Saturday, April 19, 2014

Executing, Imprisoning African Americans and Sick People

Every killing of a black person, especially mental patients, by police officers or prison guards is said to be justified. Deaths that absolutely cannot be called justified are covered-up by officials. Hall, a Michigan man, was killed by a police firing squad after having a "run-in with a convenience store clerk." Although he was literally executed with 40 bullets for a possible misdemeanor, Hall's execution was ruled "justified."
http://youtu.be/4cAAM4TXPdw


See also "Wrongful Death of Larry Neal."
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com - a premeditated murder that is covered up by government officials. Murders that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be justified are simply covered up. Larry Neal's secret arrest (kidnapping) for 18 days, with police denying that he was in custody, was such a murder. So was the death of another black man who was baked to death on Riker's Island in February. Jerome Murdough's family was not contacted by prison officials, the State of New York, or his court-appointed attorney when he died in custody. 

AP reporters contacted Murdough's family three weeks after his murder, or his sister and elderly mother might never have known about Murdough being slow roasted in a solitary jail cell. This system believes it has the right to exterminate black people, particularly mental patients, and the system has no intention of paying wrongful death settlements for people it deems to have no value. Hitler called people with mental health issues and minorities "useless eaters."

NO RECORD IS KEPT IN AMERICA REGARDING POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE MENTALLY ILL. I am interested in oppression of mentally ill people of every race. If you have information regarding arrests and brutality, including wrongful deaths and solitary confinement, of mentally ill Americans, please share the information with me. Answer the questions below according to your knowledge. Leave fields blank if you lack the information. Copy/paste the questions to an email. Add your answers and email your response to MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com. Please use "Mentally Ill Americans" as your subject. You should receive a receipt within 12 hours. If not, please send your email again, and notify us about email tampering as a comment to this article. The information you provide will be used to advocate for positive change.

1. Name of mental patient
2. Age
3. Race
4. What are/were his/her diagnosed mental and physical illnesses or disabilities, including drug and alcohol dependency?
5. What is the name of his/her last/current facility (hospital or correctional facility)? If currently imprisoned, what is his/her inmate number? What were his/her criminal charges? Was he/she convicted? What was the sentence?

6. Date of first incarceration. Number of times arrested. Date of last incarceration.
7. At what age was he/she first diagnosed with mental illness and/or a drug/alcohol dependency?
8. Was he or she ever isolated in solitary confinement (SHU)?
9. If isolated, how long was he/she in solitary confinement?
10. Was he/she ever brutalized by hospital personnel, law enforcement, correctional officers, inmates or other patients?
11. What is his/her educational level? Is/was he/she employed? What type of work?
12. Does/did he/she receive disability income?
13. Does/did he/she ever receive housing assistance or live in a group home?
14. Has he/she ever been homeless?
15. Has he/she ever been in foster care?
16. Has he/she ever served in the military?
17. What psychotropic medications was he/she prescribed?
18. Does/did he/she take psychotropic medications willingly?
19. Was he/she ever accused of violence toward self or others?
20. Has he/she ever been hospitalized for mental illness or ordered into drug/alcohol rehab?
21. Give the dates of commitment to a mental hospital, if known.
22. For deceased persons, please provide the date of death.
23. How did he/she die?
24. If he/she died due to negligence or wrongful death, did survivors receive a wrongful death settlement or award?
25. What are your thoughts about assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs, which provide food and housing assistance and court-ordered psychiatric treatment for people diagnosed with severe mental illness, particularly those exiting prisons and mental hospitals? Would your relative benefit by such a program?

A bill that is currently before the U.S. House of Representatives provides for pilot AOT programs. It is called H.R. 3717- "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act." It has three provisions that are essential to improvement:
(a) Medicaid insurance for psychiatric inpatients
(b) AOT programs
(c) Crisis intervention training for police officers and prison guards to reduce violence against mentally ill people

Those three provisions would decriminalize mental illness and reduce the likelihood of serious injuries and deaths among mentally ill people during arrests or while in custody. PRISON INVESTORS HATE H.R.3717, because over 1.25 million of America's inmates are mentally ill people. Private prison investors rely on ineffective mental health care services to keep their prisons full. 

It is much more cost effective to treat rather than to imprison people who have serious mental illnesses. Warehousing just one inmate in a New York jail costs $168,000 per year - more money than the average family earns in five years. Most people with mental illness are unable to contribute to their own defense at trial, some falsely confess to crimes they did not do, and their sentences are generally longer than healthy defendants'. Oftentimes, mentally ill inmates get time added to their sentences after being imprisoned because of their inability to understand or follow prison rules. 

Over sixty percent of the nations' inmates suffering today in solitary confinement are mentally ill people. They are isolated, sprayed with harmful chemicals, subjected to deadly restraint, raped, beaten, and some are killed behind bars. Organizations that object to AOT programs say it is unjust to enforce psychiatric treatment, but they are nowhere around when your untreated mentally ill relatives are sentenced to prisons and jails or released from hospitals and incarceration without provisions for their continued treatment and care. 

People with serious mental illness are deliberately left to their own devices in order to entrap them indefinitely in the revolving door in and out of detention until they eventually die or get sentenced for life (due to "three strikes law" or a violent crime). Then YOU, as taxpayers, get sentenced to paying the prison for keeping the inmate detained for life. YOU, as taxpayers, also pay the settlements for wrongful deaths and brutality. Over 50% of the victims of police violence are/were mentally ill people.

YOUR safety is compromised by a mental health care system that refuses to allow involuntary commitment and enforced treatment unless and until a person with serious mental illness proves (through violence) to be a danger to self and others. Whether or not you have or had relatives with mental illness, H.R.3717 "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" concerns your family, too. Your tax money is wasted imprisoning people for being sick although treatment and subsistence assistance in AOT programs is substantially more effective and less costly, and your safety is compromised by withholding treatment until avoidable tragedies happen.

Rumor has it that rather than more Democrats supporting H.R.3717, the Dems are drafting their own mental health care bill. ANY MENTAL HEALTH CARE BILL THAT OMITS ONE OR MORE OF THE THREE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS LISTED ABOVE IS DESIGNED TO (a) WASTE YOUR TAX MONEY, (b) CONTINUE IMPRISONING MENTALLY ILL AMERICANS BY WITHHOLDING CARE FROM THOSE WHO ARE TOO SICK TO SEEK TREATMENT, AND (c) COMPROMISE COMMUNITY SAFETY AS WELL AS THE SAFETY OF OUR MENTALLY CHALLENGED FELLOW CITIZENS.

Contact your elected officials, particularly your congressional representatives, and urge them to support H.R.3717:
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Also, please insist that African Americans and the mentally ill are NOT to be executed by police officers on the presumption of minor offenses like Mr. Hall was in Michigan. A harmless man being executed on the street by a firing squad should never be counted as "justified" to avoid paying a wrongful death settlement and to keep murderous police on the payroll. Neither should African Americans and the mentally ill of any race be brutally treated or murdered during arrests or behind bars like Larry Neal and so many others have been. If the United States continues its present course, make sure this does not happen without your objections. Silence is consent.

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI")
http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/aimi
AIMI at Blogtalkradio every Wednesday at 9pm Pacific
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nnia1
DogJustice for Mentally Ill
http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com
Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathOfLarryNeal.com
Human Rights for Prisoners March
http://HumanRigthsforPrisonersMarch.blogspot.com
See my full list of advocacy groups to help promote justice in America
MaryLovesJustice Blogs and Radio Shows
http://marylovesjustice.blogspot.com/2014/03/marylovesjustice-blogs-and-radio-shows.html


2 comments:

MaryLovesJustice Neal said...

Hear a mother discuss her son's need for an AOT program on "Human Rights Demand." Paul Castaway, who is presently imprisoned in a Denver jail, has been brutalized by police officers, correctional officers, and gang members in his community, yet he does not stay on his psychiatric medications once he is released from a correctional facility. His mother spoke of her dread of someday getting a call in the middle of the night announcing Paul Castaway's death. "The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" is a matter of life and death for Paul Castaway and other people with serious mental illness who cannot recognize their own need for continuous treatment.

Release the Innocent" 4/19/2014:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2014/04/19/release-the-innocent

Call in to speak with the hosts on air at "Human Rights Demand" at (347) 857-3293. Please share the link to the live and archived broadcasts. Help for people with serious mental illness is help for YOU. We all attend the same schools and shop at the same malls. Thank you.

MaryLovesJustice Neal said...

Thank you for following "FreeSpeakBlog," online friends. I bring news and analysis that are ordinarily under-reported or completely censored by mainstream media. Most of my articles are about people who endure discrimination in the justice system because of their race, socioeconomic level, or health status.

We were taught that America is a nation that respects human and civil rights, built by people seeking religious freedom. In truth, the USA was built on slavery and genocide that continues today here and abroad. The beauty of America is that we who care about liberty and justice for all can influence our country to live up to its creed. Accomplishing this goal will require UNITY with other like-minded people without regard to racial and socioeconomic divisions that are exploited in order to divide and defeat us.

People cannot care about issues they do not know about. We cannot unite and support causes that have never come to our attention. Read and share the articles in FreeSpeakBlog to help more people know about the brutality, wrongful deaths, and corruption that are exposed and opposed herein.

"All we say to America is, 'Be true to what you said on paper.'" ~MLK

Blessings!
Mary