To the editor:

As we enter the most sacred and joyous season of the Christian calendar, one local congregation had the very somber and depressing duty to memorialize and bury the earthly remains of an 18-year-old member that took his own life. We can’t overestimate the emotional cost to the family and the congregation.

Meanwhile, an emotionally disturbed youth is about to be tried as an adult for the murder of his grandmother. His condition was known, but apparently nobody acted to provide a safe sanctuary for him where he could receive treatment.

Weeks earlier a distraught woman entered a local church to seek help as she felt herself slipping into a psychotic episode. Church staff and volunteers scrambled to try to get her immediate help. While they kept trying, the woman wandered off and a few hours later murdered a family member.

The list gets longer and more gruesome. Since 2004, Douglas County has averaged over 13 suicides per year and the rate is increasing.

Meanwhile, the extremely high cost of testing mentally disturbed murder suspects, holding hearings and trials, appeals and lengthy incarceration is skyrocketing. Proper early intervention and timely treatment provide a lower cost, more humane and appropriate way for our county to handle mental illness of all types, including addiction.

I urge all citizen to demand that the Mental Health Crisis Center be separated from the jail expansion issue and started immediately.

Graham Kreicker,

Lawrence