According to the Montreal Gazette, a figure known to many of us, Dennis Markuze, (aka “David Mabus”) is to be sentenced Thursday for violating his probation, which involved a conviction for making violent threats against many atheist writers and bloggers. I wasn’t Markuze’s biggest target, but I got the threats often enough to be a tad discomfited. Apparently, after being sentenced to probation and a stricture to stay off social media, Markuze not only ignored the order, but even threatened the cop who arrested him:
Last spring, Markuze pleaded guilty to all three of the charges and replied in the affirmative to all of Judge Jean-Pierre Boyer’s questions concerning the plea. A summary of facts was read into the court record during the hearing, including a quote of what Markuze said to the female investigator who arrested him: “You bitch. The same thing will happen to you like what happened to the (World Trade Center) twin towers in 9/11.” Markuze expressed no objections to the summary.
Markuze’s convictions stem largely from the work of Tim Farley, who besides being an atheist is a computer security expert, and managed to track Markuze down and keep the heat on the RCMP to arrest him. Markuze almost certainly suffers from mental illness and may also be an abuser of cocaine and alcohol, so it’s nor clear what the best treatment is. As the paper reports:
You know I don’t want him in jail if he’s mentally ill,” Farley said. “I just want him to leave me alone and stop posting things with my name and my picture on it.”
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Lets hope this guy gets the mental health treatment he needs. I wonder how many theists will be distancing themselves from his actions, when it seems evident that religion did have a role in his comments.
What is horrible is it takes someone to put pressure on the legal authorities to charge someone like this. I find police don’t really want to bother with making reports about threats. I’ve witnessed it many times among friends and family. One friend of a friend was harassed by a neighbour who would verbally assault her and threaden her whenever he saw her,never if she was in her own yard and the police said there was nothing they could do. He made her life a living hell.
Sometimes, I seriousl think about leaving Canada because of stories like these.
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Never if she = even if she.
“I seriousl think about leaving Canada because of stories like these.”
Where on Earth would you go? I don’t think Canada is anywhere near the worst place to live. Your story could happen anywhere. Likely these perps are suffering from loopiness which is very widespread. Look at the bright side: if you commit a really big crime, there’s no death penalty. 😎
It’s more the police that upset me. Crazy is everywhere but law enforcement reflects your society. I know Canada isn’t as bad as Russia, but is we the parallels when it comes to corruption among the police. The U.S. is about as bad, they just have way better weapons.
If I left, I’d move to NZ. I don’t think things have gotten as bad there.
Stupid iPad. I swear it types what it wants!”but as we” = “but I can see”
You’re not imagining it. AutoCorrect is moving into sentence context – which I think you can turn off – and it is very buggy. Last week my wife texted me about a Groupon for a local restaurant, and I suggested we go there for her birthday, which was helpfully changed to “we can do your butler g’day there if you like.” I’m not sure what context would ever have me offering do “do your butler g’day,” but perhaps Siri knows something I don’t.
I think you’re right about NZ. But they won’t take just anybody.
I’m a citizen there so they’ll take me and be glad they did. 🙂
May I stow away in your baggage?
The response to PZ Meyers’ queries/complaints were very positive. Maybe he was lucky and got one of the people in the police force genuinely interested in preventing crimes.
I know PZ really had to push the authorities. They blew him off a few times. I actually admired PZ for this because it must’ve been very exhausting and discouraging.
He has the odd redeeming feature.
As I understand it the Montreal police finally got serious about Mabus when he started threatening an atheist who actually lives in Montreal.
When the Atheist Alliance International convention was held in Montreal he crashed it twice. The hotel police were informed, they led him outside, and they told him not to come back in. Guess what? He came back in.
PZ wanted to talk to him, but couldn’t find him. He did apparently get into a heated debate with God, though (Brian Dalton aka “Mr. Deity)
At least in the U.S. we know the mental health system is in pathetic shape and most of these people are either on the streets or in prison. You might say the mental health system went into reverse. The internet is the perfect place for the delusional and deranged to operate. With our everybody gets a gun policy it fit in just fine.
Well that’s very disturbing Jerry. My sympathies.
Here’s the thing, making threats, angry ranting in public, are not symptoms of any mental illness. And “mental illness” is not a mental illness. That’s not a diagnosis. I study brain impairments not mental illness. But it kind of flops over into mental illness sometimes. And I strongly suspect that we are becoming a society where any angry, embarrassing and especially self-destructive behavior gets labeled “mental illness” meaning some generic thing. Versus mental illness as the more general category that the person’s specific diagnosis falls under. If we do go down that road that would be very bad. First off it perpetuates the stigma that people with mental illnesses that actually exist, at any moment might go apeshit and hurt somebody. This is a powerful myth. It’s complete rubbish. People with schizophrenia do not do those things. And secondly it sets up people like this guy who are simply angry, potentially violent people who are in love with their hate to be treated by the courts in a way that endangers the public. Our courts already have a problem with treating threats with the seriousness with which they deserve. Because they’re considered to not be “acts” under our law. This ‘if it’s awful behavior it’s mentally illness’ set of assumptions doesn’t help.
So I’d say this guy does belong in jail. Just like a stalker ex-boyfriend would who did the same stuff.
This is a great quote by William Hazlitt, that Henry Ford posted on Jesus and Mo http://www.jesusandmo.net/2015/02/04/pick/#comment-190327
It’s certainly the case that most schizophrenics aren’t dangerous, but some are. The fact that mentally ill people are unfairly stigmatized is not a reason to deny that mental health problems can be amongst the causes of dangerous behaviour.
He visited my blog a few times and his rants were rather disorganized and paranoid. His obsession with atheist blogs lasted for years, which is also not typical of a normal criminal anger issue.
That said, if he doesn’t want to get treatment, and he so far doesn’t seem to, he belongs in prison. I don’t think he can be forced to take medication in prison but he won’t escalate his actions at least.
There were times when mental institutions had locked wards and high security fences.
Some mentally ill people could be dangerous.
Modern medication is the reason you don’t see those fenced areas anymore.
There are institutions for those that need to be hospitalized for mental illness and there are prisons for the criminally insane.
This guy sounds like an ‘accident’ waiting to happen. He needs urgent help for the sake of the public good.
I just came across an exciting article about new approaches in research into mental illness.
http://business.financialpost.com/2015/01/12/business-and-the-brain-how-some-scientists-hope-to-cure-mental-illness/
Excerpt:
“Researchers around the world are unlocking mysteries of the brain and causes of mental disorders in a “quiet neuroscience revolution” that, some say, will transform the way mental illness has been diagnosed and treated for the past 50 years.
Scientific breakthroughs over the past decade have created enough optimism among the world’s experts that some dare to talk about a “cure” for depression and other mental illness, the non-infectious disease that is rapidly becoming one of the biggest global public health challenges. “
This is all just hype. Brain science is going nowhere fast. The claims in your excerpt are in fact hilariously unrealistic. Sorry. The biology in bio-psychiatry, which is what I assume this is referring to, isn’t even real biology. No breakthroughs anytime soon.
For the record, a court-ordered 30 day psychological evaluation diagnosed Markuze with bipolar disorder and determined he had alcohol and substance abuse issues as well.
However, yes, many are too quick to label someone as “mentally ill” and there exist many misconceptions of those suffering from mental health issues. People with psychiatric disabilities are actually more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators.
Although atheists were the focus of his ire and his sentiments were pro-religion, I don’t think that we can blame religion for his actions unless we’re also willing to blame Marilyn Manson for being complicit in the Columbine high massacre.
I disagree. Clealry he is mentally ill, but he was targeting atheists and free thinkers. Marilyn Manson was not targeting anyone, he is a musician who sells music. People but the music of their own free will. This guy was seeking out and insulting people on purpose.
Pardon me for seeming an idiot, but I don’t see the difference between buying music and seeking out and insulting people.
If we buy the arguments against the existence of free will, people who buy music and people who seek and insult do so because of the state of the world including their inner states which we may not be able to observe directly. Shouldn’t “no individual can choose to do other than it does” apply to all?
Ok, if I buy music I am listening to someone. Yet, I am not making death threats at said person.
If I read someones bloag and just listen then its the same as buying music.
If I reads someones blog and make death threats then its not the same.
I am not saying he is not a mentally individual. What I am saying is clearly religion has an influence otherwise he would be making death threats against everyone and not one specific group.
Thanks for the reply. You said nothing about whether people who buy Marilyn Manson “records” and Dennis Markuze have free will. Does Dennis have free will? If not, how do you justify sanctioning him for repugnant behavor?
Sure they have free will. As such anyone’s choices make them subject to punishment as is happening in this case. The guy is clearly mentally ill, and as such he hopefully will get put into treatment and get the help he needs.
BTW, I just want to assert I do not know what definition of free will you are using here. So my comment may be wrong with respect to your definition. Free will is an interesting discussion in itself. I don’t have a problem with the idea of free will honestly, although it is just biological or chemical reactions essentially so it depends if you consider this free will. Everything can be boiled down to miss firing neurons or lack of a certain chemical.
Suppose another individual with a biological composition identical to Markuze’s had been raised in identical circumstances, with one key difference: his caregivers raised him as a hardcore atheist, militant, even. This individual then begins an online campaign of harassment of the religious, complete with threats. Is atheism at fault in this scenario?
If he is raised as a militant atheist, then yes militant atheism is to blame. If he is making threats against religious (non-militant atheists) then certainly this militant atheism has an influence.
Again like I have said countless times already. Clearly this person is mentally ill. But that is not to say that religion is not playing a role.
But many innocuous things might trigger bad behavior unpredictably in some cases of mental illness, we can’t blame or ban every possible trigger.
Militant was a poor word choice on my part in my hypothetical. I meant Dawkinsian “militant”, not Islamist/ ISIS style militant. Most Christian denominations don’t promote violence. Markuze seems to be largely influenced by Christianity. I would not blame the whole for the actions of an individual unless they endorsed and promoted such behavior.
But you see this is exactly the point. Militant Atheism does not involve death threats and murder. Militant Islam does.
I agree with you that anything could have been the trigger in this case. I mean the guy has serious problems, but one influence is religion and we should not look past that.
BTW I don’t think I said ban religion anywhere here, although I am all for it. The problem with religion is that it promotes irrational thought and that’s the last thing the world and people with mental problems need.
Atheists and skeptics were the focus of his ire — but he wasn’t the typical religious fanatic. He never really talked much about God or religion. His main obsession was with Nostradamus. He never really dropped it.
Iirc he first got noticed when he came on the JREF forum and claimed that he had won the million $ prize because he’d somehow proven Nostradamus was a genuine seer. The skeptics ripped into his claim and he was off. First skeptics, then atheists. His threats escalated with his targets.
People who researched his internet history discovered that years ago he used to post reasonable, intelligent comments on some technical topic in several online forums. Then something must have happened.
Those kids had entirely different psychological issues but if I were to blame a work of fiction, it would be the book that they were obsessed with, not Marilyn Manson. The were rampage killers, which is different from being a stalker type though. That’s more personal.
Disturbed people who want to “be somebody” could become ISIS thugs, James Earl Ray, John Hinckley, Mark David Chapman, but there needs to be some framework of what would be meaningful in their minds. That’s what D.M. reminds me of. He would feel he’d done his cause a service if he sent an atheist to hell
The picture says it all: take away his damn phone.
I was wondering about that myself. WTF?
The other problem with this guy is that he started showing up places IRL where he had contact with people that he previously threatened online.
Yes. The escalation would have continued, too. Stalkers of other people escalate over time as well and may even kill the objects of their obsessions.
There’s something seriously wrong with his head and although he’s not been known to actually carry out any threats we can’t expect such good fortune to continue. The Canadian authorities had done all they reasonably could to let him live as a free man but he simply isn’t responding in a sensible way.
I have heard about this guy off and on. I agree he has some sort of mental condition where he seems viscerally compelled to do what he did. I have heard about ‘oppositional defiant disorder’, but I do not know of course if that is his problem. I hope he gets help and stays away while doing. it.
I do not think his behavior will be safe for him in prison.
I believe ODD is a diagnosis given only to children, adults with similar attributes would probably be labeled a sociopath.
Frankly, I’m for locking this guy up for good where he can’t threaten anyone again. I don’t care if he’s “normal” or “crazy.” This is not about punishment, per se, but about prevention of future crime. Such a sentence would send a powerful message that society (and its legal system) won’t tolerate his kind of behavior. With their sentences, judges send messages all the time.
Prisons are absolutely the worst thing for the mentally ill. They are entirely unequipped for it.
I’d rather he was institutionalized and on supervised meds, until somebody could figure out if there was a way to flatten out his bizarre behavior, whatever it is. It appears that he could be self-medicating (alcohol/cocaine), perhaps in response to his brain chemistry going off the rails. (after all, he seemed pretty normal once upon a time, then hit the danger years and lost it). And the only reason I mention institutionalization is because his case would appear to be of the type that breeds non-compliance… could even be progressive. He should be under observation. No devices to play with, obviously.
Hopefully there will be an adequate resolution, but these are extremely difficult situations. The odds are against him, I think. He probably stands a better chance in Montreal than he would in most places in the US, but I could very well be wrong.
There are people who have done worse things who don’t get “locked up for good”. Hopefully, he’ll get treatment and his parole will be contingent on taking his meds. It won’t work of course, but he can be violated if he bothers anyone. Don’t be surprised if he goes on a multi-province killing spree though.
According to Michael Pollan’s sources in the latest New Yorker, a few hits of psylocybin with professional guides and Mabus Marcuze will be sound as a pound. It’s worth a try!
There’s also a cartoon of Ahab telling the white whale “Maybe we got off to a bad start.” And one of a CEO sitting behind a big desk saying something asinine on the phone. I doubt either of those is related to the Shroom Renaissance, but they are pretty trippy. I’m sure the woodland creatures at a cocktail party would have something pithy to say about it all.
The article does not mention Mabus Marcuse specifically. That’s my own semi-sequitur.
In my opinion, the safety of society as a whole trumps the rights of any individual, no matter whether they are “impaired” by any mental disorder, or not: we’re ALL a little bit nuts, but most of us don’t go around harming others or threatening them with violent harm. In that sense, the sequestering of such an individual in a locked facility need not be viewed as for the purpose of “punishing” them for what they did; it should be done simply with the intention of protecting society FROM them. That their physical freedom is restricted and they don’t get to enjoy the benefits of societal freedom is unfortunate, but society comes first. That our mental health therapies still seem to be woefully inadequate in addressing their underlying issues is just the way it is.
I also don’t judge people with mental disorders to be automatically incapable of learning from the consequences of their actions (as deterrence of future crimes) or by seeing the consequences other receive (although in a profoundly disturbed individual these might be ignored, along with many of the other “rules” of society): I remember a schizophrenic guy in Santa Cruz, California who rode a bike all over and who would sit on it by the street and scream nonsense and obscenities at those who passed. I noticed that he was always careful to be just far enough back from the street that, if someone jumped out of their car and came for him, he could get away! He undoubtedly “learned” this as the result of several ass-beatings (although it didn’t “cure” his schizophrenia, it showed that he WAS able, to some extent, to control his behavior).
The judicial system’s methods of dealing with such behavior are still inconsistent and muddled: you can cut off your mother’s head thinking she is a demon and end up in a psychiatric hospital for life, but if you bought a knife a week earlier with which to kill her for being a demon and then attempt to hide her body, “premeditation” and the “attempt to avoid prosecution” may land you in a regular prison or on Death Row even though the act in both cases was clearly insane by society’s standards. I’m sure that the vast majority of people consider serial killers to be “insane”, but as an FBI profiler said, “I’ve yet to see a serial killer murder someone in front of a police officer”.
Although vast inroads have been made into our understanding of the mind, we’re still in the infancy of learning how to deal with mental disorders. “Reductionism” seems to be leading to confusion, as anyone who reads the DSM-V’s section on psychiatric disorders will probably come away feeling like they’ve got two or three of them. I like to use the term, “Un-sane”; I reserve “insane” for those with clearly identifiable mental disorders caused by chemical imbalances (including the influence of intoxicating drugs), brain injuries or diseases (such as genetic schizophrenia), etc. “Un-sane” I define as, “Not operating according to the evidence presented us by reality.” The boundary between the two is often fuzzy.
I agree with you rather than the three commenters preceding you. Public safety is paramount. You can treat him all you want in prison or wherever you lock him up. What I don’t want to see is a slap on the wrist sentence and a court order to not be “a bad boy” when he gets out (after all, he’s already a “repeat” offender). What we don’t need is another Charlie Hebdo incident.
There was a twist in the case – the sentencing hearing was postponed at the last minute when a psychiatrist came forward, wanting to testify for the judge. I have the details at my blog.