About the Rob and Michele Reiner deaths
Gramps49
Shipmate
As everyone knows. Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead in their home. Initial reports said medical personnel were called to their home in Brentwood. When I heard that, I knew almost immediately this was not going to be good. It has now come out that their daughter found them with multiple stab wounds. Six hours later, their son, Nick, was arrested for allegedly murdering his parents.
People Magazine reports Nick got into a very loud and confrontational argument with Rob at a Christmas party the night before the murders.
When this part of the story came out, it brought back some memories I had of my parents and my brother. My youngest brother was alcoholic (he is now deceased). When he was not drinking, one would think he was the meekest person on earth. When he was roaring drunk he was very dangerous, especially if he were driving. My folks tried everything they could have to support him. They often allowed him to stay over at their place if he was too drunk to drive home. Some of those nights were very weird. Brother would often sleep walk. There were nights he would enter their bedroom and just stand there. Often I did not hear of the stories until much later. Since both parents are also gone now, I will probably never know about what happened.
But the stories would make the back of my hair stand on end. While brother was alive, I really feared for my parents' safety. The more I hear about how Rob and Michele would have done anything to help their son with multiple failures, I think my parents could have had similar deaths.
I am posting this because I want to warn everyone if they are dealing with a chemically dependent person who can be especially dangerous when they are actively using or heavily drinking it is probably not in the interest of their own safety to allow their loved one into their homes. I actually think it might be advisable to have a no contact order on the person, espcially if they verbally threaten or actively get physical in any way.
As much as I loved my brother and was very concerned about his drinking (maybe also drugging), I loved my parents more and was very concerned for their safety.
Maybe it is time to do an intervention if you have loved ones facing similar circumstances.
People Magazine reports Nick got into a very loud and confrontational argument with Rob at a Christmas party the night before the murders.
When this part of the story came out, it brought back some memories I had of my parents and my brother. My youngest brother was alcoholic (he is now deceased). When he was not drinking, one would think he was the meekest person on earth. When he was roaring drunk he was very dangerous, especially if he were driving. My folks tried everything they could have to support him. They often allowed him to stay over at their place if he was too drunk to drive home. Some of those nights were very weird. Brother would often sleep walk. There were nights he would enter their bedroom and just stand there. Often I did not hear of the stories until much later. Since both parents are also gone now, I will probably never know about what happened.
But the stories would make the back of my hair stand on end. While brother was alive, I really feared for my parents' safety. The more I hear about how Rob and Michele would have done anything to help their son with multiple failures, I think my parents could have had similar deaths.
I am posting this because I want to warn everyone if they are dealing with a chemically dependent person who can be especially dangerous when they are actively using or heavily drinking it is probably not in the interest of their own safety to allow their loved one into their homes. I actually think it might be advisable to have a no contact order on the person, espcially if they verbally threaten or actively get physical in any way.
As much as I loved my brother and was very concerned about his drinking (maybe also drugging), I loved my parents more and was very concerned for their safety.
Maybe it is time to do an intervention if you have loved ones facing similar circumstances.
Comments
When I worked in substance abuse programs we would speak of the downward spiral of violence in the family. How there would be a period of everything being rosy to walking on eggshells to a triggering event which would result in an explosion of violence back to a honeymoon phase.
Often times I found that the victims' sense of judgement were very clouded. They think they can handle it until they could not. They had an unrealistic belief things would get better, but it never does if the person does not get into recovery. Often times, victims would get into a Stockholm Syndrome as a way of coping with the trauma they are experiencing.
Multiple sources report Nick had a history of instability and violence. He has been chemically dependent for over 20 years and had gone into rehab 18 times without ever achieving full recovery. There are no known reports of domestic violence against his family or with a significant other, but that does not mean there weren't any, just that none were reported. Given Nicks history of chemical use, instability, reports of violence clinicians would say there are elevated risk factors.
It would have been advisable the family should set clear boundaries; ensure that potential weapons be secured and third-party support be available. Treatment programs too. A no contact order would have created a clear boundary a person cannot cross without legal consequences. It gives the victims the possibility to call law enforcement if they felt unsafe, and it can provide a sense of security for the victims. Still, that does not mean the abuser will not approach. It does not address the underlying issues, and it would put a strain on restoring long term relationships.
The key to a no contact order is there has to be a credible threat or a history of violence.
Nevertheless, it is a tool that can be used if there is a pattern of violent outbursts; the person is unstable and escalating; family members feel unsafe in their own home; and other boundaries have failed.
There is much about this incident that is still unknown. We do know whatever Rob and Michele had tried ended up in tragedy. We have lost some very valuable and irreplicable people with their deaths. We need to warn other people of the dangers of substance abuse combined with domestic violence.
It will happen again without intervention.
It has also been reported that even some of those who would normally support the President have distanced themselves from him over this.
Even if someone who has just died, and especially in such traumatic circumstances, was someone that one did not like very much, it is normally regarded as very bad form indeed here to speak in such terms of them.
AFF
This would seem to imply that some people are replaceable.
Well, there are some you wouldn't want to replace...
I'm not so sure about that. It seems to fit right in - disgusting, but not as shocking as it might have been coming from anyone else.
I invite you to watch Rob Reiner: Scenes from a Life. It explains very well why I can say Rob and Michele are irreplaceable.
Sad situation, I'm sure.
And this provides another opportunity for a reminder that the United States comprises at least 51 criminal legal systems—state and federal—and whether and when an insanity defense can be raised, what is required to successfully establish it, and what happens if it successfully established varies. My understanding is that California follows the M’Naghten Rule, under which a criminal defendant cannot be held criminally responsible for their actions if they lacked the capacity to understand the nature of their actions or to distinguish between right and wrong. What else may be the law in California, I can’t say.
A separate but possibly related issue can be competence to stand trial. The issue there is it is a violation of a defendant’s due process rights under the United States Constitution for a trial to proceed at all if the defendant lacks the competence to understand the proceedings and to participate in their own defense.
Yes. And so far as I know, in most of not all US jurisdictions, someone found incompetent to stand trial will be sent to treatment, with a goal of getting to competence to stand trial.
In the bad old days, that kind of situation could be its own kind of prison. Not sure what it's like now. Talk about "correction"...
Nick can probably speak to this better than I, but I do believe the court that would commit him to an institution until he is competent to stand trial is mandated to review the case every few years. It can also be appealed.
That's certainly an occupational hazard of any kind of declaration of incompetence.
Institutionalization has a long, terrifying history in the USA, and I think elsewhere too.
California also has a pre-trial mental health diversion program for people with certain kinds of mental disorders who do not pose a risk to the public - they get treatment instead of prosecution, and if/when they finish the program, the charges are dismissed.
In Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972), SCOTUS held that a state “cannot constitutionally commit [a criminal defendant] for an indefinite period simply on account of his incompetency to stand trial on the charges filed against him.” Id. at 720.
The Court further held “that a person charged by a State with a criminal offense who is committed solely on account of his incapacity to proceed to trial cannot be held more than the reasonable period of time necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability that he will attain that capacity in the foreseeable future. If it is determined that this is not the case, then the State must either institute the customary civil commitment proceeding that would be required to commit indefinitely any other citizen, or release the defendant. Furthermore, even if it is determined that the defendant probably soon will be able to stand trial, his continued commitment must be justified by progress toward that goal.” Id. at 738 (footnote omitted).
And of course, parallel the horrors of institutionalization gone bad is the lack. I remember learning in undergraduate about the decision to get rid of institutions en masse with only the hazy promise to replace them with community-based programming that didn't materialize, which created a big homeless problem that we're still coping with.
On the other hand, I was serving a church in California at the time. We had a lady that started coming to our church shortly after Reagan had released long term residential patient, She was one of the people that was released. A sweet lady. Turns out she was committed, not by the state, but by her former husband. She had been in long term, almost 40 years. Her immediate family did not know where she was. Husband had disappeared. Anyway, a psychiatrist could not find anything wrong with her after she was released. I ended up baptizing her. She died only three months later. The family was devastated.
Institutionalization include a lot of horror stories of people misplaced and mistreated. At the same time, there are also a lot of people who really do need full time mental health care and being institutionalized is better than left at the mercy of society.
Like I typed, this story I read about in undergrad - and here's the book we read - it wasn't just about de-institutionalization. It was also about the hollow promise that there would be "community-based care" that would replace these bad old institutions.
But the "new way" never materialized, and a lot of people who were in serious need of intensively mental health care were literally abandoned on the street, which directly led to an epidemic of homelessness that we are still paying for today.