Teen arrested for Michael Brasel murder was involved in violent Harding HS robbery

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. The answer lies in the last sentence of the article.

Publicly available court records for the 17-year-old suspect indicate he has had his mental competency questioned in the juvenile justice system.

Minnesota does not mandate mental health treatment or supervision for juveniles. There are no competency restoration programs in the state for kids younger than 18. It's essentially a loophole, and if a kid who needs help completes their probation and supervision without the competency programming they need, what do people expect?


(N.b., I am not a fan of mandated mental health treatment because of its carceral roots and connections. But as long as we're imagining a better way, we can imagine better mental health treatments across the board as well.)