Call to Suicide Hotline ends in Arrest, Vandalism

A depressed Army reservist who made a phone call for help says dozens of police responded by surrounding his home and arresting him, vandalizing and searching his place without a warrant, seizing his dog and killing his tropical fish.

Corrigan says, he denied officers permission to enter his house, but they entered and trashed it anyway, saying, "I don't have time to play this constitutional bulls**t!"

What set the police off into this assault during the phone call the man mentioned being a veteran. The suicide support person on the other end asked "are there firearms in the house?" the veteran said yes. No mention of being suicidal or making threats. Just a simple "yes."

Now we could assume that the police were rushed in to keep the guy from shooting himself. Even without explicit threats or claims of being suicidal that act might be excusable.

Except for the fact that they barged in on him quite a while after the call.

The abuse gets worse:

Corrigan says he spent three days in the VA hospital, because "having weapons pointed at him upon leaving his apartment triggered his PTSD hyper-vigilance and caused irregular heartbeat."

After he was released from the hospital and determined not to be a suicide risk, Corrigan says, police arrested him and put him in jail, where he remained for almost 2 weeks.

Imagine that? Being assaulted in the middle of the night by armed forces messes up your heart rate. Who'da thunk it?

"When Corrigan returned to his apartment 16 days after being seized, he found that John Does I-XV had left the front door unlocked and unsecured, had left the electric stove on, had cut open every zipped bag, had dumped every box and drawer, had broken locked boxes from under the bed and the closet, and emptied shelves into piles in each room. All his tropical fish in his 150 gallon aquarium were dead."

Well, those heroes kept him from killing himself so it's not a total loss. Now he has something worth living for: wringing the necks of everyone involved in trashing his life.

Link to story

Next time you think calling a support line is a real option think again.

Sounds like the hotline workers may be under instruction to report any calls from veterans/military to the police. Sounds like confidentiality is an issue. I guess 'national secrity' trumps privacy though.

reply to post by theubermensch


Could be. But what good does it do in the realm of national security to piss off a disgruntled vet even more?

This is America we're talking about so I doubt they've thought it through that far.

I don't know why, but I am utterly shocked by this story. Sadly it isn't anything new anymore. Sueing for only $500,000 doesn't seem like enough to me. Maybe $5,000,000 might be a more justifiable number.

Corrigan says, he denied officers permission to enter his house, but they entered and trashed it anyway, saying, "I don't have time to play this constitutional bulls**t!"

What? This kinda made me smile in a sick way, just from the way I imagined it.

However it made me incredible angry that cop would think it was BullSh*t like we put those laws in there to make his job harder, what a d*ck.

Also why did this happen? I think the Vet has every right to sue also.

suicide is a very real mental health problem that can cause some very irrational thinking, many sufferers switch mentally back and forth from self infliction to lashing out at others around them, with weapons at their disposal it is a most dangerous situation. as a gun owner i do sign an oath on my state gun registration that i have never suffered fro clinical depression or have been suicidal. this is a common question in most state for gun registration, if you answer yes then you are ineligible to own a firearm, pretty simple if you ask me.

I hope this veteran gets everything he is suing for.

Those cops were abusing what little power they have.
This guy sounds like he knew his Constitutional rights, and rightly so.

I applaud his efforts to reach out to someone, out of despair.
Also, I wish him all the best in receiving compensation for the damage caused.


I don't understand where these officers are getting so ignorant?
They're just following orders....but if so, why do they disregard so much?
Is this the message being handed down from their superiors?
No one has rights anymore? There is no Constitution?

This year is going to be one heck of a ride...

If I was a law enforcement officer, I'd be looking for career change.
I have a feeling they are going to be on the wrong side of the fan when the "S" hits it.

Originally posted by bladdersweat
suicide is a very real mental health problem that can cause some very irrational thinking, many sufferers switch mentally back and forth from self infliction to lashing out at others around them, with weapons at their disposal it is a most dangerous situation. as a gun owner i do sign an oath on my state gun registration that i have never suffered fro clinical depression or have been suicidal. this is a common question in most state for gun registration, if you answer yes then you are ineligible to own a firearm, pretty simple if you ask me.

Considering every vet coming out is getting rated for ptsd/depression/anxiety this seems like a handy way for them to keep guns away from us veterans.

I think your logic is BS, and this is just another way of circumventing the 2nd amendment.

reply to post by bladdersweat


Well that would pretty much take care of the whole world of bankers,
I am sure they have mental issues.

I'll be waiting for the hordes of bankers in jail.

It would be interesting to see the internal investigation into this.

www.militaryonesource.mil...:HOME:0::::

You'll see, along the left side of the page, a number of counseling resources.

At least once a year, most Reserve Centers go through what is commonly known as a "Family Readiness Day" - which covers everything from suicide awareness/prevention (usually death-by-power-point that induces suicidal sentiments) and there are often representatives from such resources as Military One Source, JAG, Tricare, etc to ensure they know the procedures leading up to deployment and coming off from deployment, as well as the resources and benefits open to them.

Now, there is a confidentiality issue involved in this case, to be certain. However, expressing that you desire to do harm to yourself voids that confidentiality and it becomes a liability to report a suicide attempt. Without the exact voice recording of that phone call, it will be difficult to make a determination. That's obviously going to have to wait for a court date.

The real issue, here, is the behavior of law enforcement. They entered private property without a proper warrant (any warrant for arrest they could have had would have merely involved apprehending the suspect to prevent harm to himself - which was satisfied the moment he was in cuffs and in the car). Even worse - they failed to properly secure the grounds.

The display on their part was not only ignorant, but demonstrated what could only be described as contempt. The review on their actions needs to be very thorough and quite pointed.

Right. So there's no actual independent corroboration of events, and the link just provides the statement of the plaintiff in an ongoing civil lawsuit.

Yet, even before the case is resolved, the respondents to this thread have unanimously and unquestioningly taken the side of the person making the unverified and uncorroborated claims, because, it would seem, the claims made are confluent with their pre-determined, uncritical ''anti-establishment'' agenda.

Originally posted by bladdersweat
suicide is a very real mental health problem that can cause some very irrational thinking, many sufferers switch mentally back and forth from self infliction to lashing out at others around them, with weapons at their disposal it is a most dangerous situation. as a gun owner i do sign an oath on my state gun registration that i have never suffered fro clinical depression or have been suicidal. this is a common question in most state for gun registration, if you answer yes then you are ineligible to own a firearm, pretty simple if you ask me.

Fair enough, but why would treat someone who is reaching out for help as a criminal? Besides that, the man did not claim to be suicidal, he called the wrong number. It is not like the system just held him to see a mental health professional. They also arrested him and tossed him in jail. And for what? Because he has issue and wanted to do the responsible thing and talk to a professional about it?

To civilians PTSD reads like sociopathy with Schizophrenic tendancies,at least that is what they diagnosed a Ranger friend of mine with when he scared his room mates by lubing his AR15.They called the police they picked him up and he was pissed.So they tried to sedate him it didn't work and they tied him down.He said SERE was harder but he treated them the same.