© Baldwin County Sheriffs Department/The Associated Press
These photos provided by the Baldwin County Sheriffs Department show Michael Jansen, right, of Fairhope, Alabama and Baldwin County Sheriff Deputy Scott Ward. Jansen was shot during an armed confrontation with police Friday Nov. 23, 2012 in Fairhope and Baldwin County Sheriff Deputy Scott Ward, left. Both were killed Friday Nov. 23, 2012. Authorities say the Alabama deputy sheriff was fatally shot and another deputy has been critically wounded while checking on Jansen, who was also killed.
Fairhope, Alabama - The mother of an Alabama man accused of shooting two sheriff's deputies wrote of his increasingly erratic and threatening behavior in three requests to have him placed in mental institutions against his will in recent years, according to court documents that have surfaced since the shooting that left one of the men dead.
Hundreds of mourners lined the streets and packed a civic center to say goodbye to the slain deputy Tuesday as more details of the suspect's troubled past emerged.
Baldwin County Sheriff's officials say Michael Jansen, 53, shot and killed Deputy Scott Ward and wounded Deputy Curtis Summerlin on Friday afternoon before the officers returned fire and killed Jansen. A third deputy was unhurt.
Court papers show Jansen's mother, 84-year-old Helen Jansen, had tried for years to get mental health treatment for him. Since 2009, the mother filed three petitions to have her son involuntarily committed to mental institutions. He was committed twice in 2010.
The court records paint a picture of a troubled man who once cut himself so badly he required more than 100 stitches and 37 staples to close the wounds. Another time Jansen stood in a road making obscene gestures at motorists. He claimed to be a Marine general and believed psychiatric medicine was "poison." His mother said he was verbally abusive and uncooperative her efforts to help him, according to the court records.
A psychiatrist wrote in 2010 that Jansen was bipolar, had manic episodes and was dependent on marijuana and alcohol.
Comment: This is utterly insane. It's not like they were neighbours and Dunn couldn't escape whatever noise was annoying him. But even that would not call for such an extreme reprisal.