(CCPJ/IFEX) – A coroner’s jury looking into the August 1995 fatal shooting of popular television personality Brian Smith has come out with 72 recommendations aiming at a major overhaul in the laws and programs dealing with the mentally ill. **Updates IFEX alert dated 3 August 1995** The inquest was called to examine possible changes to […]
(CCPJ/IFEX) – A coroner’s jury looking into the August 1995 fatal
shooting of popular television personality Brian Smith has come
out with 72 recommendations aiming at a major overhaul in the
laws and programs dealing with the mentally ill.
**Updates IFEX alert dated 3 August 1995**
The inquest was called to examine possible changes to the Mental
Health Act of the province of Ontario and other related
legislation that could prevent potentially dangerous mentally ill
people from living in the community, while refusing to undergo
medical treatment.
Brian Smith, a popular sportscaster, was shot as he left his
Ottawa-area TV station after the dinner-hour newscast in August
1995. Smith was gunned down by Jeffery Arenburg, a paranoid
schizophrenic with a history of violence against members of the
media associated with his psychotic delusions. Arenburg had spent
a brief time in a psychiatric hospital four years before the
shooting. He denied having a mental disorder, however, and
refused treatment by psychiatrists, who had no recourse but to
discharge him from the hospital.
In May 1997, Arenburg was found not criminally responsible for
first-degree murder by a criminal court. He is now at a
maximum-security psychiatric hospital indefinitely.
The goal of the coroner’s jury recommendations is to give
psychiatrists, nurses and social workers more power to decide who
needs to be assessed for treatment against their will. The
changes would also ensure that the rights of mentally ill people
do not prevent doctors from effectively treating patients who do
not realize they have a mental disorder.
Alana Kainz, Smith’s widow, was a driving force in the search for
the reasons behind her husband’s murder. She revealed the extent
of her participation in the inquest on the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation’s daily radio program This Morning. Declining the
services of a lawyer, she personally questioned witnesses on the
stand at the inquest, but said she never considered taking civil
action. She stated her belief that the recommendations should be
adopted by the government because they could prevent future
violent incidents involving the mentally ill: “I feel as if a
promise I made to Brian while he lay dying has been
fulfilled….I think it’s important for the government to take
hold of these recommendations now and implement them.”
