{"id":543161,"date":"2026-04-21T16:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T16:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/543161\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T16:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T16:56:13","slug":"mental-health-by-the-numbers-in-nebraska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/543161\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health by the numbers in Nebraska"},"content":{"rendered":"

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – First Alert 6 takes a closer look at the state of mental health care in Nebraska and possible solutions following last week\u2019s two law enforcement-related incidents.<\/p>\n

A Douglas County sheriff\u2019s deputy was shot responding to a domestic call<\/a>. Investigators said the suspect, Brian Huggins, had a history of behavioral health issues. Huggins died by suicide.<\/p>\n

And then Noemi Guzman<\/a>, who police say kidnapped a 3-year-old from inside an Omaha Walmart and cut him in the arm and face with a stolen kitchen knife. Omaha police officers shot and killed her before she could strike again.<\/p>\n

Guzman had been on a court-ordered mental health treatment plan since last summer for her schizophrenia. According to court records, psychiatrists determined she could live in the community. Remember, this was after she was arrested for setting her father\u2019s house on fire<\/a> and threatening a priest with a knife.<\/p>\n

Monitoring system<\/p>\n

We wanted to know who is part of the system monitoring those who may not be following their mental health treatment plan and are a risk to others or themselves. When that happens, the Board of Mental Health will often notify the local sheriff so a warrant can be issued and deputies can track the individual down.<\/p>\n

Here are the numbers since 2023:<\/p>\n

In 2023, 842 warrants were issued for those not following their treatment plans according to the Board of Mental Health. In 2024, 756. In 2025, 690. So far in 2026, 190.<\/p>\n

But out of these 2,500 warrants, 85% of them didn\u2019t have a second warrant, meaning deputies picked them up, got them back into treatment and the individuals continued to thrive after the one hiccup.<\/p>\n

But in 15% of these cases, the individuals messed up again and had another warrant issued by the Board of Mental Health. Twenty-five individuals had five or more issued in Douglas County.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Hanson said there has to be a better way, a more team approach for this.<\/p>\n

One model to explore is the way Nebraska\u2019s problem-solving courts work like drug court and veterans\u2019 treatment court where experts from a variety of stakeholders help individuals who are on the fringes to do everything to make them productive citizens.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WOWT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – First Alert 6 takes a closer look at the state of mental health care…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[187128,187126,51480,187125,149477,102,187127,1906,6623,49496,185063,105170,7129,9728,56,54,55,17091],"class_list":{"0":"post-543161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-board-of-mental-health","9":"tag-brian-huggins","10":"tag-deputy","11":"tag-domestic-call","12":"tag-douglas-county","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-knife","15":"tag-mental-health","16":"tag-mentalhealth","17":"tag-nebraska","18":"tag-noemi-guzman","19":"tag-omaha","20":"tag-schizophrenia","21":"tag-suicide","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-unitedkingdom","25":"tag-walmart"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}