Thursday, September 24, 2015

Add Ethan Saylor to "Shattered Families" Memorial Credits

A Maryland grand jury refused to indict police officers responsible for killing Ethan Saylor, a 26-year-old man with Down Syndrome who was murdered inside a movie theater in January 2013 while wearing police handcuffs. The official cause of death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation. An autopsy revealed that Saylor suffered a fractured throat cartilage, which one expert says could only have been caused by force of some kind. Force could have included a direct blow or manual strangulation. Ethan's crime? He wanted to watch a movie twice.

Please write Ethan's name in a comment as you make a donation at Indiegogo to help produce "Shattered Families: The Collapse of America's Mental Health System." The movie is being produced by noted psychiatrist and best selling author, Stephen Seager, M.D. Your name and Ethan's name and his photo will then appear in the film's credits. Make the world aware of the avoidable deaths and mass incarceration of mentally and/or developmentally challenged Americans. Expose and oppose unrequited homicides like Ethan suffered. Details about Ethan's death and links to other articles are in this blog:
"No Indictment for Ethan Saylor Homicide"
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-indictment-for-ethan-saylors-homicide.html

Please connect with the fundraiser and read more information at
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shattered-families#/story
Please give whatever amount you can. No amount is too small or too big.

"Shattered Families: The Collapse of America's Mental Health System."

Wrongful incarcerations, prison abuse, and deadly lunacy arrests are the greatest crises that people with mental health challenges face in the USA. Two bills pending before Congress offer needed improvements in the human rights of people with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities. Please support their passage: 
(1) H.R.2646 "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" by Reps. Tim Murphy and Eddie Bernice Johnson (2015) provides urgently needed services to affected persons.
(2) "Justice Is Not For Sale Act" by Sen. Bernie Sanders (2015) stops the federal government from contracting with private prison companies, addressing the cause of mass incarceration - prison investments.

MaryLovesJustice Neal
Director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
"AIMI vs. USA"
http://AIMI-HumanRights.blogspot.com
Director of "Human Rights Demand" channel at Blogtalkradio
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand
Website: Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com
"Dog Justice for Mentally Ill"
http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com
Email Addresses
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com
Phone 678.531.0262

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Brandon Martin: Untreated until triple murder

1. When Brandon Martin, 22, threatened his family and they sent him for treatment, the treatment center only kept him two days for a psychiatric evaluation and released him. Upon the release of this former baseball player, he used his baseball bat to kill his father, uncle, and an ADT security alarm installer. Now that he killed three people, the prison investors who are America's decision makers plan to keep him for life. The amount of tax money spent for Martin's punishment will be significantly more than his treatment would have required, but that suits prison investors, because now they get the money instead of mental health care providers. Serious mental illness will not be treated properly unless and until prison investors divest themselves of prison stocks or resign from government positions, Dr. Stephen B Seager, Dr. Earle Williams, Dr. Armando AluartGeorgia for Bernie SandersOlga Garcia-VerasteguiGemma PenaDiana BethJulie AcklinAssistance to the Incarcerated Mentally IllMental Illness Policy Org,Treatment Advocacy CenterKatherine ConnerFred Hayes, and all concerned friends. 

2. Prison investors in decision making positions risk the safety of families and society in order to relegate people with serious mental illness into the legal system for prison profiteering. Martin will be given psychiatric treatment before his trial, if the case goes to trial, and the judge and/or jury will not see evidence of his mental illness. That is why the insanity defense is seldom used and is often unsuccessful when used to defend a mentally ill defendant. Some sick defendants are sent to mental hospitals for years to get them "trial ready," whereas the system only offered Martin two days of evaluation and treatment before the crimes happened.

3. People and organizations that object to mandated psychiatric treatment (hospitalization and assisted outpatient treatment programs (AOT)) are expected to object strenuously in the coming weeks to H.R.2646 "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act," because the congressional bill which was introduced by Rep. Tim Murphy and Eddie Bernice Johnson in 2015 has provisions for non-consensual psychiatric treatment.Obviously, Martin needed someone else to make his health care decisions while he experienced a mental health crisis. When you read the objectors' rants against mandated psychiatric treatment, please think about Martin, the former Major League Baseball prospect who may never get to play baseball again and never again have the support of his father and uncle. He was deprived of treatment until he killed them.

4. People like Martin with serious mental illness usually receive mandated treatment after they have already done irreparable harm and are awaiting trial or have been sentenced to jails and prisons, but none of the "freedom of choice" voices are heard in those cases. People who protest mandated psychiatric services won't be around when Martin regains his mental balance through delayed treatment and realizes that he killed his father, his uncle, and an ADT alarm installer before receiving the long-term care he needed.

5. Keep challenging lawmakers to pass your bill, Congressman Tim Murphy (PA-18). Keep fighting against federal contracts with private prison companies, Senator Bernie Sanders. We who are families of persons with serious mental illness and realistic people throughout this country who care about the human rights of mentally ill people, their relatives, and neighbors know that both are sorely needed.

6. Read about Brandon Martin, who was deprived of treatment until he did an avoidable triple murder at KTLA.com, the first of eight(8) links below. Brandon's denial of psychiatric treatment should remind us that 1.25 million others (our nation's mentally ill inmates) were deliberately left untreated until they committed crimes to excuse prison sentences that enrich prison investors in the United States. In the 1970's, unscrupulous elected representatives voted for a Medicaid exclusion that deprived Americans with mental health disabilities of inpatient treatment. Millions of persons suffering from acute mental illness were turned out of asylums and have since been denied hospitalization because of the Medicaid exclusion. Most of them could have functioned well outside of a hospital environment if only their needs for continuing psychiatric treatment and subsistence assistance had been met under assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs.

7. Instead of rendering timely treatment for mentally challenged Americans, many thousands of people with serious mental illness roamed America's streets in the 1980's, homeless, resorting to street drugs to "get their heads on straight," and being subjected to incarceration for offenses ranging from vagrancy to murders. Hundreds of thousands have been warehoused in prisons, and thousands more have been killed since the 1970's in violent encounters with community bullies and by police officers attempting to conduct lunacy arrests. Some of those warehoused in prisons now include veterans who transitioned home from battlefields with invisible wounds to be killed by police officers or become prisoners of war in the USA. At least 50 percent of all violent police incidents involve a person with mental illness. More than 60 percent of prisoners in torturous solitary confinement are mentally ill, and roughly 40 percent of the nation's chronically homeless people also have mental health and/or drug alcohol issues. Yet, some mental health advocates will dare to come to us and say it is against sick people's civil rights to treat them without their agreement.

8. Do not be fooled. Private prison and jail companies are very wealthy, and mentally ill Americans comprise more than half of their commodities. Their lobbyists have significantly more free speech and freedom of press than persons who advocate to decriminalize mental illness and drug addictions and remove barriers to adequate care. Private prison and jail companies also finance political campaigns for "tough on crime" politicians, although people experiencing mental health crises are not made well by enacting draconian laws. It is reasonable to assume that private prison investors also make considerable donations (whether or not the donations are publicly acknowledged) to so-called advocacy groups and human rights organizations that contest enforced mental health treatment.

9. Families that have no mentally ill members are also seriously impacted by a system that awaits crimes to punish sick people with prison terms rather than giving treatment before tragedies. Consider that whereas Martin killed his own family members and a man who was trying to ensure their safety by installing an alarm system; Elliot Rodger, 22, and Seung-Hui Cho did not. Rodger killed six people in his community, and Cho killed 32 fellow Virginia Tech students. Then each of the young men committed suicide like Virginia's Sen. Deed's son, Gus.

10. No misunderstanding causes decision makers and some mental health organizations to ignore anosognosia, a condition which prevents a person's awareness about his/her own need for treatment. It is not the concern for civil rights of mentally ill people that caused this nation to shut down mental hospitals and reduce budgets for community psychiatric care. A more sinister reason causes America's decision makers to ignore mental illness until there is a smoking gun or dripping knife. It comes down to a simple bible truth that requires no religious training: "The love of money is the root of all evil."

11. Psychiatric treatment methods, including drug therapies, have improved significantly in recent decades. But as long as mercenary owners and investors of private prisons, jails, and probation service companies and prison vendors are allowed to make our nation's decisions regarding mental health care, they will continue to sacrifice Americans with mental disabilities and ignore families' pleas for help during crises, just like police officers ignored Elliot Rodger's family, who were disturbed by his YouTube videos that threatened violence. Prison investors are concerned with having full prisons that demand over $100 billion per year of your tax dollars to operate. Prison investors and their mouthpieces insist that people in crisis must PROVE to be imminently dangerous to self or others before involuntary commitments are possible, because prison profiteers have more concern for hefty dividend checks than for mentally ill people, their families, and for your community's safety.

12. People who receive treatment for mental dysfunctions are not more dangerous than other members in society. However, as Rodger's family's lawyer said, "...this country, this world needs to address mental illness and the ramifications ..."  Americans should urge our representatives to co-sponsor the "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act," with its provisions for limited resumption of Medicaid for inpatients and AOT programs that mandate psychiatric treatment. We must also urge support for Senator Bernie Sanders' bill, introduced on September 17, 2015, the "Justice Is Not For Sale Act." That would prevent the federal government from entering contracts with private prison companies within two years of the bill becoming law. 


i) Brandon Martin pleads not guilty in triple murder 
http://ktla.com/2015/09/22/former-mlb-prospect-pleads-not-guilty-in-beating-deaths-of-father-uncle-and-adt-installer/
ii) Sergio Robles Denied Treatment: Killed Police Officer
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/09/psychiatric-crisis-sergio-robles-killed.html
iii) Elliot Rodgers and the Santa Barbara Massacre

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2638427/He-disturbed-boy-British-grandmother-Santa-Barbara-mass-killer-boy-grew-Hollywood-royalty-posted-chilling-blogs-vowing-revenge-against-women-rejected-him.html
iv) Seung-Hui Cho and the Virginia Tech Massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho
v) Damion Hayes: Denied treatment until assaulting innocent neighbor
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/06/mental-illness-made-damion-hayes-fl.html 
vi) Tell Officials to Divest or Resign
http://DivestOrResign.blogspot.com

vii) Contact Your Government Officials
https://www.usa.gov/agencies

viii) A coalition against passage of H.R.2646 could be funded by prison investors.
http://realmhchange.org/2015/09/24/launching-our-murphy-bill-video-and-day-of-action/


Our condolences to families and close friends of Brandon Martin and the alarm system installer. Victims' survivors should have strong civil action cases against the state for neglecting to treat Martin for his mental illness before the tragedy, we feel. Martin should now be treated for mental illness rather than used as another prison commodity. Thank you for giving Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill. It would be illegal to keep a dog in a tight space 23 hours a day and gas or Taser him for barking. It would be illegal to put a dog in deadly restraint for control. That happens to mentally ill people routinely in the nation's correctional facilities. What happened to Larry Neal? Why must a Black family in the USA ask for 12 years what happened to our mentally ill loved one who were secretly arrested and killed? 
Article by MaryLovesJustice, MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com, (678)531-0262. Director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI"). Join us at the "Follow This Blog" for "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog (right margin) and at Facebook, Google+, and Care2. Mentally Ill Americans Need Dog Justice. Treat mental illness medically, not legally. Please advocate for your congresspersons to pass H.R.2646 - The "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act." Stop private prisons from victimizing Americans with mental disabilities by supporting Bernie Sanders' "Justice Is Not For Sale Act." Try to elect people who support human rights and justice for all, not prison investors who have a conflict of interest in decriminalizing mental illness in the United States of America, which is supposedly an equal opportunity nation. Eliminate the exception for slavery in America under the 13th Amendment to abolish human trafficking.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Add Kathia Casseus to "Shattered Families" Memorial Credits

How can you help Kathia Casseus, a retarded teenager, be featured among the memorials in the "Shattered Families" movie credits? Kathia was sentenced to serve eight months in a Kansas juvenile facility after going joyriding in her mom's car and having a small accident. Shortly after arriving at the juvenile facility, she was put on birth control, likely to make it safe for guards to rape her. Kathia was allergic to the Ortho Evra birth control patch that Children's Mercy Hospital prescribed for Kathia without her mother's knowledge. When Kathia complained about heart pain and not being able to breathe, no medical care was rendered. Instead, she was dumped in a solitary confinement cell, where she died.

Write Kathia's name in a comment as you make a donation at Indiegogo to help produce the movie by noted psychiatrist and best selling author, Stephen Seager. Your name and Kathia's name and her photograph will then appear in the film's credits. Make the world aware of the mass incarceration and avoidable deaths of mentally challenged Americans. Expose and oppose wrongful deaths like Kathia suffered. Details are in this article:
http://marylovesjustice.blogspot.com/2012/07/sex-abuse-and-death-in-juvenile.html 


Connect with the fundraiser and read more information at 
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shattered-families#/story 
Please give whatever amount you can. Nothing is too small or too big.

"Shattered Families: The Collapse of America's Mental Health System."

Please be aware that Senator Bernie Sanders, a U.S. presidential candidate, introduced legislation to eliminate the private prison system in America. Sanders also said that his campaign would focus on eliminating the War on Drugs, which AIMI members know is actually a war against drug addicts and their families. With mental health professionals like Dr. Seager and public officials like Senator Sanders and Representatives Tim Murphy and Eddie Bernice Johnson and their co-sponsors striving to improve justice in America, we may soon arrive at positive change. Wrongful incarceration, prison abuse, and deadly lunacy arrests are the greatest crises that people with mental health challenges face in the USA.

MaryLovesJustice Neal
Director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
"AIMI vs. USA"
http://AIMI-HumanRights.blogspot.com
Director of "Human Rights Demand" channel at Blogtalkradio
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand
Website: Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com
"Dog Justice for Mentally Ill"
http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com
Email Addresses
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com
Phone 678.531.0262

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Black Women Barred from "Standing Their Ground"

~ Black Women Are Prosecuted for Self-Defense in the USA ~

Brenda Anderson, a Black lesbian at the time, defended herself against attackers in Texas after she left the check cashers' and went to a movie. She observed a man watching her as she pulled a wad of money out of her pocket at the movie theater's concession stand. Three men followed Brenda as she walked from the theater. When she reached a dark, lonely street, one of them pulled out a gun. She shot two of the men, paralyzing one of them. Brenda was immediately arrested. Her trial centered on her homosexuality rather than her right to self-defense. She was accused of "hating men," although the men were repeat offenders. She was imprisoned in solitary confinement for many years, Brenda Anderson's story in her own words is online at "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/10/aimi-vs-usa-b-anderson-claimant.html

I read news published by the about Beaulah Montgomery, a White woman who fatally shot two of her seven attackers, and I thought about Brenda. The story about Beaulah was fabricated, but Brenda's story is true. Black women are not allowed to "stand our ground." The world learned that during the prosecution of Marissa Alexander, a Florida woman who was initially sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for firing a warning shot to stop her ex-husband from beating her just days after she had given birth. Brenda Anderson was tortured in solitary confinement for years. As a prisoner, she was even made to undergo surgery on her abdomen without anesthesia. 

Many people are concerned about the tendency that America has to disregard justice in order to incarcerate more people for prison profits and to cover-up abuses of power that are most common regarding people of color and the mentally ill of all races. Prison investors tend to favor arresting people in either category, with or without guilt. But these facts are treated like secrets. As I tried to post this story at Google+, hackers interfered. I then waited through a slowdown virus to post this news at Facebook. The government should prevent hackers from taking over computers belonging to human rights activists, especially if the hackers work for the government. But censorship regarding discrimination and the prison industrial complex is treated like a lawful activity.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which may be used to stop Americans' freedom of press online. That would limit dissemination of information about the prison industrial complex and other human rights issues. More importantly, Bernie Sanders announced a war against private prisons and jails and has entered a bill in Congress that would end federal contracts with private prison comapnies. Without private prison profiteering, Brenda Anderson and many other women might not have suffered for decades behind bars. Eliminating private prison profiteering, like Sanders plans, is the only way to end mass incarceration in the USA, and exposing injustice such as Anderson experienced is the only way to elicit support for its eradication. Help stop TPP and private prison profiteering in one blow - support Bernie Sanders.

Mary Neal, director
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI)
(678)531-0262




Monday, September 14, 2015

Add Brian Claunch to "Shattered Families" Memorial Credits

~ Mentally Ill Americans Like Brian Claunch Deserve Dog Justice ~
"Shattered Families: The Collapse of America's Mental Health Care System" is a movie being produced by a noted psychiatrist and author, Dr. Stephen Seager. We who care about mentally ill people living homeless and being incarcerated, brutalized, and killed under the color of law are invited to support the movie. Supporters will be listed in the credits that roll at the end of the movie, just like the producer's and director's names. In addition, there is a memorial section in the credits to "Shattered Families." Photographs of people with serious mental illness who have died will be shown among the memorial credits. "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog will feature a dead mental patient each week for you to please help get his/her picture featured among the memorial credits. Today, we ask for you to give support to the Brian Claunch Memorial, so that the shooting death of this schizophrenic double amputee, who was armed with an ink pen, will not be in vain.

How can you help Brian Claunch be featured among the memorials on the "Shattered Families" movie? Write his name in a comment as you make a donation at Indiegogo to produce the movie. Connect with the fundraiser and read more information at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shattered-families#/story
Both Brian Claunch's and your own name will roll with the movie's credits.

When Brian was shot by Houston police in his care home in 2012, his wrongful death was featured in "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog. The article is repeated below.

Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
September 23, 2012
Houston Police v. Schizophrenic Amputee
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2012/09/houston-police-v-schizophrenic-amputee.html
Mentally ill people from working class or poor families are killed by police officers throughout the nation at an alarming rate. Usually one or two such deaths are reported in mainstream media each week, but many more deaths happen behind bars among approximately 1.25 million mentally ill prisoners in America. Those killings may be suppressed in news reports like Larry Neal's murder was. He was both physically and mentally disabled, like the subject of today's tragic report was.

Police: Cop Who Shot Double Amputee in the Head 'Did Not Violate Procedure' (Huffington Post)



Houston police killed a schizophrenic amputee in a wheelchair for allegedly threatening people with a pen.
What will the Justice Department do about
CONTINUOUS POLICE HATE CRIMES AGAINST THE MENTALLY ILL

(CNN) -- A Houston police officer shot and killed a schizophrenic, wheelchair-bound double amputee threatening people with a pen at a group home for the mentally ill after authorities said the man advanced on the officer's partner.

Another news report: Matthew Marin, 5-yr HPD veteran, shot and killed Brian Claunch at a personal care home in Houston. Marin, who also fatally shot another suspect in 2009, felt a double amputee confined to a wheelchair threatened his and his partner's life. Claunch was armed 
 according to police reports [with a silver writing pen]. Police were called to the East End personal care home around 2 a.m. after Claunch became agitated because his caretaker refused to give him a soda and a cigarette.

*****
Claunch's family is lucky that their relative was killed before witnesses, leaving no opportunity for a cover-up. Therefore, the system need not subject his survivors to censorship, burglaries, and gangstalking. Hopefully, there will be no Cochran Firm-type lawyer fraud to prevent a lawsuit from being filed if survivors choose to do so, and no payoffs to government officials and the media, etc. to keep the case hidden. The schizophrenic amputee's family already knows the circumstances of the victim's death. Thus, they will not have to file Freedom of Information Act requests that authorities ignore. Deaths of mentally ill Americans that happen in the public are difficult to contain, like Kelly Thomas's fatal beating by Fullerton, CA police officers. 

Our condolences to Claunch's family and their close friends. May God have mercy and comfort you in your grief.

Read more about the case at these links: 
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/brian-claunch-shot/
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/23/us/texas-amputee-shooting/index.html
"Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog
Police Ridicule, Beat, Taser & Kill Amputees 

http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2013/09/no-charges-for-fatally-shooting.html

The FBI investigated this tragedy. NOTHING happened.

MaryLovesJustice Neal
Director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
"AIMI vs. USA"
http://AIMI-HumanRights.blogspot.com
Director of "Human Rights Demand" channel at Blogtalkradio
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand
Website: Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com
"Dog Justice for Mentally Ill"
http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com
Email Addresses
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com
Phone 678.531.0262

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Dr. Stephen Seager: Shattered Families: The Collapse of America's Mental Health System

Sunday, Sept. 13 at 6pm EST, +Author Stephen Seager, a psychiatrist, best-selling writer, and movie producer, returns to "Human Rights Demand" to discuss the criminalization of mental illness for prison profits. Call-in number (347)857-3293. Speak on air at that number. More than 1.25 million of America's prisoners are mentally ill people. Over 60 percent of inmates in solitary confinement are mentally ill. Half of all police violence incidents involve a person with mental illness. Most victims of prison abuse are mentally ill. Many families suffer Legal Abuse Syndrome (LAS) from trying to extract their vulnerable relatives from the abusive and sometimes murderous prison profiteering system. STOP CRIMINALIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE USA.

Hear the radio show live or taped at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2015/09/13/dr-stephen-seager-psychiatrist-author-movie-producer-shattered-families

Dr. Stephen Seager wrote: "I have been a psychiatrist for twenty-five years and have worked extensively with the seriously mentally ill (SMI). Recently, I wrote a book, "Behind the Gates of Gomorrah, a Year with the Criminally Insane." While doing publicity for this book, I came in contact with many families of persons with SMI. Listening to them and recalling my own experience, it quickly became apparent that whatever national mental health system once existed has now totally collapsed."

Please support Dr. Seager's movie to give this matter the attention it deserves at its Indiegogo fundraiser:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shattered-families#/story
The movie is entitled "Shattered Families: The Collapse of America's Mental Health System."

Please be aware that Senator Bernie Sanders, a U.S. presidential candidate, announced plans to introduce legislation this fall to eliminate the private prison system in America. Sanders also said that his campaign would focus on eliminating the War on Drugs, which AIMI members know is actually a war against drug addicts and their families. With mental health professionals like Dr. Seager and public officials like Senator Sanders striving to improve justice in America, we may soon arrive at positive change.

MaryLovesJustice Neal
Director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
"AIMI vs. USA"
http://AIMI-HumanRights.blogspot.com
Director of "Human Rights Demand" channel at Blogtalkradio
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand
Website: Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com
"Dog Justice for Mentally Ill"
http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com
Email Addresses
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com
Phone 678.531.0262

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Prison and Starvation for Jamycheal Mitchell

Bipolar man steals $5 of snacks, dies in prison four months later

Irishgreeneyes at Welcome To My World - 1 day ago

After being jailed for four months after reportedly stealing $5 worth of snacks, Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, was found dead in his prison cell, possibly because he starved to death according to family members. Mitchell was deemed unfit to stand trial due to his bipolar disorder and was supposed to have transferred to a mental health facility but never was. Four months after his arrival, he died of what his aunt claims is a 90-pound weight loss. On this video https://youtu.be/Hli31yNXFlo RT’s Anya Parampil has more details.
http://irishgreeneyes-welcometomyworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/bipolar-man-steals-5-of-snacks-dies-in.html

Thank you, Irishgreeneyes and Anya Parampil, for reporting about America's latest starvation of a mentally ill inmate. Jamycheal Mitchell has joined James Embry, who starved to death in Kentucky State Prison, and Carlos Umana who died of starvation in a privately owned Utah jail.

James Embry story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/kentucky-inmate-starved_n_5186500.html
Carlos Umana story
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705388005/Family-of-man-who-starved-to-death-in-Salt-Lake-County-Jail-files-lawsuit.html

MaryLovesJustice
Director, Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
Director, Dog Justice for Mentally Ill blog
(678)531-0262
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Solitary Chosen Over Hospital for TN Man

"SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IS CONSIDERED MORE THERAPEUTIC THAN A HOSPITAL FOR A BRAIN DAMAGED YOUNG BLACK MAN." The following is an update on Bernard Johnson, a young man with traumatic brain injuries and serious mental illness stemming from a fall at age 5. Johnson fell roughly 18 feet from his apartment onto his head. The lawsuit connected with his injuries was settled, and Johnson's award was placed in a trust account more than 20 years ago. Despite having hundreds of thousands in this trust, Johnson has lived homeless and has been incarcerated since June 2015 for the lack of bail money.

Johnson's family and Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI) finally managed to get Johnson's trustee, Lacy Hayes, Jr., Esq., of Pennsylvania, to say he would release $5,100 bail money from Johnson's trust. But Hayes said he has to be asked by the "right" person - Jarad Williams, Esq. of the Jim Williams and Associates law firm in Tennessee. But the lawyer Hayes said must make the request for Johnson's bail money disclaimed any dealings with Bernard Johnson's trust. In fact, Johnson's grandmother, Ms. Mary, said Jarad Williams seemed offended that Hayes would connect him with the trust.

Meanwhile, the district attorney in Johnson City, Tennessee (the state where my mentally, physically disabled brother was secretly arrested and killed by undisclosed means in 2003) now reportedly says Johnson is "too brain damaged" to be released from Washington County Detention Center where he suffers in solitary confinement. A disability rights representative visited the jail today. Ms. Mary was given to understand that Washington County Detention Center personnel said Bernard's many doctors have been WRONG in their diagnosis of mental illness for over 20 years. Bernard lived in a home in Pennsylvania for brain damaged children from age 5 until he graduated from high school, but Washington County Detention Center reportedly proclaimed that Bernard is not mentally ill at all.

Johnson's grandmother reports that the jail had x-rays taken of Johnson after she asked AIMI for help. His mother, grandmother, and fiance' were featured on "Human Rights Demand" radio show recently, and an article about Johnson was published at "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog to help convince his trustee, Mr. Hayes, that Bernard needs a little of his trust fund money to bail out of jail immediately, if Hayes still has the money as he should. But it now seems that Johnson is not intended to be released even if he is able to make bail.

Washington County Detention Center reportedly recognized that Bernard has severe bowel problems and a traumatic brain injury like his family said, but not bipolar disorder, manic depression, or anxiety like those Yankee doctors diagnosed him with in Pennsylvania. Southern jailers know what's best for a buck like Johnson who was about to marry Jeana Willis, a white woman: solitary confinement. The district attorney is reportedly requesting the court to remove the possibility of Johnson's release on bail.

If treatment is sought by Tennessee for Johnson, it will likely be in the prison ward of a state hospital. Johnson had an "illegal" bipolar crisis during which he screamed at Jeana, and a neighbor called police who charged Johnson with assault. Mentally challenged people like Johnson are very lucrative for the prison profiteering system. To acknowledge Johnson's mental illness might necessitate dropping the charges, and that is not intended to happen. Even if Johnson dies, his family, as black people, will not be allowed to complain.

Johnson's family arranged for his transport to Vanderbilt University Hospital, one of the nation's best, but the Johnson City district attorney obviously thinks jail is more therapeutic for what ails him. The one mental illness that Johnson might be diagnosed with in Johnson City is drapetomania, a disease that made Africans flee slavery and not stay in their "proper places."

This may be the first time a mentally ill man faces bail revocation to be kept in jail and away from an acclaimed hospital precisely because he is brain damaged. Jail is no longer the last resort for sick Black men. Solitary confinement has taken priority over hospitalization for such people in the minds of decision makers. Americans must remove the conflict of interest decisions makers have and insist that they divest themselves of corporate stock in order to serve the people. They must divest or resign if mental illness is ever to be decriminalized in America.

If Johnson's loved ones continue to demand his trust money to pay his bail and maintain their stance that Johnson should never have been arrested, they might find their phones tapped, their computer security compromised, and people following them when they leave home. I experience those abuses since I demanded information and records about Larry Neal's wrongful death, which followed 18 days of secret arrest in Memphis, Tennessee's Shelby County Jail (see the "Wrongful Death of Larry Neal" at the fourth link below). That was twelve years ago, and the struggle continues.

Divest or Resign http://DivestorResign.blogspot.com
Bernard Johnson Dying in Custody
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2015/08/bernard-johnson-dying-in-custody.html
Bernard Johnson radio broadcast on Human Rights Demand
Interviews with Women who Love Him
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2015/08/22/bernard-johnson-dying-in-jail
Secret Arrest and Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com/main.html

MaryLovesJustice, Director
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill