Pete Earley

Bearing the scars from his son’s attack, Sen. Deeds returns to Legislature.

Virginia State Sen. Creigh Deeds has spoken out bravely about his son’s mental illness. Sadly, his story and attempts to help his son, Gus, will sound familiar to many of us.

The senator returned to the legislature this week for the first time since being stabbed last November by his son who then killed himself. The attack made national headlines after a local mental health official acknowledged that Gus had been deemed dangerous but not treated because there were no local hospital beds available. The next day, three hospitals said they had empty psychiatric beds but each was more than two hours away. This raised questions about whether local mental health officials had put sufficient effort into finding beds or whether Gus could have been taken to one of those facilities in time before the six hour mental health hold on him expired. Regardless, this family tragedy exposed weaknesses in Virginia’s system. (I’ll write more about the Deeds case in a future blog.)

Senator Deeds told his family’s story this week to a reporter at The Recorder, his hometown newspaper in rural Virginia. I salute Sen. Deeds’ bravery in speaking out and admire his determination to honor his son’s life by using his considerable political clout to help improve out system.

The Recorder Newspaper 

Bath County Virginia 

Senator Deeds Explains how system failed his son, Gus

By Anne Adams, Staff Writer

HOT SPRINGS — The loss is crushing.

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Let’s begin the new year by celebrating success stories and I can’t think of a better model for other communities to follow when it comes to stopping the criminalization of persons with mental illnesses than what I have personally observed in Bexar County, Texas, home of San Antonio.

Thanks largely to the leadership of Leon Evans, the CEO and President of the Center for Health Care Services, Bexar County has become an example of what can happen when a community joins together to improve its mental health services.

* The Bexas County jail — once so overcrowded that the county was considering building a new one — now has a surplus of roughly one thousand empty beds!

*Bexar County saved an estimated $9 million annually in jail costs and inappropriate emergency room admissions — close to $50 million alone in savings to the community since 2008.

How did Bexar County achieve these successes? Duh!  By focusing on diverting non-violent individuals with serious mental illnesses from incarceration into treatment and crisis services outside the criminal justice system.

And that is something every community and state should be doing!

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Actress Jodie Whittaker protrays my friend, Sandy Grimes, who helped catch Ames

I’ve received a number of emails and calls this week about whether the ABC mini-series entitled The Assets is based on my book about CIA spy Aldrich Ames. The eight part television show that begins tonight is NOT based on my book, Confessions of a Spy: The True Story of Aldrich Ames. But because I am the only journalist who was able to interview Ames without the government’s knowledge and censorship (see Promises to Traitors Matter) it is a logical question.

The Assets is based on the book, Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Tratior Aldrich Ames and the Men That He Betrayed, written by Sandy Grimes and Jean Vertefeuille, two of the CIA employes who helped catch Ames.

Sandy is a good friend and so was Jean, who passed away last January. Both cooperated with me when I wrote my book and I encouraged them to write their own after mine was published. I gave their book a plug because I thought it was a terrific read that added important information about the CIA’s relationship with the Russians who were executed because of Ames’ treachery. (See  Fox Files To Show Interview About CIA Spy Aldrich Ames)  Ironically, it was Jean’s obituary that first got the attention of TV producers that led to The Assets. They wisely hired Sandy as a consultant.

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Once again, Patti has done a fabulous job decorating our house both inside and out to celebrate the excitement and  joy of the season. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to each and everyone of you. Be well, have hope, help others and pause for a moment to remember those among us who are homeless, alone, estranged from others or are incarcerated because of a mental illness.Click to continue…

Jean P. Earley

April 1919 to December 2013

The best mom a son could have.

“Who ran to help me when I fell, And would some pretty story tell, Or kiss the place to make it well? My mother”
-Ann Taylor

The new director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness doesn’t take command of our nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization until January 2nd, but Mary Giliberti already is being grilled by long-time NAMI activist Dr. E. Fuller Torrey.

Torrey, who has been critical of NAMI lately, has fired off a letter demanding the new director publicly state her views about the closing of state hospitals. Torrey and his followers are suspicious of Giliberti because she once worked for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a driving force behind “deinstitutionalization.”  Bazelon also strongly opposes the passage of Assistant Outpatient Treatment laws, which Torrey endorses.

I warned readers earlier this year of a split that was forming between NAMI members.  NAMI was formed by parents who were frustrated with the mental health system, but in recent years more and more consumers have joined its ranks and some of them are opposed to issues that NAMI has traditional supported.

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