Chase suspect did stint at Dix

Doctor detailed mental problems

RALEIGH -- A man shot by police after a high-speed chase through downtown Raleigh this week was involuntarily committed to a state mental hospital two years ago after telling a psychologist he had heard a voice in his head telling him to kill people.

A custody order signed by a Wake magistrate Aug. 26, 2006, instruct-ed that Renford E. Butler be taken to Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh for treatment.

Butler had told a psychologist at Wake County Crisis Assessment Services that he heard commands telling him to commit suicide and homicide.

He had a specific plan for killing himself, according to the record.

Butler was also "off his meds," had been hospitalized for mental illness in the past and had tried to commit suicide at least once, according to the psychologist's handwritten notes. Butler was described as paranoid and angry.

Deemed an immediate danger to himself and others, Butler was transported to Dix by a Raleigh police officer, the record shows.

The document does not indicate how long Butler remained at Dix or what treatment he received.

Mark VanSciver, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said he could not comment on whether Butler had been a patient there, citing patient confidentiality laws.

Butler remained at WakeMed- Raleigh Campus Friday after surgery. Jim Sughrue, Raleigh police spokesman, said Butler was in critical condition.

Butler was shot Tuesday after a car chase that reached speeds of 90 mph before he crashed a stolen cab.

Police say Officer J. Bloodworth fired after Butler brandished a straight razor. Bloodworth is on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation, as is standard procedure after an officer-involved shooting.

Butler, 34, has not yet been charged with a crime.

Police say the chase began after Butler robbed the cab driver who had taken him from Durham, where he was living, to the Dorothea Dix campus. He had been released from the Durham County jail a week earlier after completing a 45-day sentence for fraudulent use of a friend's ATM card.

Julie Linehan, the Durham lawyer who defended Butler on the fraud charge, said she thinks her former client asked the cabbie to take him to Dix because he sensed he was mentally unstable.

"I think he knew he needed help," Linehan said Friday. "He didn't have the cab driver take him home, or to his girlfriend's house or some other place. He went to Dix. If he had been there before, why else would he go there?"

Butler has had run-ins with the law, though nothing that rose to the level of Tuesday's alleged carjacking. Records show that in the past nine years he was twice convicted of assaulting a female and once for resisting a public officer.

The state mental health system has struggled in recent years after a reform effort implemented by Gov. Mike Easley's administration cut the number of psychiatric hospital beds while shortfalls in outpatient treatment led to soaring rates of hospital admissions. The result has been long waiting lists for admission in state hospitals that have increasingly become a revolving door for patients discharged before they are stabilized.

Records show that the number of patients in the adult admissions unit at Dix was near or above its capacity of 89 patients the four days after Butler was committed in 2006.

Police are being tight-lipped this week about precisely what led Officer Bloodworth to pull the trigger. Sughrue, the Raleigh police spokesman, has declined to discuss details, such as the distance between Butler and Bloodworth before the officer fired his weapon.

Police radio traffic indicated Butler was armed with a handgun and a knife, though Sughrue wouldn't say whether officers recovered a handgun from Butler. Nor would he say how many times the officer fired.

Sughrue said further information would be provided as part of a standard report police submit to the City Council five workdays after an officer is involved in a shooting.