Pete Earley

Distraught mother issues plea in minute and half video. 

(5-8-19) “Dear Pete:

               “I received news today my son Ethan Austin Murray , was shot & killed by police officers in Spokane Valley Saturday May 4th.

              “My son suffers from mental illness & drug addiction.

              “I’m heartbroken, angry, & in shock.

              “I love you Ethan Murray and I will never stop advocating for change, police CIT training & breaking the stigma for people with mental illness. ❤️”

              “Your mom, Justine Murray”

In a late night email Tuesday, Justine wrote:  “The police have told me it’s a very high profile case because Ethan did not have a weapon and was shot 6 times by one of the officers.” 

Some frightening facts:

323 Americans have been fatally shot by police so far this year, according to a database maintained by the Washington Post. 50 of them had known mental illnesses.

American with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely to be shot during an encounter with police than other citizens, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center.

A 2016 review of studies estimated that 1 in 4 people with mental illness has a history of police arrest.

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(5-6-19) “The Lord works in mysterious ways,”  Tim Murphy told me.

When he was a member of Congress, he wielded power and enjoyed prestige – especially in the mental health community.

It was Murphy who held hearings immediately after the December 14, 2012 mass shooting of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. (I testified at his first hearing about how the “imminent danger” criteria prevented me from getting my son help after I rushed him to a local emergency room.)

Murphy pushed for passage of the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, a bill he drafted. Its goal was to make mental health a federal priority. He faced strong and bitter opposition. He stepped on toes. Fought the status quo. Democrats blocked him. His first attempt died in committee.  A CEO of a major mental health organization in Washington smirked and assured me Murphy’s bill would never become law.

His critics badly under-estimated his tenacity. “All he does is talk about mental illness. That’s it. Every conversation,” one of his Republican colleagues told me privately.

Murphy gained support, won allies. A Wall Street Journal OP Ed said his bill was the only reform measure that most likely could have prevented shootings such as those that felled Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, as well as other victims of a spate of shootings.

In July 2016, Murphy won. His bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 422-2. In the Senate, Dr. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) drafted their version and a compromise bill was later folded into the larger 21st Century Cures Act, which became law during the final days of the Obama Administration.

His work was described as the most important mental health bill in recent memory, creating an assistant secretary for mental health at Health and Human Services and the Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee.

And then Murphy fell from grace.

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(5-3-19) FROM MY FILES FRIDAY-  In March 2012, I received an email from a mother about generic drugs. Most are fine, but if you notice mood changes, investigate if what you are taking really is the same medication as prescribed.  

Warning: Not All Pills Are Created Equal

“Our son was taking his medicine when, all of the sudden, he started showing signs that he was slipping and becoming ill again.

My first thought was: ‘He’s stopped taking his medication.’ That’s what his psychiatrist thought too.

But it was something else entirely.”

Phillip had been doing well on an anti-psychotic drug. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in his early twenties, he’d experienced a half-dozen episodes until his psychiatrist found a medication and dosage that helped him achieve stability without suffering severe side-effects.

I do not endorse any medications. But this post happens to be about Zyprexa, which was developed by Eli Lilly and is based on olanzapine.

Phillip’s mother said when her son began taking it, he became “his old self.”  His mood swings stabilized. His thinking cleared. He was able to get a full-time job and move into his own apartment.

“A miracle,” she wrote.

Phillip was diligent. “He didn’t want to lose everything that he had worked so hard to achieve.”

So when he began showing signs of mania and depression, his doctor and parents became concerned.

“We couldn’t figure out what was happening because we knew he was taking his pills. It was as if they had stopped working and that terrified us.”

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Senator Pete Domenici, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, President George W. Bush, Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, and Representative Jim Ramstad Signing the Parity Act. © White House photo by Eric Draper

(4-29-19) From the Kennedy Forum: “The Parity Act was the signature achievement of Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s 16 years in Congress. Its passage was the culmination of perseverance over many years to overcome institutionalized insurance discrimination against persons with mental illnesses and substance use disorders.”

From: Securian Life Insurance Company, Group Medical Underwriting.

Addendum:  Life insurance is different from health insurance, as Kathy Day pointed out shortly after I posted this on my facebook page.  The reason why I posted it —  recognizing that  — is because of the parity act’s stated goal to: overcome institutionalized insurance discrimination.

Is this discrimination by a life insurance company? Let me know your thoughts.

 

(4-24-19) Mary Giliberti abruptly resigned this morning as Chief Executive Office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

NAMI released a statement at 2 p.m. EST from its Board President Adrienne Kennedy and an official press release.

Mary has been NAMI’s CEO five years.

In an email, Mary wrote, “With NAMI’s growth over the last five years has come long hours and much travel. As I look at my children as they are finishing middle and high school next year, I have decided that the time has come to devote more time to them.”

Everyone involved is playing nice, of course, for the good of NAMI. In full disclosure, I am a lifetime member.

But historically, NAMI has a lousy history of dealing with its CEOs. Of the four prior to Mary, only Michael Fitzpatrick left by his own choice, I was told.

I’ve always admired Mary’s passion and dedication, and will be writing more about her unexpected departure in the future. Meanwhile, here are the official announcements.

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(4-22-19) Housing First, the practice of offering individuals shelter regardless of whether they are stable or sober, was the subject of a recent Washington Post story headlined: D.C. housed the homeless in upscale apartment. It hasn’t gone as planned.

“The SWAT team, the overdose, the complaints of pot smoke in the air and feces in the stairwell – it would be hard to pinpoint a moment when things took a turn for the worse at Sedgwick Gardens, a stately apartment building in Northwest Washington,” reporter Peter Jamison wrote.

He explained that half of the building’s 140 units had been rented to previously “homeless men and women who came directly from shelters or the streets, some still struggling with severe behavioral problems…a high-stakes social experiment that so far has left few of its subjects happy.”

Last year, there were 121 calls to the police, up from 34, in 2016, although only five of those involved an arrest. The most disturbing incident involved a tenant throwing objects around inside his apartment. When the police showed up, the warned them that he had a shotgun and would shoot if they tried to enter. The standoff ended after several hours without any gun being found. The tenant was released only to be arrest two days later after striking another tenant in the head with a flashlight.

Judging a situation solely from reading a news account always is risky, but from what I read, this was not Housing First as it was intended.

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