Total Abdication Of Responsibility By Cops
A young, mentally ill man -- jailed in Virginia since April without bail over a $5 theft of food and drink -- was found dead in his jail cell.
He was accused of stealing a Mountain Dew, Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake from a 7-Eleven.
Jon Swaine writes for The Guardian
Jamycheal Mitchell, who had mental health problems, was discovered lying on the floor of his cell by guards early last Wednesday, according to authorities. While his body is still awaiting an autopsy, senior prison officials said his death was not being treated as suspicious.
His family believes he starved to death.
"His body failed," said Roxanne Adams, Mitchell's aunt. "It is extraordinary. The person I saw deceased was not even the same person." Adams, who is a registered nurse, said Mitchell had practically no muscle mass left by the time of his death....Officials said that after his arrest, Mitchell was taken to Portsmouth city jail, where he stayed for almost three weeks before being transferred across the city to the regional jail on 11 May.
Ten days after that, the court clerk said, Judge Morton Whitlow ruled Mitchell was not competent to stand trial and ordered that he be transferred to Eastern State hospital, a state-run mental health facility in Williamsburg, for treatment.
The clerk said that typically in such cases "we do an order to restore the defendant to competence, send it to the hospital, and when the hospital has a bed, we do a transportation order, and he's taken to the hospital." Whitlow reiterated the order on 31 July and was due to review the case again on 4 September, according to the clerk.
But the hospital said it had no vacancy and the 24-year-old was therefore detained in jail until his death on 19 August, according to Adams, Mitchell's aunt, who said she had tried to assist the hospitalisation process herself but was left frustrated.
"He was just deteriorating so fast," she said. "I kept calling the jail, but they said they couldn't transfer him because there were no available beds. So I called Eastern State, too, and people there said they didn't know anything about the request or not having bed availability."
When asked which state agency was ultimately responsible for ensuring Mitchell was transferred to the hospital, the court clerk said: "It's hard to tell who's responsible for it."
Officials from the court, the police department and the jail could not explain why Mitchell was not given the opportunity to be released on bail.
A mentally ill man is in a cell under your care -- and yes, you actually have to care for him. This may take more than just shoving a plate of food through the bars.
Of course, it is terrible and inhumane that we lock a mentally ill person up in a cage and just leave them there without help. If this had been a relative of somebody on the force, you'd better believe a bed would have been found for him.
This man should have been a patient, not an inmate.
And I have to say, while I am not for government as a big teat for all citizens, I sure am for caring for the disabled, the elderly, and the mentally ill. That's what makes for a humane society.
I'm not sure how much responsibility the government has for the care of the disabled, elderly, and mentally ill -- I think government agencies should be the last resort after family, charities, affiliation groups, etc.
However...
If a government agency takes a disabled person into custody, that means they're taking that person into custody. That means:
This is especially true of that person isn't given the option of leaving custody.
Karl Lembke at August 30, 2015 10:51 AM
We are putting too much social responsibility on the police, responsibility they are not equipped to handle.
We are asking armed men and women, trained in the application of force, to do social work.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-myth-of-police-reform/390057/
At some point, Americans decided that the best answer to every social ill lay in the power of the criminal-justice system. Vexing social problems—homelessness, drug use, the inability to support one's children, mental illness—are presently solved by sending in men and women who specialize in inspiring fear and ensuring compliance. Fear and compliance have their place, but it can't be every place.
When Walter Scott fled from the North Charleston police, he was not merely fleeing Michael Thomas Slager, he was attempting to flee incarceration. He was doing this because we have decided that the criminal-justice system is the best tool for dealing with men who can't, or won't, support their children at a level that we deem satisfactory. Peel back the layers of most of the recent police shootings that have captured attention and you will find a broad societal problem that we have looked at, thrown our hands up, and said to the criminal-justice system, "You deal with this."
Conan the Grammarian at August 30, 2015 12:08 PM
It would seem that at the very moment he was declared incompetent that he became a ward of the State which would include a doctor's care at the jail if necessary.
However, my dealings w/the State of Virginia leads me to believe that he was not placed in a doctor's care because he was not at Eastern State.
He was not "officially in jail" because he was waiting transfer to another institution.
A "Major Major" situation which I experienced decades ago when trying to place my daughter in "special needs" institution.
Logic goes out of the window when the State gets involved. You better hope you fall into the right "box" or you can literally starve to death.
Bob in Texas at August 30, 2015 2:00 PM
Private charities are worse IMO than the government when it comes to getting help as a mentally ill person. They treated me absolutely terribly. The county was a lot nicer--but then I do come from a wealthy county.
And being around other mentally ill---their experience is the same. That's NOT to say the government treats us better but I would rather have government help that is restructured. I could write a long list of reasons why that is but I'm feeling kinda lazy (plus I know how many of the commenters here are pro-private everything no matter what--- just look at the first comment and it will be a tedious debate).
Ppen at August 30, 2015 6:02 PM
Amy: "If this had been a relative of somebody on the force, you'd better believe a bed would have been found for him."
Not only that; but, if he were a relative of someone on the force he possibly wouldn't have been arrested in the first place.
I can just hear the phone call from the beat cop to the relative on the force:
"Hey Johnson, we picked up your nephew for shoplifting. We talked the store manager out of pressing charges. Yea, sure, We can keep him here at the station for an hour until you come to pick him up."
Not that this could be done with everyone who has problems; but, jeez louise! The guy is mentally ill - you cannot treat him like any other criminal.
That being said, I'm not sure I could blame the individual cops, or other players in this. But, something (I don't know what) should not have allowed this to happen. For FOUR F&CKING MONTHS!
charles at August 30, 2015 6:38 PM
While I agree with you Conan that this shouldn't be a police issue, the reality is once they confined him he became their problem. If they released him and he starved to death on the street it wouldn't be their problem. But once they locked him up they chose to make him their problem. If they couldn't find a bed and they couldn't prosecute then they should have released him.
Ben at August 30, 2015 7:41 PM
Ben, that's the point. Once locked up by the police, he was their responsibility, a responsibility with which they were ill-equipped to deal. An area of expertise that falls outside the purview of a police force.
They had no choice but to lock him up. We need a system that provides a choice, one that doesn't automatically treat mental illness as a law enforcement matter, locking them up with the criminal. We don't have that type of system. We expect the criminal justice system to solve or deal with all of our social ills because we're tired of a government that can find no other solution than to throw money at a problem and hope it goes away.
In the '60s and '70s, hospitals for the mentally ill fall out of favor and were eventually torn down. Books and movies portrayed them as primitive; full of indifference and even cruelty (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, anyone).
New psychotropic drugs were going to save the mentally ill from being locked up like animals. We were promised a cheaper solution to the problem of mentally ill than expensive hospitals. But it turned out that the drugs weren't the miracle cure-all society was promised. So, lacking an alternative, we simply have the police lock up the mentally ill, or shoot them, when they won't take their medication.
We need a better solution. Ideally, one that does not expand the government social-welfare machine or simply throw money at the problem in the hopes it will go away.
Conan the Grammarian at August 30, 2015 8:02 PM
New psychotropic drugs were going to save the mentally ill from being locked up like animals. We were promised a cheaper solution to the problem of mentally ill than expensive hospitals. But it turned out that the drugs weren't the miracle cure-all society was promised. So, lacking an alternative, we simply have the police lock up the mentally ill, or shoot them, when they won't take their medication.
We need a better solution. Ideally, one that does not expand the government social-welfare machine or simply throw money at the problem in the hopes it will go away.
Posted by: Conan the Grammarian at August 30, 2015 8:02 PM
Agreed, but I don't think there is a better solution. The large bureaucracies in the big cities, are generally overwhelmed with these issues, and not particularly accountable.
Right now in San Francisco there seems to be a huge problem keeping the sidewalks and streets clean from the mentally ill and drug addicts pooping in public.
You won't find these issues in Bismarck North Dakota, or Casper Wyoming, because these cities are not overrun with vagrants, many of whom are mentally ill,
And I agree with PPen. I think public health is one of the few legitimate responsibilities of government at all levels.
Maybe a lot of these places should consider dropping their revenue generation policing, and concentrate on crime, and actual public safety and health.
Isab at August 31, 2015 7:30 AM
An article from way back in 1984 explains how we ended up with legions of mentally ill wandering our streets.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 31, 2015 7:47 AM
I hate to point this out, but the tax payers paid a lot more than $5 to keep this guy in jail, only to have him die there.
And they'll pay more once the family slaps the jurisdiction with a wrong death suit.
We need a better solution. Ideally, one that does not expand the government social-welfare machine or simply throw money at the problem in the hopes it will go away.
Yeah, but that reduces the opportunities for graft. So there's no political support for that.
I R A Darth Aggie at August 31, 2015 8:14 AM
To add to what Isab and Gog have brought up: A big part of the problem we have today was governments who were anxious to save a bit of money by closing mental institutions, which meant putting many of the patients out in the streets. This was driven also by the charges that keeping them confined to institutions was cruel, and that they were subject to abuse. The movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest turned a lot of people against institutions. But what's more cruel -- confining mentally incompetent people to institutions where they have at least a chance of getting good care? Or taking people who are not capable of watching out for their own well-being, and turning them out in the street to be exposed to the elements, disease, and abuse from criminals? This is why the homeless problem exists. Most homeless people aren't homeless because of economics or bad luck, and almost no long-term homeless people. Nearly all of the long-term homeless have severe mental illness of some sort. Putting them out in the streets is not going to make them well.
Cousin Dave at August 31, 2015 8:19 AM
Agreed. I opined that we need it, not that we were likely to get it.
They're overwhelmed because the mentally ill are homeless and defecating on the streets. It's like herding cats to find them and get them to take medication.
Instead, we use the police to find them and bring them in - not to a mental health facility, but to jail where they may (or may not) in the course of adjudication be assigned to a mental health professional (one who is probably unfamiliar with their case, having met them for the first time that day).
Conan the Grammarian at August 31, 2015 10:06 AM
Think of a single movie (even a modern one) in which the mental hospital is not portrayed as a place of cruel and inhumane depravity.
Those are always the places wherein the serial killer was driven beyond insanity into madness. The abandoned buildings wherein the ghosts of tortured patients wait to torment any innocent passerby who happens to wander inside.
Conan the Grammarian at August 31, 2015 10:14 AM
Think of a single movie (even a modern one) in which the mental hospital is not portrayed as a place of cruel and inhumane depravity.
_______________________________________
How about "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden"? Or is my memory slipping?
I seem to remember that "Girl, Interrupted" had a somewhat positive portrayal as well.
lenona at August 31, 2015 11:41 AM
It's all very well to point at the cops running the jail and talk about 'a total abdication of responsibility'. But it might help to look at the other side of the coin.
What were the cops supposed to do? They knew he had mental-health issues. They referred him to the court - correctly - and the judge issued multiple orders to the relevant state agency - correctly - and they refused to take him. The reasons they would not or could not are not important, now it's a game of who-is-stuck-with-his-body.
It's hard to blame the cops entirely. They are running a jail, not a mental-health facility. They are limited by law in what they can do, including things like force-feeding and forcing somebody to take medication. It's all very well to say that they have a responsibility for those they have behind bars, but assigning them that responsibility doesn't mean that they have the practical powers to fulfill it.
I'd be more inclined to look askance at the prosecutor and the court, who must have known that this guy had been held for weeks without bail for a trivial larceny and who were apparently more interested in checking boxes that in looking at the case. If they'd all got together in chambers for 3 minutes and some bright young DA had said 'You Honor, this man has been in the regional jail for 3 weeks while the jail authorities, this honorable court and the State mental health facility play pattycake with his file, he's already served more time than he would have for this penny-ante larceny, what say we bail him OR and refer him to an in-community mental-health facility? He's not violent, we may get him back in three weeks for some other penny-ante crime, but even that is better than leaving him to rot on the regional jail while we all pretend to go through the motions. We know it's going to be 3 months or 6 months before the state facility can find a place for him, are the interests of justice really best served leaving him locked up for an indeterminate period of time? Cruel and unusual, Your Honor, and his mental state doesn't dissolve his 8th Amendment right to reasonable bail. If he were sane, he'd have been out next day on $250 bail. Come on, Your Honor, what do you say?'
But they'd all followed 'the procedure', so they could none of them be blamed. It's 'death by bureaucracy', as someone else has noted.
Don't get me wrong. The cops need to take some blame for this, too. But they were the only ones doing exactly as they were told - hold this man in jail - and they were ill-equipped to do so.
llater,
llamas
llamas at August 31, 2015 12:24 PM
Llamas,
In my view the proper action was to give him a police escort to the institution that he was remanded to. And when they refused to take him to release him there on their door step. Their job should have been to deliver him. Then it was the institution's responsibility for what happened afterwards. If they were good people they would also notify his family what was happening.
I don't even blame the institution for refusing to take him. Money is finite. You can't do everything all the time. But in the case where they had insufficient resources to take care of him they should have released him.
And as for institutions being unhappy places, they are. There are still a few institutions around the country. I believe Texas has three of them. They aren't horrible places filled with constant abuse. But they also aren't happy places. Most of the people there have problems with no solutions. And even as inmates they make horrible prisoners.
Ben at August 31, 2015 7:04 PM
see Titticut Follies. Worse than Cuckoo.
Presumption is that mental health institutions will be "good". Some months ago, seven nurse types were fired from an institution for bandaging a patient's hand so tightly that, said a doctor, God himself couldn't unbandage it, prior to amputating the gangrenous appendage. Just because a current situation is unacceptable doesn't mean the next suggestion will work. Consider that, having decided the State was unfeeling, incompetent, and lacking in resources, we suggest another organ of the state which, this time, will be comptent, feeling, and have sufficient resources. Probably being run by cast-offs from the VA, presuming the VA casts off anybody for anything but blowing whistles.
Richard Aubrey at September 1, 2015 6:03 AM
I haven't seen I Never promised You A Rose Garden. It sounds interesting on IMDB (a Web site that manages to make even the worst SyFy dreck sound "interesing").
Girl, Interrupted was kinda boring. Too grrrl power - ish.
Even with these two exceptions, you'd be reaching to say that Hollywood has been anywhere near positive in its portrayal of mental institutions. As someone pointed out above, they're not, by definition, happy places.
Conan the Grammarian at September 1, 2015 8:48 AM
"David & Lisa" was rather sensitive, too. Yes, it's old. Aside from the main characters, I only remember the compassionate doctor - not the hospital itself, if they showed any of it. (I saw it more than 10 years ago.)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055892/
lenona at September 2, 2015 8:55 AM
Don't get me wrong Conan. They do the best they can. But the buildings are simple and utilitarian. They are prisons and the prisoners can't be trusted with much. The people who work there are capricious and uncommunicative. After working with people who don't interact with this world they just stop communicating. Most of they people they come in contact with communication just doesn't work. And if you stay in one for more than a month you probably have a life sentence. You are a threat to other people (they kick you out, crazy or not, just to free up the bed otherwise) and they don't know how to fix you.
I don't have any suggestions for improvement for the two I've been to. It is just a very depressing situation.
Ben at September 3, 2015 9:52 AM
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