We realize hindsight is painful, but local officials need to ask whether every legal tool was used to help Justin Crowley-Smilek, a war veteran who died Saturday in a burst of gunfire in a police station parking lot.

The goal would be to better help families who clearly see trouble coming but find themselves unable to intervene before it does.

The former Army Ranger who fought in Afghanistan was shot to death after confronting a police officer with a knife outside the Farmington municipal offices.

While the vast majority of veterans make a successful return to civilian life, some do not. Crowley-Smilek’s background story is depressingly representative of that group.

His father, Michael Smilek, told the Sun Journal on Saturday that he watched his son spiral into delusions and mental illness triggered by post-traumatic stress disorder.

“He was very, very troubled when he came back from overseas,” Michael Smilek told the Sun Journal. “My wife and I spent the better part of a year trying to get him the services he needed.”

The honorably discharged veteran was either unwilling or unable to reach out for help.

A clear warning signal came in January when Crowley-Smilek severely beat a local man with a flashlight outside a bar. Sonya Conkey told the Sun Journal her husband was struck 14 times and has been unable to work since.

The resulting assault charges led to a hearing Friday, when Michael Smilek got encouraging news. A local judge ordered his son to undergo a full psychological evaluation.

Michael Smilek called the Togus VA hospital following the hearing to see if he could have his son immediately committed for the evaluation.

But Smilek was told that unless his son threatened to harm himself or someone else, there was no way to have him committed.

That is the legal standard, meant to protect a citizen from being restrained against his will.

While the standard is black and white, these cases rarely are. Sometimes people take their medications and appear to be normal. Often they do not, and severe symptoms and bizarre behavior return.

Meanwhile, the person suffering from mental illness may believe their delusional behavior is completely rational.

The problem, of course, is not confined to veterans. A host of people clearly saw Jared Loughner descending into madness months before he shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 18 others, killing six of them.

Yet, despite clear warnings, family, friends and police were unable to head off that tragic rampage.

While Crowley-Smilek had not yet been convicted in the January flashlight attack, could that arrest have been combined with other evidence to show he was a menace to others, if not to himself?

There were, after all, his 33 encounters with the Farmington Police Department, his increasingly bizarre behavior and the continual pleas of his parents that he be confined for his own protection.

This is, we realize, a complex balancing act between individual rights and public authority.

But we should at least ask ourselves if we could have done better by Justin Crowley-Smilek and his family.

rrhoades@sunjournal.com

The opinions expressed in this column represent the views of the ownership and editorial board.