Posted: Tuesday, February 1, 2005 12:00 am
A distraught homeless man's knife-point suicide threat Monday in the Senate chamber of the state Capitol already has sparked plans to install metal detectors and perhaps limit access. This is regrettably necessary, given what happened:
Boyd A. Owens, 54, entered the Senate chamber about 11:15 a.m., demanded to see Gov. Ted Kulongoski and loudly decried his homelessness. Seated on the Senate rostrum, he threatened to slice his own throat with a 10-inch-blade knife. A state police negotiator convinced Owens to toss down the knife after an hour, and police arrested him. No one was injured.
Doctors at Salem Memorial Hospital evaluated Owens' mental state, but it wasn't certain at presstime Monday whether Owens is among the leagues of people who are both mentally ill and homeless, acting under the influence of intoxicants or some combination of these.
State police said Owens has a criminal record that includes previous convictions for drunken driving, assault, illegal drug possesion and theft.
But in some ways, what is most surprising about Monday's incident is that nothing as significant has happened in a long time.
Oregon's beautiful Capitol mall is situated within a mile of both the Oregon State Hospital's unit for the ciminally insane and the Oregon State Penitentiary.
People who live and work in that area have frequent contact with people who are "corrections clients," as they are euphamistically called.
An uncomfortable reality is that the area is also home to people with emotional disturbances, either from untreated mental illness or substance abuse.
While some might not like it said out loud so baldly, Oregon's Capitol is not located in the most peaceful part of Salem, whose name means "peace."
A few months ago, a man was arrested after exposing himself to women in the restrooms of various state buildings around the mall.
Yet there is danger in overreacting and excluding the public from the place where its laws, policies and reforms are enacted.
Whatever enhanced Capitol security measures are adopted must strike a difficult balance. We must tighten the previous total access policy without giving in to paranoid measures that lock the public out of its house.