Two Inmates Aren’t Ill, the BOP Claims – Even Though One Ate His Own Finger

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First a note about Colorado

 I was on the west coast Friday doing research for a new nonfiction book when I received a seven a.m. telephone call from CNN asking if I wanted to comment about a shooting in Aurora. Was this incident similar to the  Virginia Tech massacre or the rampage in Tuscon? I felt a sickening sense of dread as soon as I heard that question. But I really couldn’t comment. I was still in bed and hadn’t yet turned on the hotel television or my computer. I really didn’t know anything about the mass murders. As I write this, we still haven’t been told enough about the mental state of the gunman to speculate. All I can say is that my heart goes out to all of the victims in this horrific tragedy.

 

I wrote last week about a recent lawsuit that alleges the federal Bureau of Prisons is mistreating inmates with mental disorders being held in its so-called Supermax, ADX penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. I believe this suit is so shocking that it merits another blog post.  The lead attorney in the class action suit, Ed Aro, told me via email that the director of the BOP,  Charles E. Samuels Jr.,  in sworn testimony before a congressional committee, testified that there were no inmates with serious mental illnesses being held in the high security ADX.  He made this statement the day after the lawsuit was filed.

Aro’s reacted with one stunned word: “Incredible!”

That’s putting it mildly if the accusations in the lawsuit are factual.

The BOP’s attorneys have yet to respond. But the director’s testimony certainly doesn’t jive with what is described in the lawsuit. Let’s review just two inmates whose backgrounds are recounted in the court document.

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Virginia Lt. Gov. Bolling Should Apologize For Stupid Comment

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Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling should publicly apologize for a  prejudicial remark that he made recently.

The chairman of presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s state campaign in Virginia recently told newspaper reporters that if people think Obama has done a good job over the past three years, they should vote for him — then “check themselves into a mental hospital.”

Bolling’s comment was meant to belittle Obama supporters by suggesting that they needed psychiatric treatment. This is the sort of mocking comment that increases stigma against persons with severe mental illnesses and also makes them reluctant to seek help. If you doubt this, substitute “cancer ward” for “mental hospital.” It doesn’t work, does it?

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Callous and Inhumane Treatment — Even Torture – of Federal Prisoners With Mental Illnesses, Suit Alleges. Where’s The Outrage?

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Currently, BOP [the federal Bureau of Prisons] turns a blind eye to the needs of the mentally ill at ADX and to deplorable conditions of confinement that are injurious, callous and inhumane to those prisoners. No civilized society treats its mentally disabled citizens with a comparable level of deliberate indifference to their plight.  [First paragraph of lawsuit.]

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons is being sued in a class-action lawsuit for allegedly abusing, neglecting and, in some cases, torturing prisoners with mental illnesses being housed in the federal government’s most strict penitentiary. The lawsuit was filed by Ed Aro, a partner at the Washington D.C. law firm, Arnold and Porter, and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

Allegations in lawsuits are exactly that — allegations. The BOP’s attorneys will file a response in a few weeks. But if the charges are true, then the public should be outraged and the BOP should be forced to mend its ways.

The five prisoners named in the class action suit, along with six other “interested individuals,” all have “severe mental illnesses.” One also is “mentally retarded.” All are being held at the BOP’s SUPERMAX penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, also known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” They were moved there after they had violent run-ins with other prisoners or with correctional officers.

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Punishing a Pilot for Being Mentally Ill

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Case One: A pilot flying a commercial airliner has a heart attack that prevents him from being able to fly the plane. His co-pilot takes charge and safely lands the aircraft. The pilot is rushed to a hospital and the passengers are grateful for the co-pilot’s skill.

Case Two: A pilot flying a commercial airliner has a mental breakdown and becomes disoriented. He announces that the flight is doomed, mutters comments about Jesus and flees the cockpit.  His co-pilot takes control and passengers wrestle down the confused pilot. When the plane lands safely, the pilot is arrested, charged with one count for interfering with a flight crew, and taken to a locked facility. Angry passengers file civil lawsuits against the airline for employing someone who has a mental disorder.

A judge in Amarillo, Texas, ruled last week that the pilot in Case Two was not guilty of interfering with a flight crew because he suffered from a “severe mental disease” and “was not guilty by reason of insanity.”  The pilot will now be sent to a federal mental health facility for further examination until another hearing on or before Aug. 6th. The judge will decide then whether he can be released from custody or should be committed indefinitely to a locked mental facility.

I am grateful for the judge’s ruling, but I also have a question: Why was the pilot arrested and prosecuted?

No one doubts that a heart attack is a medical emergency. No one suggested that the pilot in Case One be arrested even though he might have contributed to his heart’s weak condition by smoking, being overweight or not exercising.

The judge who reviewed the evidence in Case Two concluded that the pilot had a “severe mental disease” and was not responsible for his actions because his disorder made him legally insane.

Logic tells us that neither pilot wanted a medical emergency to ground their careers. So why were they treated so differently?

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Storm Disrupts — But Doesn’t Ruin — My Weekend

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Broken Tree Limb

Fallen tree limb over gate to Pete’s Office

My weekend plans got scuttled when a violent thunderstorm swept through the Washington D.C. area Friday night leaving several hundred thousand residents without electricity. Power was knocked-out at both my house and office. Two huge tree limbs fell on my office roof.  Officials announced the next morning that it might be as long as five days before power could be restored.

On Saturday, temperatures hit a sweltering 101 degrees, according to the thermometer outside our kitchen window. Our house felt like an oven.

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A Daughter’s Voice and A Sibling’s Conclusions: Articles Worth Reading.

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And so for weeks, we had been locked in a game of chicken: waiting for my father to do something clearly dangerous; praying like hell that it would not be his suicide or accidental death or the death of someone else. In the meantime, my mother had all but stopped sleeping and had started hiding the car keys and the checkbook. She would tiptoe around their one-bedroom apartment at night, waiting for him to doze off, then call my sister or me to unload her despair in a flurry of whispers.

More than a dozen readers sent me copies of this moving story– When My CRAZY Father Actually Lost His Mind — published last Sunday in The New York Times.

While I like to post original content on this blog and not simply pass along articles, this is well worth reading.  And since I am recommending articles, you should check out a thoughtful piece that Trudelle Thomas wrote in the National Alliance on Mental Illness VOICE  recently. It is entitled: Loving A Sibling with a Chronic Illness.

As a sibling of a person living with serious mental illness, I faced my own set of challenges. I wanted to keep our close bond but wrestled with feelings of grief, worry, frustration and guilt. Even though I knew better, I felt guilty for not protecting him. I worried terribly that he would end up sleeping under a bridge. For a long time, the way I expressed my caring was by giving him advice: Go back to school!” “Don’t eat that Cheeto!” and “Stand up straight!” I also became an overachiever, trying to compensate for my family’s heartache.  Years passed before I encountered the concept of “unconditional positive regard” — the idea that all people need and deserve unconditional acceptance.”

Both articles discuss the challenges that we face as persons who love someone with a mental disorder. When do we step in? And when do we accept  “unconditional positive regard?”  

All of us are walking on the same path. I always find it helpful when others share stories about their journeys and what they have learned.