In his resignation letter, G. Douglas Bevelacqua said he was quitting because of officials meddling with his work.
"It would be a grave disappointment to me if the investigation were sanitized," Deeds told reporters during a brief interview, in which he complimented Bevelacqua.
Since 2010, Bevelacqua had served as inspector general for behavioral health and developmental services, a unit of state government now under the Office of the State Inspector General.
Bevelacqua remained with that agency, keeping his focus on mental health issues. As such, he oversaw the inquiry into the Nov. 19 death of Deeds' son, 24-year-old Austin "Gus" Deeds, who stabbed his father at their Bath County home before taking his own life hours after undergoing a mental health evaluation.
The release of the report into the incident has been delayed. In a resignation letter to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Bevelacqua said agency revisions to it "will diminish the Report's usefulness as policy makers consider changes to the Commonwealth's emergency services response system."
"If I were responsible for publishing this report, it would have been issued weeks ago and it would have contained conclusions that were removed because they were considered speculative or too emotional," Bevelacqua wrote in a letter dated March 1.
Proposals to overhaul mental health laws and boost funding for psychiatric treatment have been a focus of the 2014 General Assembly session.
Deeds' SB260, which would lengthen to 24 hours the term of emergency custody orders, is the subject of legislative negotiations with the House of Delegates. The bill would require the state to set up a psychiatric bed registry and establish a bed-of-last-resort rule in state hospitals so there is always a place to accommodate people in crisis.
Full Article and Source:
Mental Health Inspector Quits Over Deeds Report
Read SB260