The mental health crisis death of Romen Phelps at the Alexander W, Dreyfoos School of the Arts brought terror to students fleeing campus and hiding behind closed doors.
In a nation rocked by endless shootings, this May 13 event in downtown West Palm Beach, and a day later the racism-fueled murder of 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket, left Americans wondering, once more, “What’s wrong with us?”
What surely played a role in West Palm Beach was the deteriorating mental state of the 33-year-old Phelps, The Palm Beach Post has learned from his friends and former schoolmates.
A Palm Beach Gardens resident who once attended Dreyfoos, Phelps loved the school and was recognized for his contributions to student dramatic productions. But at some point, his mental stability wavered, his friends said. In the last few days he continued that downward spiral, he was hospitalized but released. That Friday he crashed his truck into the school gates, got into a fight with an off-duty police officer who rushed to the scene, and as students fled amid shouts of “Code Red!” the officer killed Phelps with a bullet.
Questions remain about the shooting that led to Phelps’ death, but one thing is clear: The safety net for those who fall from mental illness in Florida has many gaps.
For one thing, says Susan Stefan, a former University of Miami law professor who has written extensively on mental health treatment, we rely heavily on police and hospital emergency room intervention in crisis situations. , while, as individuals, we hesitate to listen compassionately from the start. A recent study of 25 states showed that Florida had the highest rate of involuntary psychiatric detentions: 966 per 100,000 people, compared to the lowest, Connecticut, with 29.
“What everyone wants to know is, ‘Who should I call?'” says Stefan. ‘What stranger do I call to get this person off my back?'” That feeling is part of the problem when the troubled person who needs help already feels like no one cares about them, he said.
Friends and family should try, without offering advice, to get a troubled person to talk and listen, says Alan Mednick, a Boynton Beach board member for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Many programs in our area offer professional help, but treatment can be expensive and is often not covered by insurance. Under federal law, insurers are supposed to cover mental illness on par with other types of illness, but in Florida the state oversees the insurance industry and doesn’t require it. In a perfect world, that would change and there would be money for people who need it to get mental health care, Mednick said.
There is also a lack of public awareness of the pervasiveness of the need and of the programs and providers available. Education is one way to address that and to teach the general public how to respond appropriately to people in need, experts say.
Prevention is the most effective remedy. The Center for Child Counseling, for example, addresses mental health issues even before a child is born by working with pregnant women, says Palm Beach Gardens-based executive director Renee Layman. The organization also addresses contributing factors in community settings and other stressors that can lead to mental health being passed from one generation to the next. Scientific studies show that children living with daily trauma, domestic violence, poverty, or witnessing gang shootings, for example, are subject to toxic stress that can change the physical architecture of a developing brain.
Another challenge is that just as the economy and the pandemic have left hospitals struggling to staff nurses, people trained for mental health work are also in short supply, Layman says.
Authorities have called the Buffalo shooting a hate crime, committed by a white supremacist. Race may or may not have played a role in the Dreyfoos event, in which another white police officer shot and killed another unarmed black man, but we still can’t tell as details remain under wraps due to an ongoing investigation.
But at the very least, the terrifying day at Dreyfoos should signal to all of us that mental health treatment is a priority that demands understanding and action.
The events of Friday, May 13, did not take on the dimensions of Parkland, Columbine, or Sandy Hook. But someone’s son was killed and there could have been more. Instead of wondering what’s wrong with us, now is the time to convene a task force on this multifaceted set of problems, to come up with a comprehensive plan.
What is already on the table was not enough to help Romen Phelps and others who may follow. Unless we work to find a solution, our society will remain in Code Red.
