The suicide of Sen. Creigh Deeds’ son, Gus, stirred legislators this winter to piece together mental health reforms intended to avert similar tragedies. But they have done so without the benefit of a report from the state inspector general assessing why the young man did not receive the psychiatric treatment his father sought.
The report remains under wraps, but the reason for its delay became public, if not clear, with the March 1 resignation of Douglas Bevelacqua, the chief investigator for behavioral health issues.
What’s known about that report thus far comes from Bevelacqua. In his letter of resignation, he identifies disagreements with other state officials over the deletion of two specific items. One is a dispute over whether to include a quote from Deeds stating that the behavioral health system had failed his son. Second is an assertion by Bevelacqua that speedier implementation of recommendations he made in a 2012 report “most likely would have produced a different outcome” for the Deeds family.
On the first point, there is no reason to suppress an opinion Deeds has already made public. While there may be debate on how and why the system failed, there can be no dispute that it did.
