(6-20-16) Here’s a quiz.
Choose what you would expect an agency — created to protect persons living with disabilities — to do when a Virginian with schizophrenia gets arrested for taking $5 of snack foods without paying, is jailed for 101 days, and found dead in a feces covered cell from a heart attack caused by starvation?
(A.) Investigate the death and conditions in the jail to determine why that inmate lost 40 -50 pounds while supposedly being checked daily by a nurse.
(B.) Join the ACLU, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, NAACP, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Virginia Chapter of Mental Health America, and the Washington Post in asking for a federal investigation.
(C.) Hold a press conference to denounce the death and file a lawsuit under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act against the jail and state.
(D.) Write a letter of complaint to the governor.
If you answered (D.), you have correctly answered what the Richmond-based disAbility Law Center of Virginia, an organization that contracts with the federal government to act as legal advocates for Virginians with disabilities, has done in the tragic case of Jamycheal Mitchell, the 24 year-old, African American inmate who was found dead last August in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth.
A letter.