Ninth Judicial District Attorney Ben Sollars is opposing a request by the man who killed four people in Rifle in 2001 to be allowed to move from the state mental hospital in Pueblo to a nursing home facility in Pueblo.<\/p>\n
A hearing has begun in front of 9th District Judge Elise Myer to consider Sollars\u2019 opposition to what is referred to as a community placement being sought by Michael Stagner.<\/p>\n
In 2001, Stagner, then 42, shot seven people, all Latinos, in Rifle. Four of them died. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to remain in the Colorado Mental Health Hospital in Pueblo until he no longer requires hospitalization.<\/p>\n
Over the years, he eventually has been allowed to go on supervised outings from the hospital, and more recently unsupervised outings. Last year, he sought approval to move to a facility in Grand Junction \u2014 the identity of which was never made public. Sollars opposed that proposal, and it also sparked concerns among family of shooting victims and survivors of the shooting. Stagner eventually dropped the request and instead requested release to the Lakeshore Post Acute Rehabilitation Center in Pueblo.<\/p>\n
The facility provides skilled nursing care. Stagner suffers from numerous physical ailments, according to testimony during an April 29 hearing before Myer. He is currently in the state mental hospital\u2019s geriatrics unit.<\/p>\n
Sollars told the Sentinel by email that, unlike Stagner\u2019s increased privileges to date that have required him to return to the state hospital each day, the proposal is for him to remain in the Lakeshore facility without having to return.<\/p>\n
Sollars pointed to risk factors that he said could change based upon Stagner\u2019s location, new people he would be interacting with and the lack of appropriate training by the Lakeshore staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy objections also include the lack of direct connection with the doctors who have the authority to adjust his medication needs should he show signs of decompensation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mental decompensation refers to things such as a breakdown in coping mechanisms, loss of stability and worsening of psychiatric symptoms.<\/p>\n
Said Sollars, \u201cThe proposed approach will likely have delays between staff communicating to the state hospital and back to the facility with medication adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the state hospital also might not be able to take Stagner back if he decompensates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe testimony during the first phase of our hearing was that \u2014 if the state hospital didn\u2019t have the space \u2014 he would likely just be taken to the nearest community hospital,\u201d Sollars said.<\/p>\n
The hearing is scheduled to resume May 27. Sollars said that he expects then to explore more Stagner\u2019s \u201csupervision plan while out in the community, should the court grant Mr. Stagner\u2019s motion for community placement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mental health experts who have worked with Stagner testified during the initial day of the hearing regarding his progress while he has been at the state mental hospital.<\/p>\n
Dr. Michelle Colarelli is a psychologist and chair of an NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity) Disposition Committee that makes recommendations at the state mental hospital when it comes to things such as increased privileges and placement requests such as Stagner\u2019s.<\/p>\n
She said that at the time of the shootings he had prescriptions for mental illness medications but wasn\u2019t taking them, and he understands that because of what happened then he can never stop taking his medications.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said that he doesn\u2019t ever want to hurt anybody ever again, so it\u2019s very important to him as an individual that he does not use substances and stays on his medication,\u201d Colarelli said.<\/p>\n
She said Stagner \u201cabsolutely\u201d understands the severity of his offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe commented that he thinks about it every day, about the impact that his offense had on the victims, and on the victims\u2019 families, and he carries a lot of guilt for that,\u201d Colarelli said.<\/p>\n
Stagner watched on-line during the April 29 hearing but did not comment during it.<\/p>\n
Dr. Charles Dygert is the staff psychiatrist in the state mental hospital\u2019s geriatrics unit.<\/p>\n
Dygert testified at the recent hearing that Stagner \u201chas never expressed any question regarding his need for treatment for his mental illness, about his awareness of the severity of the mental illness and the result that occurred from that mental illness, and the need to always continue treatment both in and outside of the hospital. \u2026 He is very motivated to maintain the gains that he has made during his lengthy hospitalization.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ninth Judicial District Attorney Ben Sollars is opposing a request by the man who killed four people in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":823018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[7663,7674,7931,210,1141,1142,213091,1184,14910,57077,517,87308,9159,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-823017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-behavioural-sciences","tag-clinical-medicine","tag-disability","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-insanity-defense","tag-medicine","tag-mental-disorder","tag-mental-disorders","tag-mental-health","tag-psychiatric-hospital","tag-social-issues","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116640319435585824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}