10:20 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 9, 2006

Ben Lemoine / WWL-TV New Reporter

Mental health experts said Tuesday that New Orleans was in a very serious situation post-Katrina, and after a string of confrontations between patients and police, they hoped something could be done before more people got hurt.

It was a peaceful place most neighbors had agreed, but for Wayne Mackiewicz, the peace was shattered last night.

“Oh, I told my wife to get in the front room and sit down on the floor,” said Mackiewicz.

Around 8 p.m. Monday night, police surrounded the house next door to Mackiewicz and tried to get a 46-year-old mental patient out who police said had not taken his medicine.

Instead, the man grabbed a gun.

“He was just taking random shots, anywhere he saw the police, taking a shot at them,” said Mackiewicz.

Bullets broke almost every window in his house and pierced the walls at others.

“That’s the one that looks like it went through the wall. That’s my daughter’s bedroom,” Mackiewicz said.

After an eight hour stand-off, the man was shot and killed in his front door.

Psychiatrists have blamed a lack of mental healthcare for an explosion of mental health problems.

“We're seeing more depression, we're seeing more post-traumatic symptoms, more family conflicts,” said Dr. Howard Osofsky, Chair of Psychiatry for LSU Health Sciences.

Dr. Osofsky said some patients have been off medicine since Katrina, because there are no in-patient facilities and just a handful of clinics in the city.

“The police department is certainly being called to some of these cases.  And they're also dealing with people with shorter fuses who are more irritable and more pressured in addition to the mental health problems,” said Osofsky.

Dr. Osofsky also said the combination of more mental health problems and fewer facilities was beyond critical. 

The New Orleans Adolescent Hospital had 30 psychiatric beds pre-Katrina, but they have still yet to reopen.  Osofsky said there was more and more evidence everyday that the problem was getting worse. 

In Covington back in January, a schizophrenic man evacuated from his mental facility, had a six hour stand-off with police, shooting at them and booby-trapping his house.

Last week, Jefferson Parish deputies said a mental patient barricaded himself in his FEMA trailer.

Tuesday, the Jefferson Parish swat team surrounded the apartment of a Kenner man they said was schizophrenic and had gotten off his medicine since September. They had to commit him.

“I hate to see anybody get killed and especially somebody that's under medication and having mental problems.  But like I said, police didn't have a choice,” said Mackiewicz.

New Orleans police have not released the name of the shooting victim from Monday’s night because the incident was still under investigation.

They said they had not confirmed if the man was shot by police or his own gun.

A Louisiana law passed last year dealing with arresting or committing mentally ill people.

The law states “law enforcement officers are to use reasonable and necessary precautions when appropriate…including crisis management strategies….to avoid a violent encounter with the person being taken into custody.”

If you know someone who needs mental health assistance, call the LSU Health Sciences Center at 504-568-8772.