TRI In The News
Legislator Seeks Probe of Former Marine's Detention
From The Richmond Times-Dispatch
Original article available here
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is being asked to authorize a Virginia State Police investigation of the detention last month of former Marine and Chesterfield County resident Brandon Raub.
Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Henrico, said Friday that he mailed the request Thursday after a constituent wrote Morrissey that Raub "never would have been in a position to be subject to (failures of the mental-health system) had the Chesterfield Police Department acted in accordance with the law."
Morrissey asks in his letter that Cuccinelli authorize state police to investigate Chesterfield police, although most of the criticism of Raub's detention in a western Virginia hospital far from his home has focused on alleged failures within the emergency detention process Raub underwent after he was taken into custody by Chesterfield police and federal agents Aug. 16.
Chesterfield police said Raub was taken into custody for a mental-health examination because of postings he made on his Facebook page.
When Chesterfield police, accompanied by federal agents, approached Raub, the 26-year-old fell to the ground but generally complied with orders from police.
But police lacked a search warrant, did not read Raub his right to remain silent and handcuffed him before taking him into custody, the Rutherford Institute has alleged.
The Charlottesville-based First Amendment organization and lawyers with the Troutman Sanders law firm in Richmond argued that the process used to assess Raub in jail and to detain him for a mental-health evaluation violated state law and regulations pertaining to time limits for holding Raub. They also argued that Raub received only cursory assessments from mental-health workers.
A Hopewell Circuit Court judge on Aug. 23 ordered Raub released after concluding that a special justice had failed to properly fill out forms ordering Raub to undergo a 30-day confinement in the wake of findings that Raub was mentally ill.
The Rutherford Institute hailed the decision as upholding Raub's rights to free speech and erasing his unlawful detainment. But no one has publicly stepped forward to examine the process under which Raub was taken into custody, assessed and then ordered to a Veterans Affairs hospital in Salem for 30 days.
Morrissey said Friday that "there was a total breakdown of the system" and indicated he wants a full examination of the process beginning with a state police investigation of Chesterfield police.
Police and mental-health officials in Chesterfield have said they did nothing wrong.
Raub was featured in a Rutherford Institute video shortly after his release and appeared to be thinking clearly and expressed concern that others could be detained for merely questioning the direction of the country and government actions.
