When Mental Illness Is Branded as Terrorism: How the System Is Criminalizing Crisis

On July 28, 2025, Michigan prosecutors made headlines by charging a man with a rarely used state terrorism statute after a violent stabbing spree at a Walmart store. According to police, the suspect — whose mental health struggles were noted by his own family — allegedly attacked multiple people at random before being subdued.

But instead of framing this tragedy as the catastrophic result of untreated mental illness, Grand Traverse Prosecutor Noelle Moeggenberg opted for a more familiar, more punitive label: terrorist.

And that decision should alarm all of us.

When the diagnosis is criminalization

What happened at that Walmart was horrifying. But so is the broader pattern behind it.

For decades, America has allowed its mental health infrastructure to collapse. State psychiatric hospitals were closed without adequate community care to replace them. Insurance companies gutted access to treatment. Jails and prisons became the default “treatment” centers for the mentally ill — often staffed by corrections officers with no medical training.

The result? People in crisis are met with handcuffs, not help — especially as Michigan falls disturbingly behind in its ability to provide mental health services.

In this latest case, the individual’s family told the media that he had a long history of mental illness and had been acting erratically in the days leading up to the attack. The family had sought assistance. Like countless others, they were reportedly met with indifference or unavailability — until it was too late.

The problem with “terrorism” charges

Michigan’s state terrorism statute was enacted after 9/11 to address mass-casualty events linked to ideological or political motives. But now we see it wielded as a blunt instrument of public outrage even when ideology appears absent.

Labeling someone experiencing acute psychosis as a terrorist does several dangerous things:

• It removes mental health from the conversation. Instead of asking what interventions could have prevented this, the legal system jumps to maximum penalties and political theater.
• It shifts focus away from systemic failures. Prosecutors don’t want to talk about why the mental health system failed to respond in time, so they reframe the suspect as evil rather than ill.
• It sets a precedent for future cases. When mental illness is framed as terrorism, it opens the door for broader abuse — especially against poor, Black, Brown, or otherwise marginalized individuals already over-policed.

To say that Moeggenberg is completely ignorant of this is disingenuous. She likely knows and simply does not care.

“Violence committed by people with mental illness is exceedingly rare. Far more often, people with psychiatric disabilities are the victims of violence — not the perpetrators.”

What would real accountability look like?

• Funding crisis stabilization units instead of expanding solitary confinement
• Deploying mobile mental health teams instead of militarized police
• Ensuring families in crisis can reach someone who will answer and act
• Creating legal frameworks that allow for care-first, not prison-first, responses

Care is not weakness

Charging a mentally ill person with terrorism doesn’t make us safer. It’s a political move to make the prosecutor look more palatable for reelection — and all that does is make the system more dangerous for everyone.

It reinforces a warped logic: if you’re in crisis, stay silent. Because if you act out, the state will throw away the key and call it justice.

We deserve better. So do the families watching their loved ones fall through the cracks again and again until tragedy strikes. With Michigan woefully behind in both mental health care and indigent defense, citizens don’t stand a chance.

Tell your lawmakers to reel in prosecutors and this behavior. Stress the importance of mental health support before we get to stabbings and shootings.