Preaching The Importance of Jail Diversion & A Step Forward At Home

Three minute KSL interview in Salt Lake City about Utah

2-16-15) I’m often interviewed when I travel and when that happens, I always talk about the importance of Crisis Intervention Team training for law enforcement, problem solving courts and re-entry programs that help persons with mental illnesses receive much needed services after they are discharged from jails or prisons.  Candice Madsen, a reporter for KLS in Utah, divided her interview with me into a local news report and one shown nationally — primarily to members of the Mormon faith.

Three minute national Deseret News interview

Last Thursday (2-12-15), Fairfax County, Virginia, launched a special docket to help veterans. This is a major step where I live because the Virginia judiciary has been reluctant to create much-needed problem solving courts. The credit goes to Judge Penney S. Azcarate who served in our military and was able to rally support from her fellow veterans.

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Face of Woman Tasered In Fairfax Jail: Calling for Treatment, Not Punishment

Natasha McKenna: Police Mugshot

Natasha McKenna: Police Mugshot

2-13-15  This photo shows Natasha McKenna, a 37 year-old woman with schizophrenia, when she was booked into the Fairfax County Jail. Eight days later, she left that jail in an ambulance with two black eyes, a missing middle finger,  severe bruising the length of her left arm and unconscious. She didn’t survive.

What happened in that jail?

A blog that I posted about McKenna on Tuesday of this week (2-11-15) posed that question. Thankfully, reporters in the Washington area who were sent my blog decided to investigate. The Washington Post published an editorial today (2-13) and our local NBC and CBS affiliates also broadcast stories. WTOP, the most popular radio station in the area, chimed in too.  My goal was to alert the public. Persons with mental illnesses need treatment, not incarceration.

When I look at Natasha’s face, I think about my own son, who was tasered by Fairfax Police one night when when he was delusional. I think about how fortunate I am that he did not end up as she did.

Natasha McKenna had a mental illness. That shouldn’t have been a death sentence.

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Sparks Fly At Murphy Hearing: Cheap Shots, Personal Attacks and Traps Alleged

Colorado Democratic Representative Diane DeGette said she was “appalled” by the brutal questioning of SAMHSA Director Pamela Hyde during a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday. DeGette’s irritation was aimed at two House Republicans who verbally attacked Hyde and her agency, one personally belittling her as a witness.

Representatives Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Chris Collins (R-NY) irked DeGette, the ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, when they grilled Hyde about agency priorities and her leadership.

Mullin led the two-punch attack during the hearing that was called by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) the committee chair, who last year asked the General Accountability Office to investigate SAMSHA. It issued its report last week.

You can watch Mullin interrogate Hyde by going to 1:36.37 on the YouTube video.

After posting a snapshot of a SAMHSA website called Building Blocks For A Healthy Future on a television monitor, Mullin explained the webpage was designed to teach small children about substance abuse by having them sing songs about healthy living to the tune of Old McDonald and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Click to continue…

A Correction And More Troubling Questions About Woman’s Taser Death in Fairfax Jail

2-11-2015  I need to correct an error that I made in writing Tuesday about Natasha McKenna, the 37 year old African American woman who suffered cardiac arrest after her encounter with law enforcement in the Fairfax County jail. I am happy to do this because my goal is to uncover the truth and also because this information confirms what those of us in the mental health community fear.

This is an instance where someone with a mental illness is acting oddly. The police are called and an altercation happens, resulting in charges being filed and the person with mental illness ending up becoming entrapped in the criminal justice system.

I was initially told by my sources and wrote that McKenna had been charged with simple assault. That was incorrect. Please read the official statement printed below from the Alexandria police.  A spokesperson told me that three of the six officers involved in the initial contact with McKenna were CIT trained and that one of them was a CIT instructor.

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Troubled Woman Dies In Fairfax: Shot 4 Times With Taser After A Week In Isolation Cell

2-10-2015

Can you imagine being arrested on a minor charge,  stripped naked and put into a solitary jail cell for a week with nothing in it?

Can you imagine being slapped in the head by a corrections officer because you didn’t comply with an order that you didn’t understand?

Can you image having five men dressed like Ninja warriors wearing football-like helmets with visors attempting to violently tie you to a chair?

Can you imagine voltage from a Taser being shot into your body not once, not twice, not three times, but four times until your body goes into cardiac arrest?

Can you imagine being rushed by EMTs to a hospital where your urine soaked body looks so horrific that the emergency room crew is sickened by what they witness?

This is not some tale of torture filtering from Abu Ghraib prison.

All of this happened last week here in Fairfax County, Virginia, a wealthy suburb of Washington D.C. where elected officials have stuck their heads in the sand when it comes to facing what now is being revealed as our grim reality.

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Sensational Headline Flaws Expose: We Butted Heads But Va. Advocate Deserved Help Not Warehousing!

Washington Post Photo

Washington Post Photo

A week ago, The Washington Post published a front-page story about Alison Hymes, a self-described psychiatric survivor, long-time Virginia mental health advocate and person living with mental illness.

Reporter Annys Shin’s story was headlined:

      SHE FOUGHT FOR PATIENTS’ RIGHTS, THEN HER’S WERE STRIPPED AWAY.

I met Ms. Hymes when we both were appointed to a task force appointed by the Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court to draft new language for civil involuntary commitment criteria.

From the start, Ms. Hymes and I bumped heads.

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