next, in the wrak of the a la vista ram payment welcome targeting the mentally ill and limiting access to guns. congresswoman jackie speier on the front lines of effort to curve sexual assault at university campuses. >> 20% of the coeds on campus will either be sexually assaulted or they will have an attempt to sexual assault on them during their college career. >> and remember, how friendships shaped her life. >> friendship, it keeps you alive and it keeps you awake and it keeps you trying to be the best.

good evening and welcome. as the community of a mr. vista mourns the deadly rampage last weekend as re-invigorated calls for legislative action. this morning in washington, bay area congressman mike thompson announced his proposal to target mental health services and reduce gun violence. people with mental illness are more apt to be the prp tray tore of violence and nonetheless, there are things we can do to make our communities safer. >> earlier in the week, california senate democrats rolled out budget proposals to immental health care in the criminal justice system and expand training for law enforcement. >> a krum and sad coincidences

that the significance of one proposal to imtraining among front line law enforcement to recognize the warning signs of mental illness was illustrated by a gun rampage in santa barbara county. >> and restricting access to guns for people deemed mentally ill is the focus for a new bill in the state assembly. joining more for a look at how these proposals look -- 1. josh, california eeg gun control laws are among the strictest in the nation. give us an idea of the legal landscape. what are the significant gun laws already in place and how would this week's new proposals enhance all that? >> well, it's a very complex landscape. the product is decades of legislation and very often, bills that were passed from the wake of incidents such as this that galvanize the action in sacramento but, yes, we have

overall one of the strictest things. a ten-day waiting period pore gun purchases. registration of handguns. we have a requirement that all sales go through licensed dealers and that all sales, even if it's person-to-person through a licensed dealer involves a background check that's more extensive than the national background check. an assault weapons' ban. we have a ban on the sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than ten rounds. you can only buy a handgun from a roster of state approved handguns. it goes on and on and on. a lot of restrictions put on. >> and something like this still happens. with these new laws do you think it would change anything? >> well -- >> the proposal? >> it's unclear. in this situation you're dealing with a troubled mentally ill young man. but yet, one who never committed a crime before and one that never acted violently before and one this that did not have a history of commitment for his mental issueors anything like

that so it's not entirely clear exactly what would have helped in a situation like this. the officers who went to visit him at his mother's request last month, they did not check the dealer record of sale 457bd gun database, which would have told them that he had bought three handguns recently but it's not standard for them to do so in a situation like that unless there's a specific threat of violence. so what you're seeing now is more of a concentration on the mental health issues. darrell steinberg has long been a champion of mental health issues of better spending and better planning for that. and yang you would have seen these bills coming forth anyway. it just so happens it happened to follow this horrible thank that happened. >> and then berkeley assembly woman, nancy skinner proposing the gun violence restraining order. and this is -- this talk is specifically very much the mental health issue. talk about what it will do and do you think it will make a

difference? >> i think there's a lot of questions around whether skinner's bill really can make a difference. what skinner wants to do ask basically, we have current laws now where someone is a mental illness says to their therapists that they are thinking causing harm to themselves or to another person, but there are some requirements around when a therapist will have to report that. either to mental health officials in the county or law enforcement and what skinner wants to do is expand that power to family members to alert authorities around whether or not for someone who they think might be prone to cause harm. >> and i would imagine there are quite a few civil liberties concerns with that? >> well, first of all, there are a lot of law enforcement efficiency concerns and there are a lot of civil liberty

concerns. the problem that we see portrayed very accurately in the santa barbara setting is that the police and the parents are strangers. that's a voice of -- one possibility is that the young man has serious emobile difficulties. another possibility is that the mother on the phone has serious emotional difficulties. put yourself in the position of the police officer. how do you arbitrate those? how much do you invest in the investigation of worried parents. at least when you're dealing with professional therapists. you have some quality control at the outside. but the other problem that you have at the outside there is the more you make, their puttic

professionals, agencies ever law enforcementer investigationer labeling of the people they treat, the her uft the truly mentally ill are greg to try to stay the hell away from them. and is that you have a real counter deterrents. >> that's an interesting point about darrell steinberg. we heard from him about the opening part of his proposal this week is to expand spending on training of law enforcement officers. that's partly in recognition of the fact that they çñc$u$e first responders and increasingly people with mental illness are in prison and jail and in contact with the criminal justice system but it raises a very interesting question about, you know, if a police officer comes to your door, you know, are you going to open up about concerns you have about your mental health? probably not. as a society, we kind of learned to fear law enforcement. so i think, you know, some of the people who are opposed to some of the spending are

arguing, let's reinvest that money so a social worker shows up at the your door. >> well, it may be worse than th that, by the way. there may be millions of people willing to tell the police automatic their troubles but i don't think those are the most dangerous people in society. when you're planning to become a mass murderer, you're not necessarily going to put your arm around a policeman and make a full confession. >> and it's hard for a licensed therapist to recognize that, especially in the ten or 15-minute window that an officer at the door blooimpb, in this case, what they have with this young man in santa barbara. it's hard to imagine the degree of training you could give police and deputies that would enable them to really see this with any great consistency. >> and we should also point out that cases like these are the ones that grab national 45ed lines but the reality is a small percentage of violent acts are

committed by the mentally ill. only 4% of the violent acts in this country. so when you have this whole stigma issue, do we want to stigmatize the mentally ill? i want to get back to the civil liberties issues with you, frank. what are the civil liberty issues concerns here? and how do you strike that balance between public safety and individual liberties? >> okay. well, it turns out to be a more peculiar problem in the united states. and the reason for that is that this firearms ownership is part of an ordinary citizen'sive skril liberties here. with r5egard to handguns, the issue isn't that in the united kingdom. it isn't that in the city of new york under the sullivan act, because ordinary citizens are not entitled to have handguns.

and know require waiting periods everybody can have all the guns. what is the potentially dangerous aspect of owning and using firearms and then, whomever it is that you're trying to separate from access to gun, can feel agrieved and stigmatized. >> let me play devil's advocate for a minute. gun rights advocate also say it's not the gun that are the issue, it's the people who have the guns. >> well, it's both. it's very, very difficult to shoot somebody without a gun. and it's very, very difficult to have a murder without an offender. it's the combination, however,

of the wrong people and the dangerous weapons. and that's the same combination that everybody cease in develsel over the world. the public choices we made and the "we" in this case, even california, is not to try and make restrictive access to most firearms, including handguns. and one price of that is that our capacities to, in that case, restrict ownership and use possibilities to anyone is greatly reduced. and the stigma that goes with being not eligible to own a gun, is much greater in the united states. >> let's remember that in this case, three people died as a result of a knife being used as

a weapon, not a gun and i take your point about stigma very seriously because incidents like this, you know, i'm not sure any legislation could necessarily prevent freak incidents like this. but a lot of my concern about a lot of the proposals that are being made is that they inadvertently stigmatize people with mental illness and i think one of the concerns we need to look at as a society is, how do we destigmatize -- how do we destigmatize mental illness so people feel comfortable getting help? one of the themes from this story is that this young man had access to mental health services but he didn't want to take medication he didn't want to pursue. >> and it's definitely a debate that's very much growing nationally now. much sadness and warning that you see santa barbara and the surrounding community. i want to thank you all for being here. josh richmond, april and frank.

>> thank you. another issue that universities across the country sw have been grappling with is sexual assault. a recent task force referred to it as i epidemic affecting 1 in 5 college women. vice president joe biden calls for greater accountability by university leadership. >> we need to bring perpetrators to justice. and we need the college and university to step up and learn the lessons which we have learned in implementation of violence against women act on the criminal side. >> meanwhile the u.s. office of civil rights investigating complaints for more than 50 campuses across the country including uc berkeley which is also the subject of a state probe. scott schafer recently sat down with san mateo county congresswoman jackie sphere who says she will introduce legislation in the coming weeks to address the issues. >> congresswoman spear thanks for coming in. >> at its core, what is the issue about sexual assault on

k578 puts? what's it really about when you break it all down? >> it's about a climate of tolerance for sexual assault at university campuses that is indefensible. when you realize that 20% of the coeds on campus will either be sexually assaulted or they will have an attempt of sexual assault on them during their college career, it's a chkrilli number and for any parent, senting a i think woman off to college in particular, that's a deep concern. >> just to be clear, we're talking about rape, attempted rape, physical abuse. >> sexual assault includes rape, attempt to rape. and it also includes unwanted sexual contact. >> yeah. so the 65 schools that include the university of california berkeley, who are on this list that the white house released, the department of education released, what's the commonality there.

they're all being investigated but there's no inference of guilt or innocence but there's some concerns about how seriously they've handled these complaints. >> if it's gone to the state of being investigated, then there's some serious concerns. so they have had irregularities from the way they have actually handled these cases. about 62 or 63% of the universities around the country are shirking their responsibilities as it relates to properly investigating and handling sexual assault cases. >> what does that moon? that they're not taking it seriously? he don't have the resources to take it seriously? they're not being transparent? they're not sharing information? it seems like there could be a lot of ways in which the investigations would be inadequate or suspect? >> all of those. but probably most of them are because they have not proper live investigated the cases. in one of the cases. at uc berkeley, the victim survivor told me that she was never interviewed. she files the complaint.

there's some action taken against the assailant but no one ever interviewed her so how can you really have a comprehensive investigation if you don't even actually interview the victim? >> is it complicated by the fact that these things are happening on campus? and that the campus and university are responsible as opposed to the local police department or should the local police department be brought in? where does the responsibility begin and end? >> that's a good question. if it is, in fact, a violent felony that's been committed, it's not something that the university should handle exclusive ily but certainly the university has a responsibility to do a investigation and take action against the assailant and appropriately refer these cases to local law enforcement. >> is there some sort of pressure, do you think, that might prevent a school or discourage a school from taking the appropriate steps? >> young historically, there have been an unwillingness to necessarily take these cases

seriously 37 there was alcohol involved or involved he said-she said. most of these predators attack six victims on a campus before they're finally curtailed in their activity. >> sometimes, not always, but some of these alleged assailants could be athletes. many schools get a lot of money and prestige from sports and the donors that follow that. is that an issue? does that get mixed in with this at all do you think? >> i think the athlete/rape situation is handled in an inappropriate way in many circumstances. there is an effort to minimize the reporting, somehow, make it go away. find some other means by which to handle the situation. oftentimes, we find out after the fact, after the season is over as most recently was found out at the university of oregon where after the season is over, they are now told that they're no longer going to be on the

team. you, of course, before this, were very involved in the issue of sexual assault in the military. do you see -- what's the pair legal here? what's the overlap? >> the paparallels are striking. my work on sexual assault in the military was the motivation to move on to look at sexual assault on college campuses. they're closed systems. they have their own code. the uniform code of military justice and then the code of the student conduct and they have their own law enforcement. and that formula createsen environment where i think many of these cases haven't been handled in a serious manner. >> in terms of recommendation and legislation that you're promoting and sponsoring, what needs to happen? >> i think transparency is a huge part of it. i think that if there's an investigation ongoing, if there's been a complaint filed or a resolution, that should all be made available to the public. i think we need to make sure they are the appropriate resources on the college

campuses in terms of counseling the victims and also, taking the rape test. believe it or not, uc doesn't even have rape kits on campus. they were told that uc berkeley to go to highland's hospital to be tested. that's unacceptable. >> so the legislation that you're promoting and sponsoring will codify some of the recommendations that the white house is already running with some. >> that's correct. they're codifying it our original recommendations. so we're very pleased that they've created a website called not alone.org op. that will be a great resource for victim survivors. i think for the most part, young women and most of these are co-eds, although 6% are male. 70% of the lgbt community is harassed on college campuses, too. i think they need to know where to turn. the reason why the universities take it so seriously is title 9 files an action against you and

finds you not in compliance, then you can lose all of your federal funding so that means pell grants and student loansnd research grants. it's a big hammer for the university. >> certainly gotten the attention of the universities across the country. congresswoman spear, thanks for bringing this to light and for coming in to talk about it. this week if f the world lost ange angela mayalou. we have this with a loan time frong of angelou. davis spoke with the author in 2012 about the power and beauty of friendship. >> her life has been populated with friends. and there have been many famous

ones from civil rights' activist malcolm x to oprah winfrey. yet some of her closest friends have included people not as well known. you once explained to me the difference between friends and acquaintances. would you share that with me? >> friendship, it keeps you alive. it keeps you awake and it keeps yao trying to be the best. and in the middle of the night when you're lonely and feel most at odds with yourself and with life and even with god, you can call a friend. >> authors, singer, performer, actress, dancer and composer, angel angelou's achievement spanned more than four decades and she's also a filmmaker. >> we're very proud.

>> i'm very proud, too. i think all of black americans that see this will be very proud, too. >> in 1968, she wrote, produced and narrated a documentary series about the african-american experience is called "blacks, blues, black." here at her home in north carolina, her guarden is filled with friends. if you walk around your house, there are friends in almost every room. your library. hundreds of books. talk about the friends from these books. >> i'm a product of the men and women who went before me. and i'm grateful to them. the writers who informed me. james baldwin, of course. shakespeare, of course. john killings. books meant to as much to me.

i spent seven years of my life as a mute. but i read. i read everything. and i memorized everything. so many writers i just -- it's -- and they still inform my life. >> books not only helped her gain her voice but transformed her past, encouraged by her good friend james baldwin he ask wrote her first novel, the u toe biographical "i know why the caged bi caged bird sings" in 1968. since then she's written everything from poems to children's books to cookbooks. in 1992, her poetry reached millions of americans at president bill clinton's inauguration. >> across the wall of the world

of river things sings a beautiful song and it says, come, rest here by my side. >> and while her writing continues to inspire audiences of all generations, her impact doesn't end there. you spent your life helping others, reaching out, supporting and including me. why do you do that? what motivates you inside? with your celebrity status that you feel you still need to reach back? >> i owe it to another person to say what i've learned. i think that each one of us lives in relation to the heroes and sheroes we have. all i always. and you have to have the courage to be a hero/shero. courage is the most important to develop virtues because without courage you can't practice any

other virtues. you can be anything, kind, fair, true, generous, blah, blah, blah. but to be that same thing time after time you have to have courage. >> angelou believes we all have a here are or a shero inside of us. one of her heroes is the reverend cecil williams who leads glide memorial church's programs to serve the poor. her advice to young and old is the same. an impassioned call to be courageous. >> you have to use your art to speak back. you must do it. and continue to do it as women as you can. and ask god the creator, to encourage you to be more creative in this place. each of us comes from the creation, creating which is 's

which is whis 's of glory. >> i asked her, what keeps her creating, doing, being? >> i'm blessed. and i'm now celebrating my 84th year on this earth. it's a blessing to be of use. anybody who can be of use is useless. i will not be abused. i will not be misussed but i will be of use. >> recently, maya angelou shared an honor with other humanitarians like mother teresa and her friend, dr. martin luther king jr. at the historic unveiling of "remember then" champions for humanity. at the henry j. kaizer park in downtown oakland. and as a former bay area resident, it's an honor she treasured. >> thank you, my dear.

thank you, thank you. >> don't give in. give. inspiring words from an inspiring woman. that is all for tonight. for all of our news coverage, go to our news.org. than

( no audio ) ( knocking ) say hello to the wife, jack. ( fires ) huh! oh... ( alarm clock plays theme from romeo and juliet )