Remember all the massive cuts in rehab and psychiatric programs happily pushed through by Rudolph Giuliani? Doesn't this guy at Penn Station sound like one of his "budget cuts"?

[via Bomb Threat in New York Empties Penn Station - New York Times]:

In a dispute with an Amtrak ticket agent, the man, whom the police identified as Raul Claudio, 43, of the Bronx, placed a bag on a ticket counter and said a bomb was inside, the police said. The threat was unsubstantiated, but caused personnel including National Guardsmen in military fatigues to clear the station just after noon.

Mr. Claudio has had repeated run-ins with the law, including convictions for at least two drug offenses, according to Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office. He was at Penn Station intending to travel to a drug treatment program near Albany, two acquaintances said.

The city's bomb squad determined that there was no bomb in the bag, but Mr. Claudio was arrested and was expected to be charged with two felonies: making a terroristic threat and falsely reporting an incident, Ms. Thompson said. Each count carries a maximum sentence of up to seven years in prison.

So the guy is an asshole. A drug-addled, psychologically troubled asshole. Does this mean he's going to jail for 7 years? C'mon, he doesn't need jail. He needs rehab and some serious psychological help.

Given how New Yorkers are notoriously bad-tempered and high in the assholishness quota legally allowed to regular human beings, are we going to see a rash of subway evacuations and/or people thrown into jail just because they were their regular New York smartassed selves?

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