Pam Wagner's Recent Mental Hospitalization

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI) members advocate online for mentally challenged people to be hospital inpatients or outpatients rather than prison inmates. However, we are aware that institutionalized persons, whether in jails, nursing homes, or mental health facilities, are at risk for abuse and that all facilities require oversight, which is the responsibility of the United States Department of Justice (link below). A dear friend, Pam Wagner, was recently hospitalized and released. Her blog offers insight into how traumatic it is for patients to be removed from their homes and hospitalized. It is even more traumatic for people suffering mental disease to be removed from their communities and imprisoned, often in isolation, and subjected to potentially deadly restraint chairs, Tasers, and chemical sprays that police frequently use to control (punish) mentally ill inmates. Please see an excerpt from Pam Wagner's blog below wherein she describes her recent hospitalization. Despite her health challenges, Pam Wagner is a noted author and poet. Many people who have mental challenges are very intelligent and have made tremendous contributions in science, the arts, government, and other areas. Use the link after the brief excerpt below to read the entire account about her recent hospitalization as well as her poems, art, and other articles.

Pam writes: "I was admitted last Tuesday night, the 17th of July I believe it was, to the Institute of Living, the psychiatric division of Hartford Hospital in central Connecticut. I do not remember this. The fact that I have amnesia for it and for most of the Wednesday following only occurred to me on Thursday, a day and a half later, when I wondered -- the train of thought must have had to do with the seclusion episode that took place Wednesday evening and which I described in yesterday's blog post -- why they had been so violent with me, why they had so quickly secluded and threatened me with restraints in a situation that didn't come within miles of "requiring" them. Surely, I thought, the staff member who admitted me ..." Continue reading at the WAGblog site using this link http://wagblog.wordpress.com/

It is the duty of the United States Department of Justice to ensure the safety and humane treatment of institutionalized persons in America. For more information about the United States Department of Justice's oversight responsibilities, please visit the website at http://www.justice.gov/ . Put "institutionalized persons" in the search field for specific laws and responsibilities regarding protections for prisoners and sick or elderly institutionalized individuals in America.

Thank you for your commitment to give ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL and all institutionalized persons.

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25-yr Sentence for Killing Dog; All-clear for Death of Mental Patient

I love dogs and cats. I even had a pet chicken as a girl, and I guarantee you that chickens are intelligent! There was nothing "bird-brained" about Wobble Tail! Although I agree that animals need protection from heartless people who abuse and kill them, 25 years in prison seems excessive sentencing for Alex Castro's crime: he killed his girlfriend's dog. If Castro had killed a black mental patient, authorities might have helped him hide the body. People need dog justice!

See a UPI report excerpt on Castro's sentence below. The entire article is at the link that follows.

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Man gets 25 years for killing dog
Published: Sept. 26, 2009

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A Milpitas, Calif., man has been sentenced to more than 25 years in prison for killing his girlfriend's 10-year-old dog, Copper, prosecutors said.

Alex Castro was sentenced Friday for beating Copper to death with a hammer in 2007. His sentence was influenced by two former violent felony convictions, Deputy District Attorney Kevin Smith said.

"Despite the defendant's claims he was getting too much time for 'only killing a dog,' he is getting this sentence for the violence in his past," Smith told The San Jose Mercury in a story published Saturday.

Joanie Gonzalez, who owned 10-year-old Copper, a cocker spaniel, said she was "satisfied" with the verdict.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/09/26/Man-gets-25-years-for-killing-dog/UPI-38601253991429/

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Compare Alex Castro's investigation, prosecution, and sentencing with the amount of disclosure and justice my handicapped brother's death received, which was zero. Dogs have apparently surpassed disabled Americans for protection under the law, especially African American men. Isn't that something? California now has one more inmate costing the state $50,000 per year at a time when the its senior citizens and disabled people reportedly received IOUs instead of live checks this summer.

Castro's murder of Copper, the cocker spaniel, will cost taxpayers roughly ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS ($1,250,000.00) if Castro serves his entire sentence and does not get sick and require special services, and if prison rates do not increase.

Judges sometimes give lengthy sentences as a warning to others that the defendant's offense is considered very grave by the court. All who learn about Castro's lengthy sentence are made fully aware that California will tolerate no animal abuse and murders. Following that logic, what message does it send to police officers across the country to learn that Larry Neal, a schizophrenic heart patient, was secretly arrested in Memphis Shelby County Jail in 2003 and his family was denied records and legal recourse? Does it tell police departments that mental patients don't count like dogs do?

What does it tell lawyers when they learn that The Cochran Firm was not censured at all for committing fraud against Larry's family, having pretended to act as our wrongful death attorneys for 10.5 months while actually doing nothing to file the family's lawsuit against the jail? Does this tell lawyers that it is OK to contract with plaintiffs and trick them to benefit their clients' defendants, who are usually more wealthy? For instance, if you contract with an attorney after a drunk tractor trailer truck driver crosses the expressway and kills your family, would it be OK if the lawyer (secretly a major investor in that trucking company) withheld your lawsuit to spare the trucker's insurance from paying damages?

The lack of due process of law after Larry's demise is the reason my advocacy started. I became aware of gross inequities in the justice system as evidenced by the sentence Alex Castro received for killing Copper compared to wrongful deaths of some citizens. Plenty of people were given lesser punishment than Castro's for killing humans, and some (as in Larry's case) were not even questioned.

"Equal justice"? Some people must aspire not only to be treated equal to other humans in this justice system, but they must also compete for DOG JUSTICE. Mental illness is criminalized in America, and citizens with that health condition are frequently victimized in their communities and in custody. Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI), founded after Larry's death, works to reduce the stigma attached to mental illness and advocates for officials to replace imprisoning psychiatric offenders with inpatient and outpatient treatment.

See more about the secret death of a schizophrenic heart patient throughout this blog and at the link below by Pam Wagner, celebrated poet and co-author of "Divided Minds":

Life with schizophrenia/bipolar, Lyme disease, poetry, and art

Incarcerated and Mentally Ill: Larry Neal’s Story http://wagblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/incarcerated-and-mentally-ill-larry-neals-story/

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI
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