It was a horrific crime.

Voices inside Kashif Bashir’s head were saying his brain was being reprogrammed. If he wanted to reach a higher state of consciousness, he needed to commit three violent acts – a robbery, a rape, and the shooting of a police officer.

The 29-year-old cabdriver bought a pistol and drove to a shop in a Washington D.C. suburb where he intended to rape an employee. She persuaded him to leave the store and then locked the door after he did.  He returned the next day and noticed a police officer inside the shop.

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10-10-14

I usually publish blogs on Fridays that I’ve posted previously but today is an exception. It’s my wedding anniversary.

Patti and I have been married 16 years and I’m going to brag a little. Our’s is a true love story. I was recently divorced and she was recently widowed when a mutual friend introduced us in 1996.  I don’t wish to get mushy and sound as if I’m reading a  Hallmark Card, but from the moment we met, we connected and it has been a non-stop adventure ever since.

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10-6-14   I’ve always wanted one of my books to make it onto the big screen in a major motion picture and this weekend that happened — only not exactly as I had planned.

Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town can be seen briefly in Gone Girl, the psychological thriller based on the best-selling book by Gillian Flynn.

I don’t want to spoil the movie so  I’ll simply say that the camera pans slowly over several nonfiction crime books, the last being mine, while a killer is plotting a murder. Yep, my book  is a prop.

Ironically, the same week that Circumstantial Evidence appeared in Gone Girl, I received an advance copy of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, which will go on sale October 21st, and already has been nominated for several awards.

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10-3-14  FROM MY FILES FRIDAY — I can’t always answer the mail that I receive, but I do read every email that is sent and this letter from a mother that I published in January 2010 was especially poignant. It raises a common frustration that I continue to hear nearly five years later.  

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Is the Justice Department setting the stage for another deinstitutionalization debacle  — this time by forcing group homes to close? Or will the Justice Department’s actions finally give us what we need: meaningful community based treatment, including housing?

I’ve been asking myself this question ever since I heard an inspiring story.

It was about a young man with intellectual disabilities who was able to move out of a group home into his own apartment where he didn’t have to share a bedroom or bathroom with random roommates for the first time in decades. He was able to do this because the state where he lived was forced to accommodate him by the Justice Department and what’s commonly called the Olmstead decision.

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FROM MY FILES FRIDAY:  When my son became ill, I thought about who I knew with clout who could help us.  Legendary newsman Mike Wallace, who struggled with his own mental illness, immediately responded.

 HOW NEWS ICON MIKE WALLACE HELPED MY SON  4/11/2012 USA TODAY

CBS newsman Mike Wallace might be remembered by most as a bare-knuckles broadcast journalist renowned for his tough interviews with the powerful, famous and rich, and a pioneer of the surprise “ambush” interview. But it is an incredible act of kindness to my family that I will always recall.

We didn’t start off as friends.

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