A Never Ending Debate

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Mental Health America asked me to moderate a thought-provoking panel that featured four nationally-known activists during its annual convention in Washington D.C.

Kay Redfield Jamison doesn’t need an introduction.  Her memoir,  An Unquiet Mind, was the first book I read after my son, Mike, became ill, and it spent five months on the New York Times bestseller list.  She is not only brilliant and well-spoken, but also unassuming.

The other three panelists were new to me.

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NAMI Changed My Life

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When I was a Washington Post reporter, I did not believe in joining groups or organizations. I needed to be independent in order to be objective. Then my son, Mike, got sick and the first thing I did after I finished writing my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, was join the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI.)

Why?

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Police Shootings Stir Local Activist

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Not long after a still unnamed Fairfax County Police officer fatally shot an unarmed motorist named David Masters last November at a traffic light in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C.,  I received a telephone call and letter from Nicholas Beltrante, an 82 year-old, former D.C. police officer, longtime private investigator, World War Two veteran, and frequent appointee to various criminal justice advisory boards in our area.
Beltrante had read a piece that I’d written in the Washington Post about the shooting of Masters, whose family said he had a mental illness, and Beltrante felt the Fairfax Police Department needed someone to begin looking over its shoulder.

Spy Arthur Walker Still In His Brother’s Shadow

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Because I have spent much of my career writing about crime and prisons, I have gotten to know a lot of criminals, including some down right evil psychopaths. Occasionally, I  get a note from a prisoner asking me to write a letter to a parole board recommending clemency.

The most recent came from Alice Lundgren, wife of Jeffrey Lundgren, who was executed by the State of Ohio in 2006 for murdering a family of five. The Lundgren cult is the subject of my book, Prophet of Death. I told Alice no.

In the past 37-years, I have written only one letter on behalf of an inmate.

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Podcast, Speech, and new Nelson DeMille novel

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I will be speaking at a local library tonight [June 8th] in Fairfax about some of my adventures as an author. The informal program begins at 6 p.m. at the Patrick Henry Library, 101 Maple Avenue, Vienna, Virginia.  The libary also did a podcast interview with me that can be heard here.

My first literary agent also represented Nelson DeMille and for the past 24 years, Nelson and I have been friends. His newest book, The Lion, is being released today and   I read an advance copy weeks ago that he sent me and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you are looking for a summer read, get a copy.

My favorite DeMille book is Word of Honor but all of his novels are well-worth your time. Nelson’s writing is filled with wit, sarcasm, and lots of twists and turns. Here’s what his publisher says about his new book.
“John Corey, former NYPD homicide detective and now a special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force is back. Unfortunately, so is Asad Khalil, the notorious Libyan terrorist otherwise known as “The Lion.” When last we heard from him, Khalil had claimed to be defecting to the U.S. only to unleash the most horrific reign of terror ever to occur on American soil. While Corey and his partner, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, pursued him across the country, Khalil methodically eliminated his victims one by one and then disappeared without a trace. Now, three years later, Khalil has returned to America to make good on his threats and take care of unfinished business. “The Lion” is a killing machine once again loose in America with a mission of revenge, and John Corey will stop at nothing to achieve his own goal – to find and kill Khalil.”

Sadly, no CIT Officer of the Year in Fairfax

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I returned from speaking at the International Crisis Intervention Team conference in San Antonio, Texas, with mixed feelings. The conference was great and I was especially pleased to bump into Robert Cluck from my local NAMI chapter in Northern Virginia, as well as Major Tom Ryan from the Fairfax Police Department, who has been one of our county’s strongest CIT advocates. They were among the 1,300 attendees making the conference the largest to date. 
The focus of CIT has expanded from when it was first introduced.  Initially, it was seen as a training program for the police that taught officers how to respond when they encountered someone with a mental illness who was in the midst of a crisis. Now the emphasis is on using CIT to bring different community leaders together to improve mental health services.