The case of Charles Stevens, a paranoid schizophrenic who's awaiting trial at Rikers Island. About a year ago, he was shot by police after he allegedly menaced passengers on a Long Island railroad train. He had stopped taking his medication when he boarded the train, carrying a long, martial arts stick and a Marine Corps sword.

What kind of sword? Is it a ceremonial sword?

This particular sword was a ceremonial sword.

Does it look like it could do some damage?

It could do damage. It could do damage, but I never aimed it at anybody.

What were you wearing on your face?

For a little while, I had a clown nose.

You must have looked very peculiar on the train that day.

Probably did.

Here at Rikers, Stevens now takes his medication. Looking back at that day on the train, he says he didn't threaten anyone.

Did you strike anybody with the sword—

No.

—or the stick?

No.

So, the police try to get you off. Did you go off? Did you get off the train when they asked you to?

No. No.

You got sprayed with pepper spray.

Correct.

And then what happened?

I ran away from the officer. And then I took my sword out, and I waived it two times, and I hit the train with it. And that was it. Then he shot me.

Officers fired 15 shots. Eight hit Stevens. If convicted of all the charges, including attempted assault, he could serve up to 15 years behind bars. As a young man, Charles Stevens went from the Marine Corps into modeling. But then, his illness took hold. In and out of treatment centers, he moved back in with his parents, Henry and Nadine Stevens. They say he was acting strangely, and at one point he punched holes in the bathroom wall.

He would shave his whole body. Shave from head to foot. And he was in my tub, and I heard this knock. It's Formica. Two, he actually had put. They're still there.

That's when I was going through a nervous breakdown.

And again you were off your medication? [nods head affirmatively]

As is often the case, his parents had become Charles' primary caretakers, watching him deteriorate into incoherence and impulsiveness.

People don't understand what the families go through.

I'm almost unable to explain it. We are in his world.

We were just being a prisoner in our own home.

You were never afraid of him?

No, I was never. I slept all night. I was not afraid that he was going to come down, and do what they do.

And yet, I read in the paper that there was one time when you called the police.

Oh, yes. I called the police. I called them more than once, because I was desperate. I knew he needed help. I called. I said, there's a sick man here. He needs medication. He needs hospitalization. Please come. They came. About four police cars. They all came into my house. He's standing there, and he—

What, totally calm?

Yes. He said that she's just over-reacting.

As with other families in similar situations, the Stevens had no way to get real help.

Charles didn't look like he was in danger. And I didn't look in danger. And they said, unless he's hurting someone, or hurting himself, ma'am, there's nothing we can do. And that is the way it was.

You couldn't make him go take his medication?

No.

At that time there wasn't even any medication. He had destroyed it.

Dr. Howard Telson treats psychiatric patients at Bellevue Hospital in New York.

The most important reason that people with serious mental illness stop taking their medication is because they don't believe that they're ill. They don't believe the medicine will help them. They don't want to be identified as psychiatric patients.

Under the law, families and/or doctors can go to court to force a mentally ill person into treatment, without committing them to a hospital or institution. Now, a judge can issue a court order compelling that person to take medication, undergo drug or alcohol testing and treatment, and take advantage of vocational training, and supervised housing.

It sounds so expensive. I mean, you're saying psychiatrists and medical people. Sounds like it costs a bundle.

It does cost money, but it certainly costs much less to provide good, community treatment than it does to keep somebody in a hospital for the same period of time.

It does cost less?

It's much less.

But it still begs the question, how do you get people with mental illness who won't take their medication into treatment? One way is to force them, as they did with Jay Sax, who is bipolar, which means he has extreme mood swings. Very high highs, and very deep depressions.

The doctors went and got a court order to force you to take your medication—

That's correct.

—because you weren't taking it.

That's correct.

Jay Sax wants to be a writer or a comedian.

I was there.

He now lives in Maple House in Brooklyn, which serves some 30 formerly homeless adults with psychiatric disorders. He's free to travel as he pleases, but a psychiatrist, a case manager, and a visiting nurse all monitor and regulate his life.

We got a new one.

Under Kendra's Law, if a patient refuses to take his medication, the police can pick him up and bring him to an emergency room. When his illness takes over, he has delusions of grandeur, and hears voices. He lost control in the summer of 1997, when he went to Penn Station and became someone else.

I was the surrogate president. I was sure that the Secret Service people were there to protect me. The people in the waiting room were Supreme Court justices and things like that.

And he neglected his own care, and basically was there for four days in a row, and really being a danger to himself.

He said you were collecting garbage.

That's right.

You were harassing people.

If you call it that.

Getting dirtier and dirtier, and looking crazier and crazier. You knew this.

Yeah.

Eventually, as he showed us, Jay Sax got down on his hands and knees and licked the floor of the train station.

Four o'clock in the morning, I licked the floor. Thinking that perhaps, if I ever really become president, they would remember that.

That is devastating.

Yeah.

Before Kendra's Law was passed, the state created a pilot program at Bellevue Hospital to see if forced outpatient treatment would work. And that's where Dr. Telson, the program's founder, took Jay Sax the night he licked the floor of Penn Station.

You need a doctor to tell you that you're ill and need treatment.

What about his rights? His rights to say, no, I don't want to take the medicine?

When he walks the streets, and he has decomposed to the point where he gets dangerous, what about my rights? Don't I have a right to stand on the subway's platform and know that I'm not going to be pushed under the train?

This is something. The mother of Charles Stevens saying that.

I don't want him to hurt anybody. I want his condition taken care of.

And it appears that Charles Stevens would agree. He, like his parents, supports Kendra's Law.

Even though this means that your parents can call someone and force you into treatment?

That's fine with me. I mean, not having, not accepting the treatment in the past, is what has caused so many problems. Had I known, had I been able to see myself, it would have been a whole other story.