State Sen. Creigh Deeds, a Democrat who represents Virginia’s 25th district, which includes Albemarle County, was taken to the University Hospital Tuesday after being stabbed multiple times at his home in Bath County. As of press time Deeds remains in fair condition, after arriving at the hospital in critical condition.
Deeds’ 24-year-old son Gus died at the scene from a gunshot wound. A spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police said authorities think Gus attempted to kill his father and shot himself.
The father-son altercation unfolded around 7 a.m. at Deeds’ home. Bath County police received an emergency call around 7:25 a.m. from Deeds’ cousin, who picked up the former gubernatorial candidate after he stumbled down to Route 42, about 75 yards from his home, bleeding from stab wounds to his head and upper torso.
The event is agonizing on multiple counts. The younger Deeds was troubled but full of promise: the valedictorian of his high school, he had attended the College of William & Mary, making dean’s list last semester before withdrawing in the fall. The state senator loved his son and had tried tremendously hard to help him over the years, Del. David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, told reporters Tuesday.
It is unfortunate that such a painful event is playing out on the public stage. The domestic dispute might have made headlines even if Deeds were not a public figure — although it would likely have been a local news item rather than a story on the front page of the New York Times’ website.
We struggle to imagine how harrowing this situation is for Deeds and his family. A son dead at 24, a father left injured, and all in the public eye: the pain of the situation is excruciating.
We hope the senator makes a full recovery, and soon. We also commend the University Democrats and the College Republicans for acting swiftly, in a show of solidarity, to co-host a vigil to be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Amphitheater.
First and foremost, our thoughts rest with Deeds and the people who are close to him. Yet we can’t help but dwell on a factor that almost certainly played a part in Tuesday morning’s dispute: the deficiencies in Virginia’s mental health-care infrastructure.
Gus Deeds underwent a psychiatric evaluation at Bath County Hospital Monday. The evaluation was performed under an emergency custody order, which allowed mental health officials to hold the younger Deeds for up to four hours. He was released because officials could not locate a psychiatric bed for him.
It’s hard to believe that there is no connection between Gus Deeds’ detainment and his alleged suicide the day after. And if we suppose that Deeds’ violence resulted from psychological agitation, we are left with a troubling possibility: that if officials could have found a bed for Deeds, Tuesday morning’s events would not have happened.
It’s unproductive to play “what if,” and we don’t wish to point fingers at any specific mental health clinic. Yet if anything good can come out of something so terrible as what happened Tuesday morning, we hope it’s this: that the younger Deeds’ alleged suicide will draw more attention to the existing state of mental health care in Virginia. In many ways the public exposure the Deeds incident has received is distressing. But it also sheds light on shortcomings in our state’s psychiatric facilities. We should not have to turn away people who need help because we don’t have beds for them.
We hope this incident galvanizes politicians, health-care workers and citizens to insist on better psychological care for Virginians. If they do, perhaps we can prevent more violence in the future.
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