Oregon Public Broadcasting

Mental health advocates hope the shootings in Skagit County serve as a wake up call. They say current state laws make it difficult to lock up the mentally ill before something tragic happens. Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

Marti Wall knows what it’s like to have a mentally ill son. Wall is head of the Skagit County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. She says she can identify with the mother of 28-year old Isaac Zamora – the accused shooter in Tuesday’s deadly rampage.

Marti Wall: “There have been so many times when we felt that our son was a danger to himself – gravely ill – and he was not committed. So I know where this mother is coming from.”

Wall thinks state law needs to be changed to make it easier to involuntarily commit the mentally ill before a crisis happens. But she says access to mental health care has actually improved in Skagit County with the approval of a sales tax hike earmarked for mental health.

However, in 2006 NAMI national gave Washington State a D-grade for mental health care.

Online:

NAMI Grading the States 2006