Pete Earley

(To watch the video click here. A technical glitch has caused problems in playing it on my blog.)

I was struck when I watched this short news clip at the poignant eloquence of a mother who is distraught because she couldn’t get help for her daughter who had been diagnosed with a mental disorder. The result was an outcome that we see and hear too often. Why couldn’t this family get help? (Be sure to listen to the entire story!)

Reader Charlene Turene mentioned her frustration about our system too in a recent email.

Dear Pete,

Can you write something in your blog about burnout for parents, for all of us who love someone with a mental illness who continue to come up to brick walls, ignorance, stigma , senseless arrests, beatings, severe lack of resources, a quick “band aid, good luck and out the emergency room door treatment,”  shame and more. 

The culture, the mass media never pauses to say, wonder or simply ask- why didn’t this person get the help they needed? How much suffering was caused and could of been avoided for the mentally ill, for the family, for any victims, for society? I keep thinking of my family doctor who knows my son who lives with the challenge of schizophrenia, who said to me- “Too bad he is not developmentally delayed. He would have access to all kinds of care and society is compassionate with those with DD/ Autism but not bipolar/ schizophrenia/ depression….”

Sigh. It has been heart breaking and documented all too well in your book and your blogs, in your heart and mine and the millions, yes millions who have loved and love someone with mental illness.

It is so hard to read horrific stories and see little being done to fix our system. How long will it take? Why is it taking so long? No, I won’t give up. If not me, if not you, than who? 

Charlene Turene

It is, indeed, easy to become discouraged, but the final two sentences in Carlene’s email are what I cling too.

 No, I won’t give up.

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September 15 — For more than two hours last night, angry protesters criticized county officials about the death of Natasha McKenna, a 37 year-old woman diagnosed with schizophrenia who died earlier this year after being stunned with a taser four times in the Fairfax County detention center.

Frequently breaking into chants of “Black Lives Matter” and McKenna’s last words – “You Promised You Wouldn’t Kill Me” – the protesters aired their complaints during a public meeting of the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission which has no jurisdiction of the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, but was created to review police interactions with the public.

This was the second public forum held by the commission and by far the best attended and most emotional. Several times, protesters shouted at the commission. The protesters accused the sheriff’s office of murdering McKenna and condemned Commonwealth Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh for labeling McKenna’s death an “accident” and blaming it on “excited delirium,” a conclusion reached by the state Medical Examiner’s Office two days after McKenna’s death.

Although the commission had nothing to do with Morrogh’s report, its members came under fire for not publicly calling for Morrogh’s resignation and for not having more minority members as commissioners.

Speaking on behalf of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Bob Carolla described a frightening encounter that he had with the police during his first psychotic break and explained that persons with mental illness often have trouble following police orders when they are not thinking clearly. Carolla asked why the INOVA health care system was not being questioned about its handling of McKenna who went to several INOVA emergency rooms seeking help before she was arrested.

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9-14-15 Natasha McKenna did not die from excited delirium. She died from Treatment Denied Syndrome.*

Commonwealth Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh’s 51 page investigative report about the death of the 37 year-old woman contains a horrifying litany of attempts by McKenna to seek help for her mental illness only to be met with ineptness and indifference.

Rather than being welcomed when she appeared in area emergency rooms, she either was shown the door without receiving help or was discharged before being stabilized. In one instance, she was stuffed into a cab less than four days after being so violent that she needed to be restrained to prevent her from harming herself or others. In another, a police officer and magistrate overruled a doctor who twice tried to get McKenna hospitalized. In a third, she was discharged from one INOVA hospital at 12:30 p.m., only to reappear at another INOVA emergency room at 10 p.m. on the  same day. The medical personnel’s solution was not to help her but to call the police and have her arrested. Taken to jail, she was stripped naked, held in solitary and stuck in bureaucratic limbo for several days. When it came time to move her, she was stunned with a taser four times and died.

If the lack of treatment McKenna received while she was alive was not enough, she was further abused in death. Relying on “junk science,” Medical Examiner Dr. Jocelyn Posthumus declared the cause of McKenna’s death to be excited delirium – a make-believe syndrome not recognized as real by the American Psychiatric Association, American Medical Association or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) of the World Health Organization.

No matter, that diagnosis allowed Fairfax Prosecutor Morrogh to drive in the final nail. Declaring at a press conference that McKenna possessed super-human strength and quoting a deputy who described McKenna as being demonically possessed, the Commonwealth Attorney stripped away what little dignity was left for this woman whose only real crime was that got sick.

The release of a sheriff’s video of McKenna being removed from her cell — naked and afraid — visually disputed Morrogh’s characterizations. McKenna walked from her cell in handcuffs and was knocked to the floor by a squad of men who never showed any signs of losing control of her or of having their lives threatened.

Tonight — Monday September 14 — at 7:30pm at Walt Whitman Middle School at 2500 Parkers Lane, Alexandria, VA 22306, the Ad Hoc Police Practices Commission will hold a public meeting to discuss the use of force by law enforcement in Fairfax. Attendees will be allowed to speak. Hopefully some will express outrage about Natasha McKenna’s plight.

Tuesday night (September 15) a more important meeting will be held. At the Government Center from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m., community leaders will meet to discuss how to create a jail diversion system to keep individuals such as McKenna from being incarcerated. Nearly 50 community leaders attended the inaugural Diversion First meeting last month. (Morrogh did not.)

The ideas being suggested by Diversion First are not new. They were first brought to the attention of Fairfax officials more than a decade ago but were never implemented because of a lack of funding, a lack of interest and a lack of leadership.

Natasha McKenna paid with her life because of that. Who’s to blame?

Like the biblical Pontius Pilate washing his hands of Christ’s blood, nearly everyone who crossed paths with McKenna during the last month of her life can claim blamelessness. Thanks to Dr. Posthumus and Prosector Morrogh, McKenna is not only the victim but perpetrator of her own death.

The unanswered question is whether Fairfax County – its leaders and its citizens – have learned anything from this tragedy or if they will continue washing their hands and reassuring themselves that there was nothing any of them could do – after all, Natasha McKenna was mentally ill.

 

*Treatment Denied Syndrome is a term first used by a long time National Alliance on Mental Illness advocate to describe our nation’s lack of mental health services and callous disregard for persons with mental disorders.

Here’s just a few articles about Excited Delirium

Deaths in Police Custody: Unproved science used to ‘explain’ deaths in police custody

 Death by Excited Delirium: Diagnosis or Coverup? NPR

Excited Delirium: Police Brutality vs. Sheer Insanity

Read also: What we lose when police blame victims for their own deaths

Thanks to Cecilia Rauth for her assistance in researching this blog. 

 

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9-9-15 Anyone who reads  Virginia Commonwealth Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh’s  51 page report about the death of Natasha McKenna, the 37 year old African American woman with schizophrenia who died after being repeatedly stunned with a taser while in the Fairfax County Detention Center, can’t help but be appalled.

For those of us with a loved one with a mental illness, his report is painful and frustrating to read because it shows how difficult it is for someone who is clearly sick in Fairfax County to get meaningful help. Except for one doctor, Lydia Haile, MD., most others named in this report dealt with McKenna poorly, some might say callously.

Morrogh’s report is the first detailed account by an official about what happened to McKenna from January 7 — when she was transported by ambulance to INOVA Alexandria Hospital and showed signs of being psychotic — until her death on February 7th.

Prosecutor Raymond F. Morrogh Relies on Excited Delirium In His Findings

Moorogh concludes that no one is criminally at fault. In fact, he praises the deputies involved. While there may be no legal culpability, the report reveals countless failed opportunities when McKenna could have and should have received help but didn’t.

The most detailed information in Morrogh’s report is about McKenna’s physical altercations with the police and sheriff’s deputies. He gives blow-by-blow, in some times, second-by-second accounts of how McKenna kicked, attempted to bite, and spit at officers. He quotes officers claiming that McKenna had super human strength.

Sergeant Timothy said, “For me it’s probably the most difficult inmate I’ve ever had to deal with in that capacity, male or female… And I’ve dealt with… men on PCP fighting… it’s like she didn’t feel pain…” Deputy Guevarez said, “.. I remember it was … a struggle. I mean.. .I’m not a weak guy but she, she was wearing me out; she was wearing us all out. Deputy Holmes said, “.. .in my 19 years, that was the worst inmate.. .1 have ever dealt with. I’ll be honest with you… she was the real deal. Seriously, she was the worst… the hardest inmate.. .I’ve dealt with big guys, I’ve dealt with other females, smaller guys, guys in gang[s]. She was the toughest person that… I have ever dealt with to get her in that chair and with a struggle.” Deputy Viola said, “[Ms. McKenna was] probably one of the most aggressive CO inmates I’ve ever had to deal with .. .in my experience.” Deputy Barb recalled that, “.. .She was pushing with the most force I’ve seen in the… six years I’ve worked there.. .1 had never seen anybody push like this.. .”

In another sentence, Morrogh quotes an officer stating:

I hate to describe it like this, like a demonic possession because she was growling the whole time.

Because McKenna is dead, there is no one to speak on her behalf about what happened. The deputies’ statements go unchallenged and dovetail perfectly with the conclusion of Dr. Jocelyn Posthumus, M.D., a forensic pathologist with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner who performed an autopsy on McKenna two days after she died and found that she was not the victim of foul play but of excited delirium, which Morrogh explains thusly:

Most persons suffering from excited delirium are hyper-aggressive, impervious to pain, and demonstrate unusual, “superhuman,” strength. They engage in a lengthy period of struggle, followed by a period of quiet and sudden death.

His conclusion: no one is legally at fault — no one that is, except Natasha McKenna. She brought this all on herself.

How easy it is to blame someone with mental illness. How easy it is to claim that everyone followed the rules except the person who was mentally ill. How easy to cry crocodile tears.

Let’s take a look at Morrogh’s use of the “excited delirium” conclusion of Dr. Posthumus.

Morrogh quotes liberally from a report issued by  a task force of the American College of Emergency Physicians that states that excited delirium is real. There’s no mention that excited delirium is not a currently recognized medical or psychiatric diagnosis according to either the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IVTR) of the American Psychiatric Association or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) of the World Health Organization.

But here is an even more interesting note: if you check the 2012 and 2013 annual statistical reports issued by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Virginia you will not find a single mention of excited delirium as a cause of death in the state. It is not listed as a cause of any death in Virginia during 2013 in the 128 in-custody deaths that were examined by that office. Not  one incident. Nor is it cited in the deaths of 60 persons with mental illnesses who were examined. Not one incident. In the entire 238 page annual report in 2013, there is absolutely no mention of a death in Virginia that was attributed to excited delirium.

As the Washington Post has pointed out repeatedly, nearly all deaths associated to excited delirium happened while the deceased was in police custody, which has caused civil rights activists to claim that it is simply an excuse used to justify excessive force and avoid lawsuits.

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The mystery about my mother’s 70 year-old painting has been solved thanks to Mary Kay Grimaldi, an editor with Shell Point Life magazine in Fort Myers, Florida.

In June, I wrote about how I’d received an email from a stranger, Mary Beth Bower, who had come across an oil painting in a Florida thrift store that she thought might have been painted by my mother, Jean Earley. The canvas was dated 1945, and after seeing it, I was able to confirm that it was one of mother’s earliest paintings even though I’d never seen it before and didn’t know it existed. It was not listed in the portfolio of my mother’s work that she kept. She painted it two years after marrying my father when she was 26 years old.  As newly weds, my parents had moved to Colorado from the East Coast to begin their life together. The painting was a scene that my mother could see from their tiny apartment, I later learned. My mother died at age 94 in December 2013.  My father died fourteen months later, also at age 94. (Read blog about mystery painting.)

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