In Illinois, if you check into an in-patient mental health treatment facility you lose your FOID card. This doesn’t matter if it’s a voluntary self-admission or an involuntary committal by police. At best, absent exceptional actions by a judge, you lose your FOID card for five years, minimum.
And then there’s months if not years of hoops to jump through to get your FOID back, including psychological exams, letters of reference. Lastly, you’ll need a whole lot of patience as ISP only has a couple of people working on these and there are thousands of applications backlogged.
Welcome to treating a fundamental constitutional right like a second-class privilege, right?
Here’s an example of how police committals can be not only arbitrary, but even sometimes capricious.
Warning- Video is pretty bad. State trooper Ronald Davis has been charged for this. https://t.co/3whJcC5Ph0pic.twitter.com/rSTkazRaXe
— 9mmSMG (@9mm_smg) September 24, 2023
Here’s the story from NBC News:
A Pennsylvania state trooper was caught on camera appearing to physically assault his ex-girlfriend after he allegedly abused his power to have her involuntarily committed to a hospital.
Ronald Davis, 37, is accused of having improperly obtained a warrant to have the woman committed without divulging his connection to her, according to the criminal complaint and a probable cause affidavit provided by the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office.
While he was carrying out the order himself, he asked another person to record him as he appeared to strangle her and restrain her. During the 12½-minute video, released by the DA’s office, she repeatedly says, “I can’t breathe.”
Davis, who has been a trooper since 2015, has been suspended without pay, in accordance with state law, and he has been charged with felony strangulation, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, simple assault and official oppression.
Someone should have shot him with a gun instead of a camera.
But back to the woman: This had a reasonably appropriate ending, but she was still held for quite a while – four long days – against her will on an utterly unfounded complaint.
The woman wound up being held at Lehigh Valley Hospital for four days, until her release Aug. 25. “The video and text communications with Davis show that [the victim] was rational and the involuntary commitment was improper,” the DA’s office said in the news release.
What’s more, it took a lot to convince the authorities that the sociopath Ron Davis maliciously and capriciously committed her for a mental commitment to a psych ward.
Yes, this happened in Pennsylvania, but had it occurred in Illinois, the victim would have had to navigate a whole lot of hurdles to COMPEL the Illinois State Police to reissue her FOID card and a carry license if she had one of those.
Then again, if she had carried a gun she might have solved the whole problem on the day of the attack with a judiciously placed double-tap in Ron Davis’ chest.
After she was released from the hospital, the woman met with police and described ways she alleged Davis had sought to control her, including telling her “I know you’re not crazy, I’ll paint you as crazy” and “I know the law,” the probable cause affidavit says.
She also said he had restricted access to her belongings and once called the state police station where he worked during an argument and hung up before the call answered “in an effort to control” the situation, the document says.
Text messages viewed by police showed Davis and the woman arguing in the days before the alleged incident, with Davis making “disparaging remarks” toward her, the probable cause affidavit says. Police concluded there were no verifiable suicidal or homicidal threats.
The texts “revealed her frustration with Trooper Davis and his controlling behavior (and her desire to break off the relationship), not a true desire to harm herself,” according to the probable cause affidavit.
The woman “described a relationship where Davis needed to maintain power and control,” it says.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for help at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or go to www.thehotline.org for anonymous, confidential online chats, available in English and Spanish. Individual states often have their own domestic violence hotlines as well.
Advocates at the National Domestic Violence Hotline field calls from both survivors of domestic violence as well as individuals who are concerned that they may be abusive toward their partners.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
So nice of NBC to list info about domestic violence.
I predict this woman will do very well in the suit against the Pennsylvania State Police. As for Ron Davis? He won’t have a penny to his name by the time he gets to prison. And just wait until Mongo and Theodore learn of why he’s there. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get a plunger-handle suppository.
So where do we stand with the law suite against the FOID card ?
Plunger handle suppository. John, you have a way with words.
I approve of Ron’s taste in girlfriends. I wonder what his wife thinks about all this. Does he beat her too? I bet he does.
Who is the scum bass turd that is filming this disgusting ass as he basically assaults and wrongfully “imprisons” this young woman? I hope he will be charged or sued as an accomplice in the aftermath when calmer heads prevail. Why would such a cute, pretty woman even fall into a relationship with an ugly piece of manure as Davis? I hope her settlement will help her recover from the trauma and she has a more peaceful life.
It’s sickening to watch someone abuse and degrade someone this way. This tough guy can watch it with the jury when he’s in court, I bet they’ll happily convict him. The scum filming this needs to go to prison as an accessory.