As everyone knows, and the Montreal police have finally figured out (amazing — he was only spamming the Montreal city police twitter account in addition to all the usual targets), Dennis Markuze has been a naughty young man again, and now he’s been arrested — and released — again.
A Saint-Laurent man has been charged, again, with abusing social media to threaten people who express their views online.
Dennis Markuze, 40, faces three new charges, including one alleging he violated the conditions of a sentence he received in May for the same offence. He was also charged with threatening the Montreal police officer who was investigating claims from several of Markuze’s past victims. Those victims alleged that Markuze’s threats have intensified in recent months.
This isn’t a case where the police should be so involved, I think — Markuze has some serious mental health issues that need more professional help.
I was reading elsewhere that the Montreal Police argued that no order had ever been filed against Markuze, so they couldn’t do anything.
I mean, seriously? Can the police ever do their job properly?
So glad they released him again, straight away. Not like he blatantly violated the terms of his original release or anything.
I agree. He needs help, and he knows it but can’t admit it; so he keeps on acting out due to an unadmitted desire to be stopped and helped.
There doesn’t seem to be a good system for containing threatening people in canada either then. Hes practically waving a sign about being a danger to other people and no one can do much of anything until he acts on his threats.
I concur. Taunting the police? If that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what is.
He is lucky to be in Canada.
In the USA death threats are felonies.
They are so frequent that the FBI in the past ignored most of them.
That all stopped when Jared Loughner shot Gabrielle Giffords. Shooting politicians, who are their bosses, got their attention and they’ve been rounding them up ever since.
There are a lot of people in prison for death threats these days.
I can’t help but feel for the man. The system isn’t just failing him, its doing so repeatedly.
And remember folks, if he ever does go over the cliff and take violent action to ‘solve’ his problems, just remember the mental health warning sign mantra: “nobody could ever have seen this coming”.
Don’t forget the inevitable neighbours who say he was a nice guy they couldn’t imagine doing something horrible.
Maybe now that he’s threatened a police officer they’ll pay attention —
sometimes the best way to help these people is by involving the police.
It stops the offence being ignored by any mental health services that are involved, and can allow for a thorough assessment of his mental state that can be legally enforceable for use in any subsequent court hearing.
The judge can then rule on any sentencing in a way that addresses the long term risk issues this man clearly presents with
At least in the UK
Unfortunately, people who commit criminal acts because of mental illness often don’t get the help that they need and are often made worse by being held in the prison system without treatment, suffering abuse by guards and fellow inmates. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1175329–mentally-ill-female-prisoners-treated-cruelly-inhumanly-report-finds
Indeed. These baby-cheeked 40-year olds, they do get ’emselves up to some youthful hijinks, don’t they?
Chuck ’em playfully under the chin, I sez. O, them loveable scamps.
Related: I will forever blush at the memory of saying somewhere, once, oh, c’mon, give ’em a break, surely the cops are trying or whatever it was.
‘What order?’ Seriously?
Umm… People… You are actually cops, right?
And, y’know, far be it from me to tell anyone how to do their jobs or nothin’, but somehow I just had this naive notion that such things as court orders ought, really, to be the kind of thing people in your business might have some kind of handle on…
I mean, sure, I know, I know, life is very complicated and databases and computers and stuff, these are all terribly scary, I’m sure, and yes, yes, shush dears, I know, we’re all so busy…
But ‘what order?’ Ummmm…
It’s funny, too, y’know… Sez in the reports I’m finding (here, if you’ll pardon a brief statistical interlude from snark) there’s a fairly decent per capita officer-per-citizen thing going on in Montréal, at least at last sampling… And the country at large does seem to be spending pretty heavily on the allegedly thin blue line… So even that whole ‘busy’ thing…
Mebbe there’s a few too many of you, hmm? Tripping over each other, might it even be? Hard to get things done, what with the crowding around the lockers?
… and me, I’m starting to think there might be one or two involved in this latest caper here could probably be moved along to some other line of business, toward easing this problem.
He was even pestering me as well. The only reason I can guess is that he saw me on Skeptically Speaking and added me to his spam list. Hopefully this won’t keep happening again and again, for the sake of everyone involved especially Markuze.
I haven’t seen anywhere else that he’s been released again after the latest arrest. Does anyone have a citation for that?
Young man?
@13, Myself: Nevermind, I see it’s at the end of the Montreal Gazette article. It doesn’t say he’ll have to a appear in court about this, just promise to be a good boy. Again.
Montreal isn’t exactly some small Canadian town. And they had their hands full with the city overrun by thousands of student protesters over the summer, and a canibal murderer who mailed body parts across the country.
I think the Montreal police are doing a pretty decent job.
@16 saramayhew: And they had their hands full with the city overrun by thousands of student protesters over the summer, and a canibal murderer who mailed body parts across the country.
I’ll give you the cannibal, but I really believe police presence at protests is counterproductive on the whole. Sure, a minority of protests might turn into riots, and many others will require a dispersal order (particularly in cases of trespass), but adding a police presence just fans the flames and increases the chance of a violent altercation. When people are pissed off, the last thing they need is a highly-visible symbol of the powers that be, aligned against them.
I hope he gets help, and is kept away from harassing people until he does.
But I’m still pissed about MY FINISHED.
The police were actually very helpful. I believe it is the Montreal courts that have let Markuze down. For the full story, check out my brand new blog post where I tell the full Markuze story. Over 50 skeptics and atheists helped.
Krelnick, that is nice of you.
I’m one of countless who has received his bizarre attention.
But you put a blind link in your directions. A lot of people won’t follow blind links. In the past, we’ve had trolls put in blind links to malware sites.
Ah. Noted. Does look a lot more like the courts’ end was the problem, fair enough.
… and okay, the courts, those are understaffed. Irritable staffing suggestions hereby rescinded, I guess, for what it’s worth.
… also, seriously, that’s one impressive piece of work, there.
PZ, I notice at the end of krelnik’s post:
Your name is not included among the helpful. Is that because (if you care to comment):
?
You would think Montreal was in California or something.
In a lot of places the mental health system is drastically underfunded.
This results in what we have been trying to get away from for decades. Criminalizing mental illness. Because while treatment options are underfunded, there is always the city/county jail.
What an odd juxtaposition.
– AJ Milne
Except for the whole “what order, there’s no order” bit – since May. But doesn’t Montreal have probation officers or something? Who should have been checking up on him? I think your original comment stands. Particularly in light of the first twenty rounds of ignored complaints before Mabus was arrested the first time.
-PZ Myers
AFAICT, they aren’t all that involved. Yes, he certainly needs some enforced help.
Separately, I’d point out that if Markuze really gets the help he needs, he might become less delusional (if that is a clinical factor for him), and might have better control over his urges. However, given his behavior, it is quite likely he will still be an asshole with incredibly stupid ideas, but hopefully not potentially dangerous or so bloody annoying (or threatening, etc., depending on who you are).
Not really, in that those were probably the two highest profile news stories out of Montreal this year.
What either of those things has to do with DM, I don’t know.
Regarding posts 19 and 20: It would have been helpful, Krelnick, had you identified yourself as Tim Farley so Raven and I wouldn’t have been so hesitant to click on your link. I’m in the middle of reading the story. You’ve done a great service to the skeptical community, the internet in general, and hopefully to Markuze himself.
Threats are a crime in Canada.
I think this is another case of “The Interwebs Ain’t Real” syndrome. At least I hope it is that because otherwise I am tempted to think that the reason the police don’t take this seriously is because he is targeting Atheists and who cares about those right? *Is trying really hard not to sound bitter*
Trebuchet and Raven:
Bit.ly links are not blind. Here’s a tip: copy the link, add a “+” to the end. You’ll get an info page from bitly.com that shows you where the link goes and other stats. This works for bit.ly links as well as “branded” versions like “qako.me”.
The likely result of this arrest is Markuze will be sent to a mental hospital for a while, put on a course of meds, and be denied the use of computer. This might provide some respite from his victims. But then he’ll be released, immediately relapse and the cycle will start all over again. Despite his appearance at a few skeptic events the police and mental health authorities probably regard him “mostly harmless” and are unlikely to keep him locked up indefinitely or away from a computer.
@Krelnick, #29: The thing is, you’re a techy and know stuff like that. I’m not.
Montreal has a catch and release program. If the mind is too small, they let it go.
drxym @ #30, simply put no. Do some reading before spouting ignorant propositions.
Markuze can’t be forced into psychiatric hospitalisation. That’s not how the justice system works in Canada, on indeed, in Quebec.
Can people not just do a bit of education before commenting on Markuze and the likely repercussions of his latest infraction?
It’s bad enough that Markuze is someone in genuine need of mental health intervention without people taking wild shots in the dark to suppose that he’ll be forcibly hospitalised or required to take any medication as a result of what he’s done so far.
krelnik has been complaining about PZ not helping him for awhile now, way before this posting.
So who scares you more Dennis Markuze or Bryan Fischer? I would think that you should be more worried about the guy who has the most followers. That is the one that you should be putting in jail. Of course, it’s not that easy to do, especially because of his status in the public mind and heart.
@Thomathy perhaps it’s you who need “do some reading” before posting condescending remarks. Every province / territory defines mental health legislation where a person may be arrested and conveyed to a hospital against their will. Whether that applies to Markuze is at the discretion of the police, crisis evaluators his parents and the evaluating psych. Even if he were not committed, he has still reoffended and therefore I don’t see him being stuck back on the streets.
Sure. I knew that. Everyone knows that. LOL.
For the vanishingly small percentage of 99% of the world’s population that doesn’t know that, maybe you could just do what everyone does and…post a nonblind link.
drxym, Markuze is not at such risk. Of course, there are circumstances wherein a person may be forcibly hospitalised. Markuze’s circumstances do not, apparently, warrant that.
And his parent’s are not his legal guardians …we’re talking about a 40 year old man whom the courts have released twice with little more than a slap on the wrist.
Seriously, you could just read the entire story as posted above. The fact is that Markuze has already been released, despite his latest infraction, though he’s hardly on the streets.
I might apologise for my condescension, but considering your continued display of a lack of knowledge about this, I’m not sorry.
It remains that Markuze is a possibly dangerous individual who is in desperate need of help. Pretending, against the facts, that he will be detained for treatment is pointless. He’s free and he still needs help.
It’s different in the USA.
There are defined conditions where someone can be forcibly hospitalized in the USA. Danger to self, danger to others. It’s used often and is generally a good idea. They do get frequent court hearings and detention times are set by law.
To cite one example. A guy in my area threatened to do a Virginia Tech shooting at the local university. The cops put his name in a point of sale database. He was arrested a week later trying to buy a rifle. Sent to the hospital for evaluation. AFAIK, he hasn’t been let out yet.
No it is not.
You don’t know that. No one does.
John Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado Batman shooter, was reported to the police by his psychiatrist. Who did nothing, apparently convinced he wasn’t at risk of being a mass murderer.
How do you tell the difference between serious and idle death threats? No real way. Even if you guess right about which ones are serious, you probably won’t know. Because you will be dead.
Reminds me of that tire I got some time ago. It would never stay balanced for very long. I bought it from a tire place that offered lifetime balancing and puncture protection on every tire sold. So when the steering would start to feel very slightly wonky, every few months, I would take it in and get it rebalanced.
After the fourth, or was it fifth, visit they gave me a new tire.
Markuze just needs to get tuned up regularly. Think of it as a maintenance issue. A little counseling, and adjustment of his medication, and he will be ready to take his place as a productive citizen.
The good news is that he lives in Canada, where treatment is provided. If he lived in the US he might end up like Danny Rolling who, for lack of treatment, starting sneaking into apartments naked with a large knife. For lack of a few thousand in treatment we lost seven people and spent millions of dollars tracking him down and putting bandages on the gaping wounds in the community.
@raven — It’s not used often enough.
@Ing — Oh? Tell me, then, why is it a good idea to keep dangerous people in society, where they can continue to harm others? My abuser was clearly a danger to others, and all he ever got was a two-week hold to get him stable, care instructions, and “now, you just take your meds.” (Guess what — he didn’t take them.)
raven, when I write that Markuze ‘is not at such a risk’, I’m referring to his risk of being forcibly hospitalised. The fact is he’s been released by the courts.
I’m not referring to his risk in terms of the danger he poses to others, or himself. I happen to believe that he is quite dangerous and certainly in need of significant and immediate intervention.
@41 raven
There are threat assessment experts who predict the seriousness of threats with accuracy. Gavin De Becker is one of them and has written books about violence prevention, he specializes in it for a living. His position is that the context of a threat is the most accurate predictor of its seriousness, and he makes a pretty damn convincing case for analyzing the situation rather than the threat itself.
@43
You are assuming that it is used to deal with actual threats instead of further marginalizing people. I am assuming Ing has some information about how the program is practically applied, he knows a lot about immigration rights issues specifically. I do know of cases where women were threatened with court orders if they refused to have cesareans for non-emergent conditions. That is one way that these orders are abused.
As I said before I have a friend who was almost a missing person because a hospital misinterpreted a request and commited him against his will. The request was “i have a perscription for antidepresents I need but cannot afford to fill it…can you help” and they heard “I am depressed and need medication” so his phone and shoes were confiscated he was put in psyche ward. Fortunately someone believed him that he didn’t mean to wind up there…but they easily could have ignored him as a crazy person and he would have wound up a missing person.
Involuntary commitment is very abuseable by accident or design.
ANYTHING is abuseable if you pick it apart long enough looking for loopholes.
My point is, the system is needed because some people both cannot care for themselves AND present a danger to themselves or others as a result. My ex being one of them. Oh, he was okay with feeding and toileting and dressing himself. He bathed himself on a semi-regular basis, but you could still smell his feet from a fair distance. Able-bodied guy. But somehow he was entirely incapable of following a medication regimen, cleaning up after himself, taking responsibility for his actions (everything was not his fault [and usually mine]), distinguishing fantasy from reality, and had no impulse control. And entirely unwilling to change, because fuck you.
The slightest provocation, real or imagined, would set him off. If I was lucky, I could talk him down. If I wasn’t, I was the punching bag. Literally.
He should have been put in Western State Hospital on a permanent “vacation”. And he wasn’t, because OMG, a few people were wrongly committed, and now we can’t hold ANYONE.
No one was looking for loopholes. This was mundane result of a shitty system.
For fuck sake are you for real?
Jesus, Ing, the point is, someone who that very system of forced holds is supposed to help was instead released with zero supervision on a promise to behave. A promise that, just like all the other promises my abuser made, would go right out the window once he was free.
I agree that the system shouldn’t be abused or misused.
But I happen to think that the authorities (both here AND in Montreal) are being overly cautious, and are placing people in danger by their inaction in getting clearly dangerous individuals off the streets.
Where… how do we find a balance between preventing abuses and keeping people safe?
WMDKitty, I hope you’ll forgive me for not trusting you to make decisions about other peoples lives when a few months ago you were arguing for mandatory circumcision because you think foreskins are are gross.
dysomniak #51
You had better have your link ready.
Of course, Chigau: http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/07/simply-strange-ones/#comment-225204
dysomniak,
How do you determine who is dangerous and who is simply a little unbalanced? Markuze has been making these threats for years, can you provide an example of an occasion when he has actually used violence, or where he has demonstrated that he had any means or intention to carry out his threats?
Showing up at a meeting is NOT a criminal offense, even if you vehemently hate the participants. Showing up armed might be, but no evidence has been presented along those lines.
The Canadian system is premised on certain fundamental freedoms (listed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.) To summarize, one of the key ones is that a person should not be deprived of their liberty without good reason.
If we arrested everyone who made a threat on the internet, XBox live arcade would be a quiet and empty place… (not that I would object).
Criminal law is federal, and is roughly uniform across the country, but if Markuze is truly in need of psychological/psychiatric help, THAT system is provincially administrated, and I am not familiar enough with the system in Quebec to comment on what is and is not possible.
The system that I am familiar with is only really operational on people who are a severe danger to themselves or others, and only when a physician is satisfied that this is the case. Police are not empowered to involuntarily commit people simply for internet comments, and even as a police officer, I am glad that this is the case. I don’t want to live in the kind of society where the men with white coats and strait jackets can come for you just because you’re ‘thinking wrong’.
For the rest of you, if you’re trying to get someone in trouble for breaching a conditional sentence/probation, and they live in a large urban area, you would be best served to contact the Provincial Ministry of Justice (or equivalent) and try to locate the probation officer with charge of the individual’s file. They will be unable to provide you with any information, but they are likely the one you should be talking to. The original case detective likely has dozens of other open files, and would not be the person to direct new complaints to.
As far as the probation not being properly recorded, this isn’t unusual. The orders are written by humans, then given to other humans to enter on the police database. The second group of humans has to summarize the often lengthy legalistic wording of the probation order into a short point-form used by the CPIC system (with character limits imposed when the whole thing was on teletype), and often doesn’t know which parts of what conditions are important enough to enter.
ubique: My #51 is more concerned with WMDKitty’s tendency to prioritize her own personal preferences over the bodily autonomy of others that my opinion on Markuze. And in fact there are many people in the US (I can’t speak to Canada but I imagine the situation is similar) who are held on very spurious psychological grounds. I admit I have a perhaps knee-jerk response to the authoritarian assertion that some people just need to be held for their own good.
For those who don’t fancy reading through that old nightmare of a thread, this is rather representative:
Oops, I should have addressed that to WMDkitty, not you. Sorry. It sounds like you have about the same attitude I do regarding this sort of thing. Canadian psych holds are pretty rare, usually only used outside of the criminal system (family goes to judge for mental health warrant) or when people are simply stark raving mad (need to be restrained to keep from hurting self/others, etc)
I think people are too quick to jump to the “he’s crazy, send him to an institution” model of public order maintenance. If we actually had resources to HELP people with mental issues, that could work, but since government considers the mentally ill to be irrelevant and unworthy of help, we don’t.
There’s also the sad fact that people who don’t want help are going to be extremely diffcult to help. You cannot treat the intractably addicted or the intractably mentally ill. Forced therapy is no therapy at all, and forced medication only works as long as you can make them take the pills. I don’t know how we as a society can ensure that the mentally disordered get the help they require, since many of them will not accept that they ARE disordered.
In that case I think we are largely in agreement. Obviously those who are unambiguously threatening others must be restrained, but currently our systems for making that determination are very flawed, especially when class, race, or other dimensions of privlilege are in play.
Ultimately I think that our entire criminal justice system needs to be restructured around the idea of rehabilitation. How much longer must we hang on to the concept of retibutive justice?
I doubt anyone really wants to go back to the “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” model.
dysomniak, you’re a douchebag. It’s unfair (and a dirty move) to pull up something I said about something COMPLETELY different, and try to use it to imply that I’m either lying or exaggerating about my ex.
You just told me that I’m too stupid (or too hysterical, what with my fluffy pink lady-brains) to know when someone is a danger.
Quoted for truth.
You all have no idea what you all are talking about.
For every Jared Loughner, Cho Seung, or John Holmes that kills a dozen people or so, there are 5 or 10 that were pulled in for evaluation and either treated or committed.
I had a friend who worked at as a psychiatric evaluator at a facility that had two wings, one voluntary and one lockup. You can’t even imagine some of the people that end up in the lockup.
One guy was turned in by his family who were afraid of him. He believed that Satan had won the battle in the End times. All his family and friends had been turned into pod people, exact duplicates that weren’t somehow them. He refused to take any medication. They can’t let this guy out. He probably isn’t dangerous to anyone else, but he is so far out of contact with reality that he would probably die in the real world.
This isn’t even a serious case for them. One of the voluntaries decided he could fly and jumped from the 5th floor. It took hours to clean up the parking lot. I saw the result and to this day, I wish I hadn’t.
[PSA + meta]
Commenting Rules:The Rules of Charity:Reset.
No, you got it right, in your first paragraph: I think you’re lying. Or at least, given your history of prioritizing your own preferences over the rights of others, I wouldn’t consider you a trustworthy source on the issue.
@47
Something very similar happened to me, though I was not a missing person. My mother took me to the hospital after a very bad night, and somehow I ended up in a state-run facility. They kept me there for 80 hours against my will, and filled me full of light tranquilizers and Christian propaganda. My husband did some research and found that they couldn’t legally keep me there any longer against my will without a court order, so mercifully, I was set free.
I did not belong there. That being said, most of the people I met within the facility were not like me. They needed help. Some were violent and needed constant supervision. The way the place was run was terrible, and a lot of reform is necessary to actually help the people who require it, but most of the people in those facilities are not like Ing’s friend and me.
I’m glad there is a system in place, even when it fails. Failure of the system doesn’t mean we get rid of the system; it just means we have to work to change things for the better.
Perhaps it is different in Canada. Regardless, I hope Markuze eventually gets the help he so desperately needs.
@dysomniak — which makes you a douchenozzle. You’re not the one who was used alternately as a punching bag and a fuck-toy. You’re not the one who was fucking TERRORIZED day in, day out, by someone who claimed to love you. And you weren’t fucking THERE.
So who the FUCK do you think you are, calling me a liar? D’you think the nightmares and PTSD are also a lie? Huh?
Fuck you, shitbag.
dysomniak and WMDKitty
Take it to [Thunderdome].
I’m sorry you were abused, but I don’t think your experience justifies involuntary commitment, which largely affectsa harmless people. Or perhaps you would prefer we go back to Cuckoo’s Nest style asylums?