Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
The problems we have in the country are solvable, but not solvable the way we’re approaching them today, because of partisan politics. Richard Helppie, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist seeks to find a place in the middle where common sense discussions can bridge the current great divide.
Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
Episode 292- From Crisis To Reform: A Mother, A Judge, And A Broken System
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One mother’s plea and a judge’s blueprint collide with a terrifying truth: the systems meant to protect people with serious mental illness—and the communities around them—often wait until harm is done. We bring Beverly Gille and Judge Milton L. Mack Jr. together to map how a 28-year struggle, from teen psychosis to homelessness and a mass stabbing in a Traverse City Walmart, reveals the exact points where policy, privacy, and practice failed.
We walk through the pivotal transitions that matter most: when minors become adults and families lose access, when court orders lapse because of rigid renewal windows, and when police lack clear authority to transport someone to a crisis center before danger peaks. Judge Mack explains the shift toward assisted outpatient treatment, why recognizing lack of insight saves lives, and how proposed Michigan bills would empower families to file petitions, broaden who can testify, and end the “seven-day trap” that breaks continuity of care.
Beverly’s story grounds the policy in lived experience—adult foster care that worked until it didn’t, ACT teams with uneven follow-through, and a release to the streets where legal access to potent cannabis accelerated psychosis. We connect outcomes to dollars and dignity: assisted outpatient treatment reduces hospitalizations, arrests, homelessness, and drug use, delivering better recovery and safer communities without demanding new budget lines. Most of all, we challenge a false choice: untreated illness is not liberty; treatment restores agency, safety, and community trust.
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Welcome And Trigger Warning
SPEAKER_01Welcome to this episode of the Healthcare Bridge, where we explore the vital connections shaping our healthcare landscape. Hosted by Nathan Kaufman, Managing Director of Kaufman Strategic Advisors. The Healthcare Bridge is dedicated to improving healthcare delivery by strengthening the strategic and financial performance of healthcare providers. As part of the Common Bridge family, our focus is on fostering insightful, nonpartisan conversations that drive meaningful change in the healthcare industry. We invite you to join us as we build bridges toward a healthier future. The show is available on Substack, YouTube, and your favorite podcast platforms.
Traverse City Stabbings Overview
Guests And Purpose Of Conversation
SPEAKER_00This is Brian Krueger, the producer of the Common Bridge. Today's episode covers a sensitive and distressing topic. We believe it's an important discussion, but please listen with care. On July 26, 2025, chaos erupted at a Walmart's in Traver City, Michigan. Armed with a folding knife, 42-year-old Bradford James Gilly attacked 11 people, randomly stabbing men and women, some elderly, as shoppers scrambled for safety. The rampage span from the checkout lines through the store and out into the parking lot, where quick-thinking bystanders, including a Marine veteran, bravely confronted and subdued Gilly until the police arrived. All victims survived, but the event traumatized a community and spotlighted the nation's mental health care crisis. Gilly, who has a long history of mental illness, was charged with terrorism and multiple accounts of attempted murder, but was later ruled incompetent to stand trial, underscoring a system overwhelmed and often unable to prevent tragedy. The following conversation is with Bradley's mother, Beverly, and the chair of the Governor's Mental Health Diversion Council, Judge Milton L. Mack, Jr. We join the conversation with Rich Helpe in progress.
Judge Mack’s Background And System Shift
SPEAKER_02Hello, welcome to the Common Bridge. I'm your host, Rich Helpie. On the Common Bridge, we've covered the topic about mental health and the enormous need that we have in the country. We've had guests like Kevin Fisher on, a guest like Dr. Hong on from the University of Michigan, and of course, Judge Milt Mack, a returning guest who's been heavily involved with changes that we can make to our mental health care system. Also joining us today is a mother, a concerned citizen who's been profoundly affected. We have Beverly Gilley, who is joining us in studio today, to talk about her personal experience with some of the mental health policies. So welcome, Judge Mack, and welcome Beverly to the Common Bridge. Judge Mack, our audience is familiar with you, but if you don't mind, just a little bit on your experience as a judge over the last many decades.
SPEAKER_04Well, I served as a Wayne County probate judge for 25 years. Then I became state court administrator, and I've been serving as a retired judge since then, visiting in various courts across the state. I've been very active on the mental health side. I was on the mental health commission in 2004. I was a state court administrator. I was a member of the Council State Court Administrators, and I wrote the policy paper that year on how to improve the mental health system. And that led to the creation of a national task force, which has led to the creation of recommendations for states across the country to improve the mental health system. And we've seen a number of those recommendations take place. The key thing is we're changing the system from an inpatient model to an outpatient model. We're changing the system from something which is not family friendly to something that is family-friendly, so people can get help early on in the course of the illness.
SPEAKER_02And not a moment too soon. And I know that uh we'll be talking today about some of the legislation that's in process here in Michigan. Beverly, thank you so much for making the journey down from up north. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and your sons, and perhaps a little bit about what's brought you here today.
Beverly’s Early Signs And Diagnosis
SPEAKER_03Struggles. Uh struggles through the mental health issue in my family. And our family hasn't had an easy route throughout the whole circus of this. And um dealing with uh the community mental health and uh finding out for Brad like who could be his payee and you know, and and his future and worrying about his future alone was very stressful on all of our family.
SPEAKER_02And how old is Brad?
SPEAKER_03He's 42.
SPEAKER_0242, and I understand when he was a teenager and he was an event occurred. What happened?
Treatment In Teens And Family Role
SPEAKER_03On my end of it, I was at the computer and Brad came into the home and he said, Mom, mom, uh somebody gave me bad pot. And he says, I'm freaking out. And I'm like, I stopped what I was doing. It's like, what are you doing at 14 smoking marijuana? And uh and that was aside from the issue, you know. Now I'm dealing with something he's saying, he's got bad pot. So dad and I sat there with him and we said, okay, we can't really take him right now if he we've got to see him come down from this. So we coddled him, you know, um, and we thought, well, we'll just let him come down, then we'll take him into the emergency room. But it got worse. He got more in the fetal position, and uh we waited, and my husband and I were taking shifts sleeping because it was a now we're into the wee hours of the morning. And then finally I woke my husband up. I said, I'm I can't do this anymore. You know, just see him just slowly deteriorate. Uh or I mean exceedingly fast deteriorate. And um, so we wrapped him up in the blanket and we took him in the ER. Dr. Lowe, uh, he was my family doctor, and he came in and examined Brad and he did the blood work, and it came back that there was no drugs in his system. And the whole idea of smoking marijuana at the age of 14 uh is not good for the brain, number one. And a lot of the children in the history that I've learned, uh, that's a time, that's a crucial time that children will get paranoid schizophrenia.
SPEAKER_02So I know so this 28-year journey that you've been on since he did have the event and uh culminating in a very tragic event up in Travis City, Walmart. And I I can't even imagine as a parent what you were experiencing that multiple people stabbed and your child was the permanent.
SPEAKER_03I don't even think that I've digested that quite yet. I mean, I I think uh that whole thing, that's my son, you know, and that's uh somebody that I cherish and I love to see him have to struggle his life with demons and and just these thoughts in his head that you know it's pathetic to see him go through that.
SPEAKER_02So you and your husband, a intact, concerned family, a child with an issue, you began to seek help. What did you experience after this interaction with your primary care doctor?
Aging Into Adulthood And Legal Barriers
SPEAKER_03Um, Dr. Lowe came back to me and said that Brad had uh uh clean blood on him. Uh, you know, the the results, there was no drugs. Um and uh he told me at that point that he was uh diagnosed as severe depression. We took him down to the um uh I can't remember the children's hospital in in Grand Rapids, and uh that's when it determined that he was paranoid schizophrenic. It all happened so fast. I don't even believe Brad really had a childhood at 10 minute to 14. They asked me before what was his childhood like? There was no time to really tell. You know, it was like everything before that was just uh gone. It was like now we're dealing with such a traumatic illness that uh that was our life now.
SPEAKER_02And so we want to understand the course of treatment. So right around 1997, here you are introduced to the mental health system, mental health services here in the state of Michigan. Judge Mack, I don't know if you have a total recall about what the policies were like back in '97 and you know, maybe what's changed what changed after that point. Were there significant events?
SPEAKER_04We've had some significant legislative changes since then. Uh previously you had to be in danger to suffer others in order to get involuntary treatment, and the only thing a court could order was hospitalization. So this had all changed in 1963 of the Community Mental Health Act. The idea was going to reduce the number of hospital beds and treat people on an outpatient basis. Federal government would agree to pay for this. Unfortunately, the federal government succeeded in reducing the number of hospital beds, but didn't put the outpatient system in place.
Policy Evolution: 2016 And 2018 Changes
SPEAKER_02So we had a system where there would be inpatient facilities and then the Community Mental Health Act came in in what year?
SPEAKER_041963. No, it's not, because we cut the number of hospital beds in this country from 559,000 in 1960 to about 35,000 today.
SPEAKER_02And with the expansion in population. Right.
SPEAKER_04So the system had to be changed. I mean, you take a look at uh Wayne County. The CMH serves about 38,000 people. And over a five-year period, we had 15,000 petitions for 9,000 people. 600 of those 9,000 people accounted for 36% of all the petitions filed.
SPEAKER_02Oh my.
SPEAKER_04They're just cycling through the system over and over again. So we looked at the the people who had at least 10 petitions, and there were 79 of them. In the one fifth per year, we spent$3.3 million on hospitalization and$1.6 million on incarceration. Nearly$5 million. And for that, we got nothing.
SPEAKER_02And I'm, you know, I'm recalling an earlier time you were on the common bridge, and you you talked about the jail system and the bail system and said it's about mental health, and even gave anecdotes about some uh people wanting to go back into jail because they could get their medication. So, Veg, when Brad and uh was when you took him down to Grand Rapids, did they give him an admission and and uh give him a hospital stay?
Housing, Exploitation, And ACT Team Limits
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. Uh-huh. And then uh we my son and I went down, we took Brad down there, and uh we ended up uh we dropped him off at the doors and kind of assigned him in. And um my son and I, my oldest son and I, we slept in the car that night and uh waited, and then we found out uh that they opened up the Ronald McDonald home for us, and so we were there for I believe like a good week. Got Brad more stable, and then we brought him home, and then he had his community mental health um and his doctor there. And you know what was really great about that? He was under my husband's care. He was still a minor, and so we I would take him to his doctor, and one thing that I learned is that Brad will always it'll be like treating uh sugar diabetes. He has to have his medication for the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_02When you brought him home, was he given medication or counseling or any other treatment?
SPEAKER_03Yes, and we made sure as his parents, you know, that we were taking him to his doctor's appointments and uh all his counseling and everything that he needed.
SPEAKER_02And how did things go during that period then when you got it home?
SPEAKER_03Because uh we made sure he was getting his treatment. I was able to communicate with his doctor at the time, and so it was flowing, everything was flowing. Dad, I we we took care of him. Brad did quite well at that time, as long as he had his medication.
SPEAKER_02And was the medication covered by insurance or through a state program?
SPEAKER_03It was a state program that covered him.
SPEAKER_02And and uh Judge Mack, when you think about that period, now we're looking at you know the late 90s, the end of the 2000s, a young man's had a crisis. Great family came in to support him, things are going better. What when you think about that from uh a policy standpoint, what was going on at that point that that seemingly addressed what was going on with young Brad?
Forensic Pathway And NGRI Explained
SPEAKER_04Well, the point is it was young Brad. What happened when he became an adult? Were you able to communicate with the people?
SPEAKER_03We got a lawyer and we asked, you know, we want to be guardians over him, knowing that the future is not going to get any better for him, that he's gonna need supervision, talking to his doctors, being able to have that open communication, and finding out that we want to just have some kind of not control of him, but knowledge of him as he progresses as an adult. We were told that, oh, do you want to take away his freedom from him?
SPEAKER_02Look, this is such an important story that we have broad acknowledgement and acceptance that mental health is an issue in the country. It not only affects those that have the diagnosis, it affects their loved ones, it affects their community, and if they their behavior can threaten other people. And I think what I heard from Judge Mack early on, there had to be a finding in a court, a danger to yourself, danger to others, and the only tool in the toolkit was a hospital stay, but it wouldn't be permanent. And now here you are with a young adult becoming of legal age.
Adult Foster Care, Renewals, Then Drop-Off
SPEAKER_04By the time when he became an adult, her ability to be informed about her son's condition evaporated, right? And her ability to take steps to make something happen extraordinarily limited. Like she couldn't go to court and say, I want him hospitalized. She could get a pickup order from the court and they take him to the hospital, and you've got to have two doctors certified that the person requires hospitalization before the hearing would even happen. And then the hospital, well, frequently we were we were seeing as many as 60% of the cases where the petition is actually filed where the petition doesn't even get to the courthouse because of a variety of reasons. So the system was not designed to help families. It was not designed to give treatment to people who didn't want it. It's a very good job at that. So the change we finally got in place was in 2016. Now, in 2016, we changed the standard. So we're not we're not looking to see whether you had an immediate threat of harm to self or others. We're looking to whether you don't lack, you have a lack of understanding of your illness, which could lead to harm to you or others in their future.
SPEAKER_02When you say we changed the system, was this legislation policy? So 2016, now that's a long time. So your son would have come of age around 2001, right? It would have been 18 or right around 2001. So now you've got 15 years of and loving your son, doing all the right things, and not having any ability to affect that.
SPEAKER_04She still could not file a petition on her own. She could still not uh make this.
SPEAKER_02And what's the definition of a what's a petition for people that aren't familiar with?
Release, Homelessness, And Missed Interventions
SPEAKER_04It's a piece of paper that says uh, you know, my son is is ill. It's a it's published by the State Court Administrative Office, PCM 201 for the detail, and it outlines what the claim is, and then that is brought to a court, and it's like a civil complaint, sort of similar thing. But the petition cannot be scheduled for hearing until you get these two doctors to the certification. So we had additional legislation in 2018 which really made the system start to work. And so it is working. But in the course of doing that, we discovered other significant flaws in the system. And and one that may apply to her case is you can enter an order for treatment today, which would include hospitalization and outpatient treatment for up to 180 days, and then at the end of the 180 days, you can file for a second order. But there's a catch. And that's the problem with the mental health code. So the catch is this the person's in the community. You can file a petition to extend, but you can't file it uh less than seven days before or more than 14 days before it expires. So you've got a window of seven days you can file this petition, number one. Number two, you have to have a certificate from a doctor in order to file the petition. And what happens is people who are on these long-term orders, they know this, and those disappeared for a couple of months. And now we can't get the cert, so we can't file the petition. So you have to start all over again from the beginning.
SPEAKER_02So here's your family doing the right thing. Brad becomes of age, and what was your experience then? It had to be terrifying. I just get this vision that he's cast out into the wilderness and he needs help, and you can't legally do it for him. What happened with you and your husband?
The Walmart Attack And Aftermath
SPEAKER_03And I got him into an apartment which had the elderlies as well as the young ones. And Brad's sociopathic friends took advantage of him. So I've got this nice apartment. We go shopping for little pieces of furniture at secondhand stores, and I thought there was a good future for him. But these friends would come in and they would just have some hot in the house. Brad would be sound asleep, and I'd come see him and check on him. And uh he'd be sound asleep because of a medication, and they'd be in there eating all his food and tearing up the apartment and messing it, and then neighbors would complain. Well, then he got on the ACT team, which is active treatment, and they really didn't do their job.
SPEAKER_02What is the ACT team?
SPEAKER_04ACT is a form of intensive uh supervision for a person receiving psychiatric care. And it's usually very effective. The key changes we're gonna see with new legislation, assuming it passes, is be much more family-friendly.
SPEAKER_02I want to get to that legislation because I think that's an important policy response. And I want to make sure that we have for our listeners, our readers, and our viewers an understanding of this very compelling case here. And maybe we want to rewind and say, all right, if if this law was in place, you know, back in 1997. So you now you've got his life is kind of being taken apart by his sociopathic acquaintances. They're not friends, they're doing that. And you're not, you don't have any resource, and but he is taking his medication. Did he have interactions with law enforcement or any antisocial behavior that you're aware of?
Law Enforcement Authority And Crisis Transport
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because of those friends that were intruding on him. And and he wanted friends, he wanted those, what he thought were his friends. And I had um living up in the Potoski area, I had Judge May was just an amazing man to kind of guide me through like Bev, you can't be his payee and be a mom, too, because these friends would tell Brad, your mom just wants your money, she just wants to take your money. Go get your money, Brad. Well, then there would be a confrontation with Brad with me. And Brad's a big guy, you know, he's like six foot. Ed Matson was Judge May's right-hand man. I would tell him that community mental health just seems like they shun me. They don't want to talk to me, they don't want to give me information because Brad's an adult now, and you know, we can't talk to you. So Ed May went in and sat on a few meetings with community mental health and myself, and he walked out saying, Man, Bev, they've treated you very rudely. And they didn't want me to be a part of my own son's life.
SPEAKER_02And you couldn't file for guardianship in volunteering.
SPEAKER_03I was told that you're gonna take his freedom away. Well, look at him now.
SPEAKER_02What's happened? Where what's what maybe we should just jump to that? What's going on with him today? Where is he?
SPEAKER_03And he's in Saline, um, the forensic center, and uh, I know he's safe, I know he's being fat, and I know he's he's got his needs, he's getting his medication.
SPEAKER_02What led to him being eligible and routed to the center in Celine?
What New Bills Would Change For Families
SPEAKER_03He was there before. He was there in that year when uh it was 2016. My husband and I were living in uh Arizona, our retirement home. We just got this home. And um I came home from work and I said, I gotta, we gotta go back to Michigan, honey. And he said, I feel it too. It was an it was a parent parental instinct. We needed to get back home. We sold our home, came back to Michigan, had to settle into the home we bought in Houghton Lake, and uh find out that community mental health. We we talked to them and we we said we want to meet up with Brad, and we're back, and they were happy that we were bad. But we went and met Brad and I knew he was sick. My husband and I knew he's not well, we went and told them Brad's not doing good, and they said, Oh, he's fine, we see him all the time. It's like, no, he wasn't.
SPEAKER_04Uh forensic center admission, why was he there?
Costs, Outcomes, And Funding Realities
SPEAKER_03This is why we came back. We felt something was very wrong or going wrong. He thought his he saw uh a funeral procession and he thought his dad was in that hearse, and he thought his dad was that apparently he saw it happen, the burial and everything. And so he um went and uh I guess he stole the shovel from Ho Home Depot from what I think he was arrested? No, that's not why he was arrested. He went and tried to dig up this grave and uh tourism headstones apart. This is so hard for me to even comprehend, you know, that he would do that. But he he thought his dad was buried alive, and he wanted to get his dad out of that grave. And he uh his belief is that in in Israel that they bury their tombs on top of the ground, and he believes that people shouldn't be buried below the ground, that it's wrong. And that's one of his beliefs, and he's very strong on that to this day. My husband talked to Brad on the phone, you know, now he's in jail in Potosky. Back then, yeah, in 16. He was picked up because I think he went and told him what he did. You know, I I'm not exactly that that detail's not that important. But do you know which court he was in? He was in the district court to me.
SPEAKER_04To determine competency.
Culture, Liberty, And Assisted Treatment
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yes. Um NGRI.
SPEAKER_04Right, so he was determined um competent or not competent standard trial was found to be not guilty of reasoning of insanity. Yes. And uh the charges were dismissed.
SPEAKER_02So that's just terminology, forensic center and NGRI.
SPEAKER_04NGRI and it's the um not guilty of reasoning of insanity. Correct. So when a person is charged with the crime, they can claim they that that they were uh unable to comprehend what they were doing, and then the first thing they do is send you to the forensic center to determine are you competent or not.
SPEAKER_02Is cop is the forensic center an inpatient center? All right, so it's inpatient evaluation and inpatient center. Like a mental what we used to call a mental hospital. Right.
SPEAKER_04Now the standard for competency in stand trial is very low. If you can understand that the the lawyer next to you is defending you, and this lawyer on the other side is trying to put you in jail, and the person with the black robe is hearing a case, it's it's very low. So to be found to be not competent to stand trial, you've got to be in some serious problem. And then so then the next step is to try to restore competency at the forensic center. If they do, you go to trial, and then at trial, the jury can find that's not good for reasons with sanity, or they can just find you guilty but mentally ill, or they can find you guilty. So I don't know what happened in his case. But if he since he was found not guilty for reasons with sanity, then they would have pushed it into the civil side. In other words, he would have been uh presumably petitioned for in the probate code by a probate judge petitioned for hospitalization. Because it in 2016 we still didn't have assist outpatient treatment up and running.
Closing Reflections And Next Steps
SPEAKER_02So here's this family, and now he's done something, and it couldn't even meet this threshold definition of competency. He goes in, and and I I'm almost afraid to ask this, but they had him in the forensic center, and then they released him back to continue his life at some point.
SPEAKER_03Well, they gave him a five-year probation. That's when he would go into the AFC homes.
SPEAKER_02Okay, what's AFC?
SPEAKER_03Adult foster care.
SPEAKER_02Okay, adult foster care. I see. So you your family bounced from teenage crisis, forensic center, community mental health, criminal charges, probation, now into adult foster care, and yet you weren't empowered to actually intervene. And is he taking his medications and going to counseling and becoming a compliant patient at that time?
SPEAKER_03When he's in the AFC home, and because he's under the jurisdiction of the court, he had to get his medication and he had to uh adhere to everything that he was, you know, given. Otherwise, the threat to Brad was that if he breaks any of those rules, he goes back to square one, back to Phillene.
SPEAKER_04Right. What happened at the time, they have these five-year contracts that's been changed. But on the five-year contract, the probate court was required to issue an order that you're a person requiring treatment for another year. And year after year, they just keep renewing it. Is that what happened with them?
SPEAKER_03He got a renewal after the five year, he got another year renewal.
SPEAKER_04Right. And so I'm really curious about what happened at the end of the last renewal. Did it just drop?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. They closed the book on my son.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And so she's not in a position to do anything about that.
SPEAKER_03They closed the book on him in October of 24.
SPEAKER_04So a year before. And so he was 41.
SPEAKER_03That whole time of since the forensic center. And he moved to uh the first AFC home, and then he got transferred to a second one. And the second one I never I knew it was in Afton, but I didn't know where.
SPEAKER_04That's what her problem was. At the end of the, as you get towards the end of the last extension, there's no limit to how many extensions you could have. The problem is she can't ask for one. Only the the medical professional can file a petition to extend.
SPEAKER_02But he's not under care. I mean, the the court ordered the adult foster care. Well, the court ordered it. They got it re renewed and renewed. And then how was a decision made to give him not adult foster care at that time?
SPEAKER_03Brad called me and said, Mom, if you if I can come live with you, they said that if I had a family member and I could come live with you, I can get out early of my probation. And I I had a phone call back around 2016 from one of the community mental health workers. Her name is Carol, but she called me, she retired, she called me from her home and she said, Doug, you have to promise me something. And I'm like, What's that, Carol? She said, You got to promise me. And I'm like, Okay, I don't usually do backwards promises, but what is that? And she said, You got to promise me you never let Brad live with you. Now, right there, it told me Brad's dangerous and she knows he's dangerous, and if he gets off his medication and is, he's gonna hurt somebody. So when Brad asked me, I told him, Brad, uh, because you and your brothers have all been in the court system, the court asked me never to let you live with me. My husband passed away in 21, and now I'm alone, and I, you know, I can't chance my safety knowing that Brad could be dangerous if he doesn't take his medication, if he isn't ordered to take away.
SPEAKER_02And ultimately, in a tragic event in Triverse City, he did show he was very dangerous. And what do you would you are you comfortable telling the audience about that date?
SPEAKER_03Well, Brad loved Maryland. And so now he's out on the streets and I kept in tr touch with him the best I could. I have another issue with another son that I'm also dealing with. But legal dispensaries. Brad could go in now and he's got his social security. He can go buy pot, he can make himself sick twice as fast. Because he's not he cannot have alcohol or marijuana or any kind of drugs. It just deteriorates him so much faster.
SPEAKER_02Bev, in our conversation, there was a well-publicized case in Traverse City, Michigan, where a man stabbed many people in a Walmart. That was your son Brad. And thank God that the people that intervened just apprehended him. What happened after that? Was he arrested and or what occurred after that?
SPEAKER_03He was arrested. I saw, I mean, I'm not one to sit in front of a TV and watch the news anymore. It's just uh I just don't do it. I was in bed that morning and I had my phone, like we do a lot, and I it came up on the screen. It's almost like somebody put it right there before my eyes, and I saw that people. Trevor City. And then I see this guy's face, and there's a circle around his face. I'm like, is that you know he had lost so much weight. So I hadn't seen him. And now he was on the streets after he was released like nine months. And then I look and I see now he's um people shoving carts at this person. I'm like, oh my God. And then I see him up against the office the police car in cuffs, and I notice his clothing. Brad always wears the uh cardinal pants and then like the the army colored clothes, and I'm like, that's Brad. And then when they said 42-year-old, we didn't know, didn't give his name yet, but that was my son. So I called Trevor City jail, and I said, This is Beverly Gilly. Do you have my son with you? And they said, Yes, hold on, and they got the sergeant on the phone for me. But what I don't understand, honestly, is when he was in Potoske and those officers told him, You have to move, Brad, you have to get out of here. Um, he was sleeping on the streets of Potosky, and Brad that he grew up in that area for 28 years. That was home to him, and he knew not to sleep on the streets. He was wet with rain. And then they told him to he has to leave, so he went to the park, and then they told him, You have to leave, Brad, you can't stay here. And so he probably got the bus. I don't know, but he probably got a bus. He traveled with the bus all the time, and that's when he ended up in Trevor City. But I don't understand, and maybe you can help me with that, Your Honor. Is they claimed that they had to have a pickup order for him. They had to go and get a pickup order, but they're officers, and they if they know Brad and they could see he's not well and he's wet with clothes, isn't it to serve and to protect? You know, what happened to them?
SPEAKER_04Well, that's part of the problem of the authority of law enforcement. Um the statute for a long time required that they have to observe that he's involved in a uh situation which poses a risk of serious harm to someone immediately. And so that situation in the past has not called for that. Now the statute's been changed, and so uh we're trying to educate law enforcement on the changes in the statute. It's one of the things I do. Every month I present to law enforcement at the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network on crisis intervention training, and I find out what their authority is now, which is broader than it used to be in terms of transporting someone to a crisis center. Um, I I think if you find someone in that situation, you really should transport them to a crisis center and let things go from there. That's the better option. And at the crisis center, they can sort out what to do.
SPEAKER_02So the inaction by the police of a young man that they knew out in the open, being reigned on, ended up with 11 people being injured, and now young Mr. Gilly, 42 years old in the forensic center, Lord knows what's going to happen next. But Judge Mack, you've been so involved now with legislation. If you so you've looked now, we've got a 28-year run from the first time the Gilly family had this shoved into their life in such a profound way. If the legislation that's being worked on today had been in place when young Brad was 14 years old, would the path be any different? Would it be any better? And and how so?
SPEAKER_04Far better. Number one, the fact that he was an adult would not preclude her from being aware of where the situation was and communicating with the people at the hospital. We we put that in the statute. Um, she could file a petition herself with the probate court and skip the hospital altogether because she could say, look, he doesn't understand his need for treatment, he's at risk of harm, he needs help. So she could file a petition for assistant outpatient treatment on her own without any without the hospital being involved. Now the the the statute changes we're talking about would enable persons other than psychiatrists to testify. One of the problems we have is you have that many psychiatrists willing to testify. This would expand who can testify as to need for treatment to psychiatric nurse practitioners, physician assistants operating under the authority of a psychiatrist as well as psychologists. And so then the person actually gets to the courthouse. But if it turns out your son, you know, when that annual uh orders about to expire under this statutory change we're proposing, she'd be able to file a petition for a continuing order. And she could file it uh ten days before, forty days before, fifty days before. It doesn't matter, we take that out. So the little trick bag is gone. She doesn't need a doctor's certificate. There's an existing order in place. She can just go ahead and file that petition. So we're doing is empowering families, frankly. And I think there's there's a number of other things in the bill, but those are the things that I think make the biggest difference.
SPEAKER_02What's the status of the legislation?
SPEAKER_04Well, they passed the Senate unanimously. They're now pending in the House. And I'm working with Representative Kuhn in the House to make further changes to these bills. So he's introduced. Uh him and his team have put together four the same four bills with modifications which reflect some of the changes we need to make this work.
SPEAKER_02Where can people find out more about the legislation and where can they contact their state legislature about maybe supporting this?
SPEAKER_04Well, the uh you can always go online to Michigan legislature and call up the bills. The Senate bills are 219 through 222.
SPEAKER_02So 219, 220, 221, 222, Senate bill, Michigan legislature.
SPEAKER_04Then we have bills in the House. Now some of them are in draft stage, so not really online yet, but they will be. And um we have a Republican sponsor in the House, Democratic sponsoring the Senate. The only challenge we're going to have is when they finally get these bills done, you've got to figure out who's going to get credit. So that's the political part. But in terms of substance, this is very family-friendly, designed to help people before they get in trouble. And we know we know that by, for example, guardianships in Michigan, most people think that's for the elderly. Well, if you actually check it out, over half the people who have a guardian in the state have a mental illness. And it was left untreated for decades, and that's why they have a guardian. If you want to reduce the number of guardianships in Michigan, treat people for mental illness when they need it.
SPEAKER_02And I am so sorry for what your family's had to experience. I pray that we will get reform, and I hope there's no budget constraints, and I hope that it gets done quickly and that this governor will sign it into law.
SPEAKER_04You know, there really are no budgetary problems. The evidence shows that assisted outpatient treatment reduces hospitalization by 70%, reduces length of stay, reduces homelessness, reduces drug use, reduces arrests, reduces all these things. The$5 million you wasted in one year wouldn't spend it. We might spend$100,000 instead to treat people. So we're talking about reprioritizing where we spend the money. So I've been very clear with the legislature. I'm not asking for any money. I'm asking you to make the system work better.
SPEAKER_03Somebody put a bug in my ear about where some of the funds would come from and would be uh from the sales of the marijuana stores and the alcohol and the the taxes out of the you know, alcohol, possibly tobacco.
SPEAKER_04Kind of ironic because the uh marijuana is such a contributor to mental illness.
SPEAKER_02We will be having an upcoming episode of the Common Bridge. Uh Gerald Posner, a renowned investigative reporter who's looking into the strength of the marijuana that's available today in retail stores, markedly more powerful than the stuff that it was around 50 years ago on the streets. Any closing comment for the listeners, readers, and viewers? I know this is difficult for you to do, but thank you for sharing your story.
SPEAKER_03I I'm I'm so grateful for what I've been learn what I've learned today from you. I think it could have been prevented. This whole tragic scenario could have been prevented. And I never got a call, I never got a knock on my door. I discovered it all myself. That's what was the hard part because somebody could have called me. When there were comments made about, oh, uh, an investigator reporter told me that people in the Sheboygan area were afraid of Brad. Why didn't somebody call me? And then I would have done, like, oh, it's time. But see, Brad knew to pull away on phone calls to me. He could text me. If he would talk to me on the phone and he started talking his, you know, things that would be triggers for me to know that he's not well, then I would have done something. But one of the things that would help too is when he would get picked up uh the hatala, they would shut me out. I would be up two days straight trying to figure out where he's at and get on a bus and I and and find out he's in Atlanta, Georgia. And I would have detectives looking for him for me and uh lose many days of sleep trying to find out where he was because he would just travel. He's a traveling man, you know. And now today I talked to him on the phone on my way down here, and he said he hates his this country, he wants to go, he's got a passport. He went and learned how to get a passport, and he wants to move to another country. And I this is what I know.
SPEAKER_04Part of the problem we have is is the culture. As you've described in the beginning of this process, people said, well, his his liberty interests, you know, self-determination and so forth. And uh I was doing a presentation in Texas a couple years ago, and I met a young man who was a co-presenter named Eric Smith. And um, he had a long history of mental illness and substance abuse, criminal behavior, uh, threatened to kill his parents. A judge put him in an assistant operation treatment plan. He's now back to baseline, and now he's a public speaker, being very successful. And he he says, you know, people who think that not treating mental illness provides for liberty and choice, they're wrong. When you have an untreated mental illness, you have no liberty, you have no choice. It's with treatment that you restore liberty and you restore choice. And so that's what we're trying to do here. This these are individuals who we're not asking for hospitalization. We're asking for early intervention to help people get well.
SPEAKER_02And the default being that the order is going to continue versus the default being the order's going to end. Right. And we don't need more mothers like Bev to go through the situation. We've been talking today with the Honorable Judge Milton Mack and legislation that is moving through the Michigan legislature to reform the mental health system. We've heard firsthand from Beverly Gilley about the journey of her son and the terrible emotional toil. And with our guest today, this is your host, Rich Halpee, signing off on the Common Bridge.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Healthcare Bridge. We hope you gained valuable insights into how strategic and financial analysis can transform healthcare delivery. Remember, building stronger connections in our healthcare system is a collective effort, and we're honored to be part of that journey with you. Be sure to subscribe and stay tuned for more conversations that aim to bridge gaps and create a healthier future. For all, you can find all your healthcare bridge episodes at the Common Bridge on Stubstack.