Pete Earley

(8-9-16) Hours after the Virginia Governor’s office announced yesterday that it had cleared state Inspector general June W. Jennings in a whistle-blower complaint, new questions surfaced about her office’s investigation into the death of Jamycheal Mitchell, a 24-year-old African American diagnosed with schizophrenia who died in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail last August waiting to be sent to Eastern State Hospital.

Travis Fain, a reporter at The Daily Press in Hampton Roads, reported that Jennings’ husband, William D. Jennings, is a manager at Eastern State Hospital, and Priscilla Smith, who oversaw the State Office of Inspector General probe into Mitchell’s death, had previously worked there as a senior manager.

Mitchell spent 101 days in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail waiting to be transferred to the hospital in Williamsburg. After his death, it was revealed that paperwork sent to hospital requesting that Mitchell be transferred there had been tossed into a drawer by a hospital employee and forgotten until after his body was discovered.

Although neither Jennings’ husband nor OSIG Supervisor Smith were directly involved in the hospital’s mishandling of Mitchell’s transfer request, Priscilla Smith’s supervision of the Mitchell investigation placed her in a position where she was investigating her past employer (Eastern State Hospital ) where the husband of her boss (June Jennings) is currently employed.

Reporter Fain wrote:

Requests for (interviews with) Priscilla Smith and June Jennings, made through the inspector general’s press office, were not granted, but spokeswoman Julie Grimes emailed a statement, saying William Jennings has been a career state employee and that his employment at Eastern State “does not represent any conflict of interest.”

G. Douglas Bevelacqua, a former inspector general for behavioral health, who has been critical of the office’s handling of the Mitchell case, disagreed in an email to me.

The fact June Jennings’s husband was the Director of Quality Management at Eastern State Hospital during the OSIG’s investigation of Jamycheal Mitchell’s death is a clear conflict of interest. Also, the fact that Pricilla Smith was his predecessor in that position at Eastern State Hospital until a few months before the system failed and Mitchell starved to death in jail because of “clerical errors” is another clear conflict of interest.

Questions about possible conflicts of interest are the latest in a barrage of troubling revelations swirling around Mitchell’s death. Click to continue…

Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn is willing to modify language in his mental health bill to ease concerns about gun ownership. 

(8-8-16)  “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain quipped when a major newspaper ran his obituary while he was still alive. 

It appears the same can be said about Rep. Tim Murphy’s Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. 

In a recent blog, I reported that a dust up about guns had doomed a Senate bill sponsored by Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that is a companion to the Pennsylvania Republican’s House bill. A much modified version of Rep. Tim Murphy’s bill was approved in the House earlier this year by a 422 to 2 vote. But until the Senate approves its version, the legislation can’t be sent to the President to be signed into law. 

As first reported in the Hill newspaper, the Senate bill hit a wall when Senator John Cornyn (R-TX.) moved to merge his mental health bill into the Murphy-Cassidy bill.  Senate Democrats, including Senators Charles Schumer (NY) and Harry Reid (NV.) took issue with parts of Cornyn’s bill that dealt with gun ownership. 

Since posting my blog, I’ve learned that Cornyn has offered to drop the most controversial gun provision in his bill and modify the wording of a second stumbling block. These moves could create a Lazarus moment and make it possible for the Senate bill to move forward and be put to a vote in September. Click to continue…

 

(8-3-16) The death of Jamycheal Mitchell, a 24 year-old African American diagnosed with schizophrenia, has taken yet another troubling turn. Officials at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail have acknowledged that security footage recorded outside his cell exists after first announcing it had been taped over because it didn’t show any “criminality or negligence” and there was no reason to keep it.

Mitchell’s body was found August 19 in his cell. A state medical examiner ruled that he had suffered a heart attack caused by starvation during the 101 days that he was detained inside the jail waiting for an open bed in a Virginia state hospital. Mitchell had been arrested for allegedly taking $5 worth of snacks from a convenience store without paying. Mitchell was 6 foot, 1 inch tall and weighted 190 pounds when he was arrested. While in jail, his weight dropped to 144 pounds.

Sarah Kleiner and Katherine B. Evans, two reporters at the Richmond Times –Dispatch were the first to learn that a camera in the jail had recorded footage that showed the front of Mitchell’s cell. On April 1, they filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking the jail to make that footage public. The recordings would show if Mitchell was fed, whether his food tray was returned empty, and how many times guards and the jail’s nurse checked on him and entered his cell.

On April 6^th, Jail Superintendent David L. Simons wrote this response to the reporters:

“There is no security footage taken outside of Mr. Mitchell’s cell during his incarceration at Hampton Roads Regional Jail.” 

Lt. Col. Eugene Taylor III, the jail’s assistant superintendent, was quoted by the newspaper in a follow-up interview saying that he and one of the jail’s internal investigators were the only people who saw the video before it was taped over.

Now this is where things become troubling. How did Kleiner learn about the footage?

Click to continue…

(7-28-16) Rep. Tim Murphy’s Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act was passed by a 422-2 vote in the House earlier this year, but it’s now treading water and the prospect of it being signed into law this session is fleeting.

The trouble has nothing to do with the contents of Murphy’s much altered bill. As first reported by Peter Sullivan in The Hill, this time around the fight is in the Senate and it is about guns.

Click to continue…

(7-21-16) Did a Virginia official, whose job is to protect the public from dishonest government officials, lie to me?

A whistleblower complaint alleges that Virginia Inspector General June Jennings   provided me with false and misleading information. It also accuses Jennings and her assistant, Priscilla Smith, who is responsible for monitoring behavioral health agencies, of misleading state Sen. Creigh Deeds and other elected officials during testimony, and of violating HIPAA regulations when handling confidential medical information inside the Office of State Inspector General (OSIG).

Even more damning, the complaint claims the OSIG has failed to thoroughly investigate the deaths of prisoners with mental illnesses in Virginia’s jails and prisons, choosing instead to rubber stamp reports submitted to them by jailers and mental health officials.

The accusations are being levied by Cathy Hill, an OSIG employee who is seeking whistleblower protection, and two OSIG consultants, William Thomas and Ann White. In their complaint, which was filed yesterday, they asked Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring to launch a criminal investigation of the OSIG office to determine if Jennings and Smith have violated state and federal laws, writing:

It is our belief that their actions violate both Virginia and federal law, and undermine public trust and the mission of the OSIG. Our concerns have grown to the degree that we feel we can no longer in good faith remain silent. 

An email request for a reaction and comment by Jennings and Smith – that I sent yesterday – has gone unanswered.

Was I told a lie?

The complaint alleges that Jennings and an unnamed OSIG public relations officer hid information from me when I filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

But before I get to that accusation, let’s examine a much more troubling charge.

Click to continue…