Celebrity

Amanda Bynes Placed on 72-Hour Mental Lockdown

The troubled actress was found by deputies near a gas can and a small fire on a driveway

Published on July 23, 2013 12:25 PM

Amanda Bynes was hospitalized Monday night on an involuntary psychiatric hold after she was seen near a gas can and a small fire on a household driveway in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

After questioning Bynes, sheriff’s deputies determined she needed to be placed under the 5150 hold, which police, social workers and other mental health professionals have the authority to use if a person is considered a danger to themselves or others, or is gravely disabled.

“When we receive a call on something like this and someone is behaving unusually in front of a deputy trained to evaluate the possibility of needing a mental health evaluation, we can bring them to a mental health facility for up to 72 hours,” says Ventura County Sheriff’s Captain Don Aguilar.

“If someone is having a behavioral issue and they can’t care for themselves, then we step in and we try to give them assistance they need to get them going in the right direction.”

It was not immediately clear why Bynes, 27, was in Thousand Oaks; this is the community where she grew up.

Bynes is now under the same 72-hour lockdown applied to Britney Spears in 2008. Spears’s affairs remain under the control of her father acting as a conservator.

PHOTOS: Amanda Bynes’s Fall from Grace in 5 Clicks

Earlier this month, Bynes showed up in a New York courtroom wearing an aqua-colored wig to face a charges of reckless endangerment and attempted tampering with physical evidence after allegedly throwing a bong out of her 36th-floor Manhattan apartment window and smoking marijuana in the lobby of the building on May 23.

The actress underwent a psychiatric evaluation following her arrest, and has said she plans to sue the NYPD for “illegally entering my apartment, lying about drugs on me and lying about me tampering with non existent drug paraphernalia.” Bynes was silent in court as she was told to return Aug. 26 for another hearing.