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Family couldn't get Mason Lira the mental health care he needed, father says

Tribune - 6/20/2020

Jun. 19--Mason Lira, the man who the Sheriff's Office says killed a homeless Paso Robles resident and attacked the police station, had long suffered from mental illness, beyond what his parents could manage, his father told The Tribune this week.

Lira died on June 11 in a shootout with police at the end of a two-day manhunt that injured four law enforcement officers.

He arrived in San Luis Obispo County around June 3 after being released from custody in Monterey.

On the night of Monday, June 8, SLO police say he broke into the office of a downtown lawyer and stole a number of items, including two handguns and ammunition.

That would prove to be a fateful moment, setting in motion a sequence of events that would end in his death three days later.

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Father says mental health system failed his son

Jose Lira previously said his son had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and had been in and out of jail and treatment centers, the Associated Press reported.

In an email to The Tribune, Jose Lira said his son had lived in Visalia off and on for several years.

In 2016, Mason's father bought his son a home that he family called the "Mason House," which he occupied for about a year and a half.

Then, Jose Lira, said, "He moved out and went to Santa Cruz -- that was his go-to place. That and Mt. Shasta, where he believed he had a wife and girl child. He would take the Amtrak to Dunsmuir and then a bus to Mt. Shasta."

Jose Lira added: "We always took care of him because the (mental health) system wouldn't do it."

"He was on my Social Security, we housed him, basically took care of him, on meds and off meds," Jose Lira said. "The (mental health) system here did not really concern themselves with him. Finally, he decided in 2018 not to be in the mental health system. Nothing we could do about it, because of the California stupid laws."

California laws prevent requiring mental health treatment for those who don't wish to receive it, unless they present a harm to themselves or others.

"So he would leave and roam the streets. Each month, we would hunt for him, never knowing where he might be," Jose Lira continued. "Sometimes we would find him living ... along the Visalia water canals where most of the homeless live here. He was always good to everyone until he was placed in jail in Oregon."

Aggressive behavior

In 2019, after he spent three weeks in an Oregon jail for making threatening remarks on an Amtrak train and waiting for a court appearance, Mason Lira's behavior became increasingly threatening, Jose Lira said.

Mason spent about a month in a hospital for mentally ill patients in Beaverton, which the family had believed to be a six-month sentence, Jose Lira said.

His father gave his son a debit card, adding $40 per day so larger amounts wouldn't be spent quickly, and then set him up in an RV parked next to Jose Lira's home in Visalia.

"My wife was very leery of him living there because he started getting aggressive with me," Lira said. "He would say things like 'I need to straighten you out' when he wouldn't get what he wanted."

As a result, Jose Lira arranged for his son to move to an RV park, where he lasted only a month for unruly behavior.

"He would stay up all night talking to himself and throwing empty bottles anywhere once he finished the drink," Jose Lira said. "He didn't drink alcohol. That was the last time we saw him. He took off to Santa Cruz in late January."

Jose Lira continued to try to supply his son with money and a phone, however.

"Before he was released on June 3 from Monterey Jail, I had purchased another phone for him and put $200 on a debit card and his mom was going to take it to him," Jose Lira said. "But he never called us after he got out of jail."

Jose Lira continued: "We believe the time in jail made him more aggressive, he learned how to fight and would tell us he now knew how to take care of himself. Plus the COVID-19 isolated him from us and left him all alone."

"Most persons living homeless are mentally ill," he added. "They live in their own heads with no help but their families, just like his (biological) mother took care of him until she died. Without a lifeline, they become even more lost."

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