After a Vancouver man drove his SUV into a crowded Filipino cultural festival earlier this week, killing 11 people and injuring scores more, there have been many pointed questions about why it happened and why it was allowed to happen and, more specifically, what role the man's mental illness played in the tragedy.
Adam Lo is an involuntary outpatient under the care of a Vancouver mental health team following a forced hospital stint in 2024. He suffers from schizophrenia, paranoia and delusions, and is considered at high risk for his mental health to decline, especially given his occasional refusal to take medications.
More specifically, Mr. Lo, like thousands of others, has been on what is known as "extended leave", where he has been released from a treatment facility for supervised, mandatory care in the community. This means that his condition is severe enough to warrant forced treatment (e.g. mandatory medication injections), but not so severe that they must be held at a mental health facility. In this way, it is argued, he gets the treatment he needs, but without too much of an infringement of his civil liberties (hence, Mr. Lo still has a valid drivers license, for example).
Lo's Vancouver Coastal Health care team has commented that there was no change to his condition or his non-compliance with medications before the incident that might have warranted involuntary hospitalization. He seems to fit squarely into the parameters for extended leave, with nothing suggesting the need for enforced sequestering in a mental health facility. His act came out for the blue, with no possible way of predicting it.
Many people are understandably angry, and looking for answers (and preferably a scapegoat). But, however much people are looking for somewhere to lay blame for the tragedy, all indications are that Vancouver's mental health system was not to blame.
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