Defense still seeks medical records in Brockway threat case

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Threat report leads to arrest

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA) - Saturday, October 4, 2008

Author: Will Bigham, Staff Writer

POMONA - Six days after he was acquitted on an attempted-murder charge, Eric Brockway told a mental-health professional that he wanted to kill the victim and a witness at his trial, then kill himself, police said.

The therapist notified authorities of the threats, and Brockway now finds himself back in police custody, facing four new felony charges. He is being held in lieu of $1 million bail.

Brockway 's attorney, Joe Borges, said the 34-year- old was seeking treatment for bipolar disorder when he visited a Yucaipa health clinic on Sept. 25.

To demonstrate his need for medical assistance, Brockway told an intake official at the clinic about his off-kilter state of mind - including his desire to kill two others and himself, Borges said.

"He didn't know it could be taken as a threat," Borges said. "He was trying to get help."

Brockway was scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Pomona Superior Court on two counts each of threatening a witness and making criminal threats.

If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 14 years in prison.

The arraignment was postponed to Nov. 6 because Borges said he wanted to hire a doctor to examine his client's current mental state and mental state at the time of the alleged threat.

Brockway was found not guilty by a jury on Sept. 19 of attempting to kill David Gregory, a Mt. Baldy man who nearly bled to death in September 2007 after he was hacked with a samurai sword.

Brockway was accused of pepper-spraying Gregory in the face and encouraging other people present during the attack to leave Gregory to die.

Brockway 's brother, 27-year-old Wesley Brockway , was convicted of attempted murder and is in custody awaiting sentencing.

Eric Brockway was convicted only of a lesser charge - misdemeanor battery - and was released from custody Sept. 19 after nearly a year in jail.

On Sept. 25, Brockway told the therapist he wanted to kill Gregory and Chad Blakely, who was present during last year's attack and testified during the trial, according to authorities.

Brockway , who told the therapist he was homeless, also said he wanted to kill himself.

Mental-health professionals have a duty to respond when such threats are made, and the therapist notified the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

The department ordered Brockway held in a Redlands hospital for 72 hours.

While Brockway was held, the department contacted Los Angeles County officials, who notified Gregory and Blakely of Brockway 's alleged threat.

And when Brockway was released from the Redlands hospital, Los Angeles County sheriff's Detective Richard Busch - the lead officer from his former trial - was there to take him into custody.

Brockway told authorities he wouldn't have felt the urge to kill if he had been on his medication, which he received while in custody. He also said he shared feelings of his urge to kill because he wanted medical attention.

"He needed help," Borges said. "He was trying to turn himself in to a mental hospital, which is the right thing to do if he's having mental issues.

"This is going to be a very interesting case, because the very people who he went to for help turned him in to the police. ... It's kind of a Catch-22."

Mental-health professionals are required by law to take action when patients they are treating make threats they believe are credible.

The professional standard was codified after a landmark 1976 state Supreme Court decision in a case brought by the family of a woman who was killed by a man who earlier told his therapist of his desire to kill.

Since the decision, mental-health professionals have been obligated, in nearly all situations, to notify police and intended victims when such threats are made, said Randall Hagar, director of government affairs for the California Psychiatric Association.

A person's medical and psychiatric history - such as Brockway 's battery conviction - would be a factor in determining whether a threat is credible, Hagar said.

"It sounds like the person is serious, motivated, they have a grievance. ... Those are all factors," Hagar said.

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Brockway now charged for felony threats

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA) - Sunday, October 5, 2008

Author: Will Bigham, Staff Writer

In October 1969, UC Berkeley graduate student Prosenjit Poddar stabbed to death a female student, Tatiana Tarasoff, who had rejected his romantic advances.

Tarasoff's family felt the death could have been prevented because Poddar had shared with his university-employed therapist his desire to kill the woman only two months earlier.

Though the therapist notified police of the threat, and Poddar was briefly detained, he was released because police believed he was acting rationally.

Tarasoff and her family were never notified of the threat. Efforts by Poddar's therapist to take further action against his client were rebuffed by his supervisor.

Two months after Poddar made the threat, he carried it out, stabbing Tarasoff to death in her home.

The lawsuit filed by Tarasoff's family against the university and others following the woman's death eventually resulted in sweeping changes to patient-client confidentiality laws that govern the mental-health profession.

In its 1976 decision in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, the state Supreme Court ruled that therapists and other mental-health professionals have a legal obligation to report threats deemed credible to authorities and intended targets of such threats.

It's because of the 30-year-old decision that Ontario resident Eric Brockway now finds himself back in custody and possibly facing a 14-year prison sentence.

Brockway is charged with four felonies for reportedly telling a mental-health worker of his desire to kill two men involved in his trial for attempted murder, a charge on which he was acquitted last month.

Prior to the court's Tarasoff decision, there was no strict legal standard requiring therapists to report such threats to authorities, said Randall Hagar, director of government affairs for the California Psychiatric Association.

"It was pretty open, I think," Hagar said. "I don't believe there was a statute on the books.

"And there may have been other test cases, but this is the one that went to the Supreme Court and kind of rocked the nation and created the modern standard of conduct."

When a client expresses a threat deemed credible by a mental-health professional, the worker will usually notify authorities and the intended victim, Hagar said.

"However, that does not preclude you from taking other actions if you deem them more appropriate," Hagar said. "For instance, involuntarily hospitalizing the individual. So it allows some discretion on the part of a therapist."

Hagar said the responsibility to report threats can create a quandary for people seeking medical attention for mental-health problems.

"With our treatments laws, the only way to guarantee treatment is if you make a display of dangerousness," Hagar said.

"However, you have to be imminently dangerous, and you can be treated against your will," he continued. "That creates a situation where people have to commit crimes" in order to receive treatment.

"That is a widely recognized Catch-22 that's been in place for decades," Hagar added.