On a quiet spring night in 2013, Thomas James Jr. lobbed three flaming bottles full of fuel at a Northeast Portland house. An 18-month-old girl slept soundly inside.

Fire raced up the siding as the toddler's parents tried to put it out. That's when James held a lighter to a fourth bottle and hurled it at the two, coating them with gas. They escaped deeply shaken, but unhurt.

They were astonished to see who was responsible: James was their next-door neighbor.

The couple didn't know that James suffered delusions, had cut off his electricity and put a mattress over his window. They didn't know that police had come to the house less than 24 hours earlier to check on James, but left when he assured them he didn't pose an immediate danger to himself or others.

Now police finally had an unambiguous reason to intervene.

The story of Thomas James Jr. highlights shortcomings in Oregon civil commitment law and the limited recourse it gives police and other front-line workers to force help on people with serious mental illness.

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Every U.S. state empowers authorities to commit people to psychiatric beds. But laws vary widely -- with experts pointing to states such as Idaho and Mississippi as granting wide powers to intercede, even before troubled people might lash out.

Oregon makes it more difficult than many states to commit people with mental illness. Police and prosecutors argue that the law too often allows people with alarming problems to worsen until they do harm to themselves or others.

But advocates for people with mental illnesses say locking someone away in a psychiatric institution should happen only as a last resort and under the gravest of circumstances. They argue that community-based care can best meet the needs of people in mental distress, but chronic underfunding hamstrings the programs.

"We've been in this situation for years and years," said Bob Joondeph, executive director of Disability Rights Oregon. "One gets frustrated having the same conversation over and over again."

Commitment law and court rulings

The number of civil commitments in Oregon has plummeted over the past few decades.

In 1983, judges committed about 1,165 people to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem or other psychiatric institutions. Thirty years later, judges committed half as many, according to data reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive. That's even though the state's population had doubled during that time.

Today, an estimated 33,000 Oregonians have schizophrenia. About twice as many have bipolar disorder. Thousands of them need help but can't or won't get it.

Joe Bloom, a professor emeritus at Oregon Health & Science University's psychiatry department, has studied what he considers a disturbing trend.

"In many ways, our civil commitment statute is faltering," said Bloom, who wrote about the topic for the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. "People are anticipating the fact that civil commitment has become so difficult in Oregon that they're not bringing people to the hospital."

How system works

The civil commitment process

often begins when police drive someone with a suspected mental illness to a local hospital. There, doctors decide whether to place a five-day "mental health hold" on the person.

Judges and county mental health professionals also can place holds on people to start the process. Hearings must take place before five working days are up, or the person will be released.

Before a hearing,

a county mental health investigator will evaluate the person and choose an option: release, a 14-day diversion program or a civil commitment hearing.

A lawyer typically is appointed to represent the person at the hearing. That lawyer and a lawyer for the state can call various witnesses, including police officers, psychiatrists and relatives.

Except for rare cases

, judges commit people for up to six months to a psychiatric bed at the Oregon State Hospital or other institution. Other forms of treatment, such as outpatient care, also can be an alternative.

People also waive the hearing by agreeing to voluntarily check into a psychiatric bed.

Bloom noted that a patient's arrival at a hospital is the first step toward beginning the civil commitment process.

With few exceptions, Oregon law allows the civil commitment of people with mental illness for up to six months if they're "dangerous to self or others" or "unable to provide for basic personal needs."

The Oregon Court of Appeals has interpreted that to mean that a person must pose an imminent threat. Someone who wanted to kill himself yesterday but insists that he's fine now might not meet the criteria for commitment.

Over the past decade, the court has ruled that people who have threatened to kill relatives, wandered into traffic in a delusional state and walked naked outside in freezing temperatures haven't met the civil commitment standard.

The court also has ruled that people who can't provide for their basic needs must be at a high risk of dying soon for the state to act. That means people who are delusional, hear voices or refuse to bathe shouldn't face commitment unless a judge determines that they "probably would not survive in the near future," the appeals court has said.

The Oregon court historically has protected the rights of individual free will - ruling that unusual behavior or idle threats aren't enough to deprive a person with suspected mental illness of their liberties.

Public officials say they often encounter constituents who wonder why authorities can't simply lock up people on the street who seem to be so obviously in the throes of mental disease.

"It's not against the law to be mentally ill," said David Austin, a spokesman for Multnomah County, the largest county provider of mental health services in the state. "It's not against the law to not get treatment."

A dark past

The system as we know it largely developed after state lawmakers made their last major revision to Oregon's civil commitment law in 1973.

The changes reflected a new way of thinking that distanced Oregon from its past, when people who were perceived to have mental illness -- everything from epilepsy to menopause - too often landed in institutions, sometimes under dreadful conditions.

The law recognized that advancements in medications and treatment meant many people with true mental afflictions could manage their illnesses and live successfully in society. It also served as an acknowledgment that the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness don't act violently -- and in fact, most people with mental illness are more likely to be victims rather than aggressors.

But as Oregon and other states shuttered large psychiatric institutions, advocates for people with mental illness say lawmakers haven't invested enough money in community-based services to prevent some people from spiraling into crisis.

A 2014 U.S. Department of Justice report chastised Oregon -- finding that the proportion of mental health dollars that the state spent on community services declined the year before, while spending on the state mental hospital and residential treatment centers jumped.

Although the state once institutionalized people for the most minor reasons, critics say today the pendulum has swung the other way, and the inability to force treatment on some people and the lack of community services make for a deadly mix.

In 2010, 55-year-old Cheryl Kidd bought a handgun from a Eugene gun store. She had a 20-year history of schizophrenia, speaking incoherently and acting oddly. In one such instance, she called police to report that someone had stolen five boxes of devil's food cake mix from her home. Yet she passed a state-required background check that looked for disqualifying criminal convictions or a history of civil commitment.

Less than a year later, Kidd fatally shot Eugene police officer Chris Kilcullen, a married father of two. The officer had tried to stop Kid for driving erratically when she fired a single .38-caliber bullet into his chest.

The killing sent state lawmakers scrambling for solutions.

The Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board on May 4, 2016, found that Thomas James Jr. was still extremely dangerous and should remain civilly committed.

After Kidd was charged with aggravated murder, a judge deemed her too mentally ill to face criminal prosecution. In 2013, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 421, allowing the state to civilly commit Kidd and other people found to be "extremely dangerous" for up to two years.

The new law differs from the standard civil commitment law: Prosecutors no longer must prove that someone is in imminent danger of acting violently -- only that the defendant is a serious threat in general.

But the new law applies only to people after they've carried out a major crime, such as murder, rape or arson.

The existing civil commitment law did nothing to address Kidd before she killed the police officer -- or Thomas James before he attacked his Portland neighbors.

Last July, James became the fourth Oregonian committed under the 2013 law. Two other people have been committed since then. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kelly Skye found James unfit to help in his defense because of his mental illness.

Case study

Three years ago, James, 56, had been caring for his elderly mother as her health deteriorated. He had exchanged friendly waves with his neighbors over the years, but kept his distance. The couple recognized that he had mental health issues - and more recently seemed withdrawn - yet he never appeared dangerous.

But behind the walls of his yellow bungalow, James believed someone was eavesdropping on him through the power lines, so he repeatedly cut the electricity to the house. He was afraid he was being watched, so he propped his mattress against his bedroom window. He thought radiation was poisoning him, so he wore goggles over his eyes for protection.

Thomas James Jr.

His instability seemed to deepen as he got older. He had threatened to kill his family. He had stabbed his brother, but the brother refused to press charges. His sister had taken him to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center for help, but he wouldn't talk to doctors because he thought they were out to get him.

On the morning of the day he threw the Molotov cocktails, his niece had stopped by. She wanted to check on her grandmother, only to learn that James had cut off the power again. She called police.

But James wouldn't admit that he was on the verge of a life-threatening crisis. He told the officers he was fine.

Psychologists who interviewed James after his arrest determined he had schizophrenia or some sort of delusional illness.

During a hearing this month, the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board found that James remains extremely dangerous and that he should stay at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem until summer 2017 unless he makes a psychiatric breakthrough. But that's unlikely because James' treating psychiatrist said his patient refuses to acknowledge that he's ill.

For help

You can call or go to:

* Multnomah County's 24/7 Mental Health Call Center: 503-988-4888. Toll-free at 1-800-716-9769.

* In Multnomah County,

will immediately assess distressed members of the public regardless of insurance, age or income. 4212 S.E. Division St., Suite 100. 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. seven days a week.

* Clackamas County's 24/7 Mental Health Crisis Line: 503-655-8585.

* In Clackamas County,

is at the Ross Center, 11211 S.E. 82nd Avenue, Suite O, Happy Valley. 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday and Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

* Washington County's 24/7 Crisis Line: 503-291-9111. Referrals to an urgent mental health clinic in Beaverton can be made through calling this line.

* For other Oregon counties: Here's a

.

* Washington state's

for substance abuse, problem gambling and mental health: 1-866-789-1511.

"He made a statement that he'd rather stay in the hospital forever than take medications," said Mukesh Mittal, his psychiatrist.

Kidd, who shot and killed the Eugene police officer, is no longer at the state hospital. She's improved to the point where she lives at a secure residential treatment center in Pendleton. But she's still under the watch of the Psychiatric Security Review Board, which will hold a hearing on her status in June.

What to do

The answer to helping people like James lies in providing more community-based mental health services early on, said Joondeph of Disability Rights Oregon.

The services must be free or affordable -- and welcoming to people in mental distress so they voluntarily accept help, he said.

Joondeph said civil commitments are certainly necessary to help some people in deep mental crisis, but commitments also can do more harm than good for others who become more fearful, angry and untrusting of police, social workers, doctors and the legal system.

"You may be involuntarily medicated -- someone may stick significantly powerful drugs into your system without your consent -- and when you get out you may be billed for services you didn't want in the first place," Joondeph said.

Civil commitments also don't work for everyone, he said.

"There's sort of this myth in the world that if the person is on their medications, they're going to be fine and if they're not on their meds, they're not going to be fine," Joondeph said. "But that's not the way it really goes. Medications help some people. They don't help other people."

Chris O'Connor, a Portland public defender, argues that relying on civil commitments to help people is an expensive way to bring change. On average, people treated at the Oregon State Hospital under civil commitments spend nearly five months there -- costing $100,000 apiece, according hospital estimates.

"Just paying the guy's rent for a year would have been better," O'Connor said. "He wouldn't have been sleeping outside. He wouldn't have been scaring the neighbors."

He believes that taxpayer dollars should go instead to help stabilize the lives of people who struggle with mental illness. That might come in the form of subsidized housing, job training, rides to and from treatment providers or frequent home check-ins by a social worker.

"For the money they spent on (civil commitments), they could have intervened in a much better way," O'Connor said. "You could have one social worker to one person, and it would still be cheaper than putting people in the state hospital."

Bloom, the OHSU professor emeritus, however, believes that while society must provide better access to community-based care and voluntary psychiatric beds, civil commitments become an important tool when people in mental crisis refuse to seek help. Police, social workers and families should push for them more often despite the roadblocks, he said.

"I think that's a really big message to get out to the mental health community -- 'Don't leave someone languishing in a state of distress. It's just not right,'" Bloom said.

-- Aimee Green

503-913-4197