Pete Earley

Juan and Blanca Briceno created a shrine for their son Eric Briceno, who was killed by deputies in March during what they said was a mental health call.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

As Communities Shift Responsibility For Responding To Emergencies Away From Police, Is CIT Training For Law Enforcement At Risk?

(10-6-20) The Greater Los Angeles chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness has written a letter demanding answers about the death of a seriously mentally ill man at the hands of sheriff’s deputies. The letter also warns of what I fear is an alarming problem across our nation – the scaling back of robust Crisis Intervention Team training for law enforcement as localities shift responsibility away from police/deputies to other first responders.

Eric Briceno died in March after his mother Blanco Briceno, called sheriff’s deputies about her 39 year old son who was asleep in his bedroom when they arrived.

“We called them to come and help us, to get some help,” Briceno told the Los Angeles Times during an interview. “And instead, they came and killed him, brutally killed him.”

“Deputies ignored the parents’ plea to allow them to bring their son out of his room safely,” the NAMI letter notes. “Instead, (they) entered his bedroom…Mr. Briceno was pepper sprayed and shot with a Taser seven or eight times, according to the autopsy report.”

That autopsy wasn’t made public until late September, prompting NAMI’s Oct. 3rd  letter. The coroner’s office concluded that Briceno died of cardiopulmonary arrest, resulting from neck compression and restraint with a Taser. The death was ruled a homicide…”

“The only information available publicly at this time is the story in the Times,” the NAMI letter notes. “But if the truth is close to the depiction of the facts as portrayed in the article, deputies abandoned good practices and de-escalation protocols in favor of physical intervention and the use of force. NAMI Greater Los Angeles County will not ignore fatal use of force upon individuals living with serious mental illness by any law enforcement agency especially the level of force appears great.”

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(10-4-20) Dr. Lloyd I. Sederer has had an incredible career.

He’s been the Medical Director of a Harvard teaching hospital (McLean Hospital), spent five years as Mental Health Commissioner in New York City, another twelve years as Chief Medical Officer of New York State’s mental health agency and seven years as Medical Editor for Mental Health with the HuffPost.

He’s also been busy as an author, writing nearly a dozen books, including The Family Guide To Mental Health Care, and more than 350 professional articles.

His newest offering, Ink-Stained For Life: Coming of Age in the 1950s, A Bronx Tale, has Sederer looking inward through a series of essays at his younger years and lessons that he’s learned.

“I had no plan to write a memoir, though the itch to write has been in me since my adolescence,” Dr. Sederer noted. The seeds for his new book were planted after the New York Times published an OP Ed in 2010 that Dr. Sederer had written about his chore of putting editions of Sunday newspapers out for sale at his father’s stationary shop when he was a child. “The Times had retitled it (bless them), Ink-Stained for Life, a far better title than I had provided…On the Saturday it was published, I went out early and bought a lot of copies of the paper. So, I had one memoir story and decided to write some more. Thirteen to be specific, twelve new ones and one adapted from a piece I had published in the HuffPost.” (Read original Times essay here.)

I’ve learned much from Dr. Sederer, enjoyed when we have spoken, and appreciate his years of helping individuals with mental illnesses and their families – so I asked him to write about his new book, which I have not yet read, for my blog. I was especially interested in lessons he learned as a psychiatrist. He replied that his career choice was improbable because he was “as neurotic as could be…” as a child.Click to continue…

Reader questions why police needed to tackle and handcuff Brad Parscale.

(10-2-20) Here is a selection of emails in my mailbox this past week. I’ll be interested to read your reactions on my Facebook page.

1. A reader questions actions by the Fort Lauderdale police in restraining Brad Parscale after his wife called them because she said he was suicidal. I raise questions about releasing body cams videos.
2. Politics vs Science? Why did SAMHSA issue a press release stating it “stands by its commitment to fostering and protecting the mental health” of all Americans?
3. Reader urges everyone to read story about talented swimmer’s death by suicide.

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(9-28-20) Michael Estrada has made a powerful hour-long documentary entitled Benevolent Neglect that chronicles his decade long journey trying to help his seriously mentally ill mother, Josie.

A teacher, Estrada, took a year sabbatical to make his film with small contributions from friends but no movie making experience after his mother died in 2018. Benevolent Neglect is such an important film, I believe it should be shown in every National Alliance On Mental Illness chapter, circulated by the National Council on Behavioral Health, and watched by our elected leaders.

It is both a painful reminder that we are not doing enough to avoid what Estrada notes is “much sorrow, needless suffering and preventible deaths.”

In telling his mother’s story, Estrada shares a much bigger story about how our legal and health care system are contributing to suffering rather than helping protect and heal.

Because Estrada wanted to add context to his documentary, he interweaves such larger issues of deinstitutionalization, involuntary commitment, and shortages of crisis care beds into his film. But the most revealing moments come when Estrada takes viewers into his world as events with his mother unfold. A Modesto police officer refuses to involuntary commit Josie so she can go to the hospital even though she is clearly a danger to herself. Why? Because she is able to tell him what day and month it is, along with the name of her street. A  hospital supervisor ignores Estrada’s pleas even though his mother has nearly died because voices are telling her not to take her diabetes medication. Why? Because Josie wants to be discharged and the supervisor doesn’t want responsibility for her.  A California Department of Mental Health employee rebuffs Estrada when he says his mom has been kicked out of so many apartments, she now is homeless. Why? Because she is living in her car and therefore has a roof over her head.

The fact that Josie presents well, is well-groomed and can carry on a conversation without a hint of her illness stymies Estrada’s efforts to get her care even when voices in her head cause her to pull covers over her head and cower during a “spiritual attack” and when those same voices convince her that her diabetes medicine is poison and the FBI is watching her.

Josie’s actions are so troubling that they eventually cause her to be held involuntarily five times under California’s 5150 law. (Nearly always after she is stopped by police driving erratically and delusional.) But she is always released within 24 hours and always without any treatment.Click to continue…

(9-25-20) This is not about mental illness.

The death of Gerald Shur, my good friend and co-author of WITSEC: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program, has prompted a slew of obituaries and a Life Lived Well segment on CBS. I want to share this story from The Times of London in the U.K., because it tells an  engaging story about Gerald and what it was like to battle the mob.

Founder of the Witness Protection Programme that helped the likes of ‘Sammy the Bull’ and ‘Fat Vinnie’ to testify against mob bosses

From the Times of London

When a poetry-writing hitman named Joseph “The Animal” Barboza betrayed his former associates in the New England mafia they were desperate to stop him from testifying.

Federal agents were equally determined to keep him alive for the trial of the crime boss Raymond “Il Patrone” Patriarca, who was said in 1967 to have placed a $300,000 bounty on Barboza’s head.

The killer-turned-informer was sequestered under armed guard on a desolate island off the coast of Massachusetts until the Mob discovered his location. They planned to ram a boat loaded with dynamite into the shore but Barboza had already been taken to another hideaway.

A posse of hitmen waited for Barboza outside the courthouse as the trial began, unaware that he had been smuggled into the building three days earlier and stashed in a basement storeroom. One stole a police officer’s uniform and was stopped trying to enter the courtroom. Barboza’s attorney lost his right leg to a car bomb.

Barboza remained alive and Patriarca was convicted of conspiracy to murder. Once Barboza had testified against other mafiosos, he and his family were sent for their safety to Fort Knox.

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DJ Jaffe with a copy of his book, “Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill.”Credit…Paula Orndoff

(9-23-20) Fans and friends can attend a virtual memorial service for D. J. Jaffe tomorrow (9-24-20) hosted by the Manhattan Institute from 1 p.m to 2 p.m.. (Register here.)  During the first half hour, I’ve been asked to speak about the impact of D. J.’s advocacy along with several others, including John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center. The second half hour will be a discussion about policy changes that he promoted.

The Manhattan Institute has posted comments honoring him by Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, and his other friends here. 

“The passing of DJ Jaffe is a great loss—the loss of an important leader and untiring advocate for the seriously mentally ill, but also the loss of a teacher and a friend. His contributions will live on and those of us who shared his vision for addressing serious mental illness in our country will do our best to continue in the footsteps that he forged,” Dr. McCance-Katz, the assistant secretary at HHS for mental health and substance abuse wrote.

I am reprinting D.J.’s obituary from the New York Times.
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