An AWOL servicemember explained in detail to his emergency room doctor how he planned to climb atop Richmond City Hall and pick off legislators with a .50-caliber rifle as they left the statehouse last January.

But Dr. Greg Christiansen’s hands were tied. He couldn’t prove the man was an “imminent danger” to himself or others, as required under Virginia’s tough standards for involuntary commitment.

Christiansen and other physicians asked legislators Friday to relax that standard and for more authority when it comes to involuntarily committing mentally ill patients.

It was the first of many mental health-related issues to come before legislators as they try to reform a mental health system that has come under increased scrutiny since a student killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech in April. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has proposed nearly $42 million in his two-year budget to bolster local mental health centers and urgent care for people in mental health crises.

Seung-Hui Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005 and was ordered to receive outpatient mental health care, but he never received the treatment.

Late Friday, a House Courts of Justice subcommittee studying the issue was a measure voted in favor the standard for ordering temporary detentions and emergency commitments for people facing mental health crises. Instead of being imminently dangerous, the person must have a “substantial likelihood” of causing “serious physical harm” to himself of others “in the near future.”

Emergency room physicians who testified Friday said it’s a time-consuming and often frustrating process to persuade magistrates to detain people with dire mental health problems.

Currently, physicians must contact community service boards _ local mental health providers _ who then make a recommendation to a magistrate on whether someone should be detained. Physicians want to sidestep the CSBs and petition magistrates themselves.

The CSBs have a four-hour emergency window after they’re contacted to get with the doctor and make a recommendation. Sometimes the CSB workers do not show up, and other times they come but don’t agree that commitment is needed.

“In that meantime, I may have a patient who is ripping the place apart but I have to sit there and wait,” Christiansen told members of the House Committee on Courts of Justice Subcommittee on Mental Health.

Christiansen admitted skirting the law in order to get the patient’s high school records from his parents. The records showed that the patient had a history of obsessive compulsive disorder and anger issues, which made him a clear threat.

Mental health officials said the majority of the time when they don’t respond it’s because there isn’t an open bed at a psychiatric hospital to put the individual. Other times, it is because they don’t think the person meets the criteria, which is interpreted differently depending on the magistrate.

Others at the hearing, including people diagnosed with mental illnesses, said during often emotional testimony that instead of focusing on detention and custody orders, lawmakers should make help more readily available for people before their conditions become crises.

“There are just too many locked doors when patients find themselves in or approaching a crisis,” said one Richmond-area woman who identified herself only as Margaret and who struggles with bipolar disorder.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has proposed nearly $42 million in his two-year budget to bolster local mental health centers and urgent care for people in mental health crises. About a third of the money _ $14.6 million _ is billed for emergency mental health services.

___

Associated Press Writer Bob Lewis contributed to this report.