NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A Davidson County judge said, "we have to do better."
What she means is we need to "do more" to help people in the criminal justice system with serious mental health issues.
You may remember the case last year of the man found to be mentally incompetent who then went out and allegedly shot and killed a Belmont University student.
Belmont student story: She's now the face of legislation. What the family of Jillian Ludwig want you to know.
Well, it turns out that was not an isolated case.
Last December, the Bowling Green Police Department arrested Johnson Lloyd, 25, for violently attacking and raping the clerk at a hotel off Interstate 65. Police said Lloyd had been trying to sleep on a couch in the hotel lobby and was repeatedly asked to leave when he physically and sexually assaulted the woman working behind the counter.
We asked Davidson County General Sessions Judge Melissa Blackburn, "Who dropped the ball?"
"I think everybody dropped the ball. I don’t think it was one person. I think it was everybody," she told me.
Blackburn, who sits on the bench an hour away from the crime scene, believes if people in Davidson County and elsewhere had done more to help Lloyd, what happened in Bowling Green could have been prevented.
"People were on notice that he was unwell, but yet they released him to the street," Blackburn explained.
Lloyd's trouble with the law and experience with the mental health system actually began long before his arrest in Bowling Green.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates discovered that Lloyd was first arrested in Maryland in 2017 for armed robbery and assault. But because of his mental illness, doctors found him "not criminally responsible." He was sent to a mental hospital for five years and then released to a group home where he could continue to get medication and other mental health services.
But Lloyd instead took off and headed for Tennessee where he was arrested in Brentwood for shoplifting. He spent 45 days in jail and then almost immediately after that, he was arrested in Nashville after he somehow got a key to a Midtown hotel room and spent the night there.
Tthe very next day, he was arrested again and charged with felony burglary after going into a Midtown pizza place and stealing an employee's purse.
Lloyd spent the next year in the Metro jail because the court wanted a mental evaluation of him, and it took a while to get it done.
As in Maryland, the mental evaluation in Davidson County found Lloyd was incompetent to stand trial. And doctors at the state's mental health facility in Nashville wrote in their report that Lloyd would "never likely become competent." But, unlike the doctors in Maryland, the experts in Tennessee found Lloyd "did not meet" the standard to be committed to a mental hospital, meaning they did not feel that he posed a danger to himself or others.
Back at the courthouse because of the incompetency determination, the judge had no choice under the law, but to dismiss the burglary charge and order Lloyd released from jail.
Judge Blackburn told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that she believes the state psychiatrists blew it with Johnson Lloyd.
"They are not recommending any forensic follow up to an outpatient provider," she said, as she read the state's report.
But the judge argued there is plenty that could have been done.
"I will never release anyone to the street. I will make certain that there is a bed that they are going to and that there is medication and that they are safe," she said.
But that's not what happened with Johnson Lloyd.
He went from the Metro jail to the downtown Greyhound bus station and somehow — even though he had no money — and got a ticket to Chicago. Only that's not where he ended up.
Lloyd got off the bus in Robertson County and just hours after leaving the jail in Nashville. Police were called because he was allegedly causing trouble at a gas station convenience store off the interstate in Portland.
In police body cam video, Lloyd sounds confused and, at one point, tells the officer he wants to go to the hospital because he's hearing voices.
But doctors at the Portland Medical Center checked him out and said he was fine and good to go.
So where did he go?
The Portland police officer drove Lloyd across the state line to Franklin, Kentucky, where the officer dropped him off at the Mint Gaming Hall where Lloyd was arrested for assaulting a security officer.
He's now had two run-ins with police since leaving the Metro jail, less than eight hours earlier.
But he wasn't done.
Over the next two days, records show police in both Franklin, Kentucky, and Portland got multiple calls about Lloyd causing mischief, even breaking into a house.
Finally, it seems a Franklin, Kentucky, police officer had had enough and drove Lloyd to nearby Bowling Green where he dropped him off right around the corner from the hotel where a short time later, police say Lloyd brutally attacked the clerk.
"That’s frustrating as a judge, and as a person," Judge Blackburn said.
She explained that Lloyd — and others like him — need extended mental health care.
But the state keeps turning these people away, the judge boldly suggested, because of a lack of beds in Tennessee's mental health facilities.
"We don’t have a place to put them. We don’t have a bed to put them in so they’re being released," Blackburn said. "There’s nothing that they can do so they’re releasing people without the treatment they possibly need."
In an email, the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services strongly rejected that idea, telling NewsChannel 5 Investigates,
"All decisions around commitment, evaluation, competency, inpatient treatment, restoration and the like are very highly regulated...(and) our department, our contracted outpatient evaluators and our community-based crisis providers are well-versed in these regulations, and they uphold the standards in every way possible," the department told me in a statement.
But Judge Blackburn pointed out that just weeks before Johnson Lloyd's arrest in Bowling Green, Shaquille Taylor's arrest made headlines in Nashville after he was charged with the shooting death of a Belmont student who was out walking in the park. He has now been indicted by a grand jury on first-degree murder and tampering with evidence charges.
Earlier, Taylor had been found mentally incompetent after he shot into a car with two kids but despite his history of mental health concerns, state doctors found no reason to keep him institutionalized or provide any sort of follow-up care. So he was released from jail only to fire a gun again with tragic consequences.
"We desperately need more beds for mental health services and if we don’t commit the beds to mental health services, we’re going to have the Mr. Taylors, we’re going to have the Mr. Lloyds and there are going be more and more of them around in society," the judge suggested.
Johnson Lloyd remains in jail in Bowling Green for the attack on the hotel clerk. The judge in that case has ordered a mental evaluation. Kentucky has a fairly new law that allows people found mentally incompetent after a crime to be involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.
Meanwhile, Tennessee lawmakers are now considering similar legislation. Jillian's Law — named after the Belmont student killed last year — would allow for people charged with a felony and determined to be mentally incompetent to be involuntarily committed to a mental health institution.
Tennessee is in a mental health crisis.
In acknowledging that reality, Ben Hall has been investigating what that means for everyone across the state.
Some of those stories have meant him recording stories involving jails, psychiatric hospitals, emergency rooms and the court system.
You can catch up on those stories at on our NewsChannel 5 Investigates page or by pressing this link.
