BOB MCMANUS: Lessons of the Bowery homeless-slay horror. “America abandoned a custodial approach to mental illness a half-century ago, and the results have been obvious in the nation’s streets and public spaces ever since — and never more so than on the Bowery early Saturday morning. . . . Enter Rodriguez “Randy” Santos, by most accounts a toxic broth of insanities, addictions and violent impulses so profound his own mother is said to be terrified of him. Police allege he savaged five fellow Bowery derelicts with a makeshift iron wrecking bar in the twilight hours, killing four outright and hospitalizing the fifth with critical injuries. Santos is in custody, and thus now begins a complex adjudication process focused almost solely on him: his actions, his incapacities and his legal culpability. His victims, and the safety of the city itself, are very much on the periphery.”

As usual in New York during the Cuomo/DeBlasio era.