular or unacceptable in society; the sociopaths just can’t help it. There’s something wrong with them and we can’t expect THEM to change themselves. It may be how they were raised, the opportunities they missed, the drugs they’ve consumed, or just the way they were born; but we cannot punish them for being assholes, because it’s not their fault. We can give them drugs to try to straighten out their brains, of course (in the modern world the most-recommended solution is usually the commercial one); but we cannot seem to say either “That person is just an asshole and i’d steer clear of him,” or even, “That person did an assholish thing and should make amends to society as well as a real effort never to do such a thing again.”
Please forgive the rant. I have recently been negatively impacted by a reallllll asshole. He happens to have disabilities, so everyone is supposed to be sympathetic. Well, the disabilities have nothing to do with the asshole behavior (unless we suppose that any disadvantage at all in life excuses bad choices in unrelated areas)– and at the moment my thinking comes down firmly on the side of, “The guy is responsible for who he is; he chose to behave selfishly and hatefully; he is an asshole, pure and simple.”