Those either in attendance on Tuesday night at the Davis City Council meeting or watching on TV got a unique introduction to Council Candidate Daniel Watts. In his ballot statement he states flatly that Davis City Government is broken and he will fix it. That may be a raison d’etre for the Davis Vanguard, however, Mr. Watts apparently has something very different in mind and he means it.
He states in his ballot statement, “Repeal unconstitutional ordinances banning “annoying” conduct and “bawdy” language (Municipal Code Sections 26.01.010 and 26.01.100).” Audiences on Tuesday would get a sense for exactly what Mr. Watts means by that. It turns out, according to City Attorney Harriet Steiner, he was at least partially correct.
The first provision bans obscene language in Davis and the second is “annoying persons on the street.” He said, “Now the two of these clearly violate the first amendment.”
In question is Municipal Code 26.01.100 which states:
“No person shall utter in the presence of any two or more persons bawdy, lewd or obscene words or epithets, or shall address to another any word, language or expression having a tendency to create a breach of the peace.”
Likewise, Municipal code 26.01.010 says:
“No person shall in any public place be guilty of conduct annoying to persons passing or being upon the streets or public grounds or upon adjacent premises.”
Toward the former code, he referenced Cohen v. California, and said:
“‘One man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric.’ Words have emotive impact and using profanity, lewd words, and epithets, that says something. It expresses meaning, and there’s a reason why people use those words. So to put words off limits also puts certain ideas off limits. Even if you don’t those words, the ideas have a right to be expressed.”
In the latter code, he argued that in addition to using poor grammar, it is both vague and over-broad and the supreme court has used those criteria to strike down laws in first amendment cases. He cited an identical law from Cincinnati that was invalidated by the court in the early 1970s.
Mr. Watts said that he sent a letter to the city attorney over a month ago and received no reply. Ms. Steiner after public comments acknowledged receiving the letter and said that she had thought a response had gone out from her office.
Mr. Watts laid out three options, the city can repeal the law, they can litigate, and the third option, “when I’m on city council, I’ll repeal the law myself.”
Apparently Mr. Watts does not realize that if he were elected to city council, he could not repeal the law himself unless he convinced two of his colleagues to join him.
Sam Jubalier spoke as well claiming this was not an attack on the city, but rather they want the city council to right a past wrong. He said they preferred the city council to do it rather than going through the expense of court time.
“In our view, and considering that we gave the city attorney notice in our view, we’d like to see the city ordinances invalidated by March 29. And if they’re not, we’re planning on filing a suit to have them invalidated in federal court for the Eastern District of California.”
Harriet Steiner responded:
“I do agree that at least one of the ordinances that was mentioned is unconstitutional and has been unconstitutional since before I was the city attorney. As you know the council has not done a review of the code because we haven’t wanted to spend the time and energy doing it. The city has not enforced either of those ordinances probably for over twenty years. I do also know from associates at my office, that these ordinances are used a teaching tool by UC Davis law school, generally on an annual basis.
I have no problem bringing to the council a recommendation to repeal them, since we don’t use them. The US Supreme Court has invalidated other ordinances that are similar, it’s just that we have not put the time and energy into doing it. However, it’s not happening before March 29, because as council is aware, you don’t meet again until March 30 and we have not put together the information to bring it forward. This hasn’t been a high priority.”
Councilmember Sue Greenwald quipped, “Do you think maybe we should consult with the law school to make sure it’s okay with them to remove the teaching tool?”
Mr. Watts and his associates will clearly have to learn that the city does not and really cannot move that quickly. March 29 was less than two weeks from the date of the Council meeting and as City Attorney Harriet Steiner pointed out, the council does not even meet again until March 30.
He also may consider the fact that as a Councilmember he would not be able to do anything without majority support on council. So while Mr. Watts is well-versed on the law it would appear, he has a lot to learn about municipal government.
There is also the fact that since this measure has apparently not been enforced in at least twenty years and would not be enforced by the police department, there is no urgency. Many jurisdictions even states have antiquated laws on their books that are never enforced, but due to the fact that it is time-consuming and costly to change, are left there until documents get a review or re-write or until someone like Mr. Watts brings it to the city’s attention.
Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of it all is that Daniel Watts was absolutely correct in terms of his interpretation of the law and City Attorney admitted it.
Thanks to the leadership of Mr. Watts, Davis residents will now be free to annoy their neighbors while using “bawdy” language on the streets. Now that is an introduction to Davis political life that many will not soon forget.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Just what we need, a council member associated with the ACLU.
NOT!!!
Seriously, you took that out of the article?
I suspect this was a way for this new candidate to get name recognition – without having had to raise a ton of money to do it!
If you Google his name, I suspect you will find a different explanation.
It is about time someone stood up and took on the oppressive powers that be who use antiquated and draconian laws to stifle our freedoms and control us. I personally have been threatened many, many times over the years with arrest if my behavior did not conform to the norms and standards established by the current regime. Merely the threat of enforcement of these silly laws emotionally enslaved me to the ruling class and their henchmen.
No, it is not the Davis City Council and police that have used these threats to oppress me…it is my wife and her sisters. Now I can proudly wear my matching plaid Bermuda shorts, tennis shoes, and beret in public and refer to people I don’t like as “buttheads” and “asses” without the constant overhanging threat that I will be incarcerated for annoying them in public.
Finally, I really get what this whole tea-bagger thing is all about! I like Krovoza for CC but this Daniel Watts guy otherwise seems to be the whole package… Let Freedom Ring!!
Candidate Watts appears to be the “flip-side” of retiring Mayor Ruth Asmundson who declared the use of acronyms off-limits from the dais at the first meeting over which she presided. She “ordered” the rest of the Council to place 25 cents in the mayor’s anti-acronym jar for each violation…. it really didn’t sound like she was fooling although I don’t believe it ever materialized.
….just what we need.. a full-time law student(Watts) and a full-time junior city planner(Vergis) on the dais. We pay a lot of money for staff legal and city planning expertise. What we do need is Council representation that directs city legal and city planning staff to support a vision of Davis’ future that resonates with the citizens of Davis.
Davisite: I’d venture to guess, you agree with no one running on a majority of issues. That leaves you with some interesting choices.
[b]HARRIET:[/b] [i]”The city has not enforced either of those ordinances probably for over twenty years. … I have no problem bringing to the council a recommendation to repeal them, since we don’t use them.”[/i]
I personally don’t get too excited about laws which are never enforced. Nevertheless, if the community agrees the laws are unjust or the SCOTUS tells us they are not constitutional, it does make sense to remove them. In fact, if it is not too expensive (in lawyer costs), it’s not such a bad idea to go over all of our ordinances on a periodic basis and remove those which are unenforced, unenforceable or no longer have relevance.
David: I outlined my voting choice and reasoning in my posting for your “5 candidates…..” piece. I hoped that it would generate a thoughtful discussion but it appeared to generate only one comment, i.e.
” bullet voting is stupid!”. I am certainly open to new information that would alter my plan which now is to bullet vote for Joe Krovosa.
Well there will be plenty of information coming out in the new few weeks. Right now I am completely open as to what I will do.
For my thoughts now, you would have to convince me long and hard to convince me to bullet vote for a guy who supported Covell Village, and is endorsed by among others, Lois Wolk, Helen Thomson, and Stephen Souza.
[b]RUST:[/b] [i]”Just what we need, a council member associated with the ACLU. NOT!!!”[/i]
Speaking for myself, as someone who abhors the extremism of the ACLU and the terrible and irreperable damage court decisions won by the ACLU and their affiliates have caused our country*, I think you should keep in mind three things when choosing whom to support in a race for the Davis City Council:
1) If you look hard enough, there will be some position or opinion or association every single candidate has which is anathema to you. It is misguided to hold one candidate’s affiliation with the ACLU against him, while you remain ignorant of associations or positions other candidates have which might seem equally repellent from your point of view; and
2) As David Greenwald writes in this piece, it takes a majority of three on the council to enact or repeal our ordinances. So there is not much to worry about if Mr. Watts is out on an island on issues involving civil liberties; and
3) The most important business the city council does — spending our tax dollars to provide police, fire, road, parks, recreation and other services for our community; and determining the regulatory environment in which we grow or don’t grow our stock of housing and commerce — is not going to be affected by a person’s involvement with the ACLU.
Despite point #3, there are areas of council business for which one’s beliefs about civil liberties apply. For example, I can imagine a strict civil libertarian opposing restrictions on open containers of alcohol. Obviously, the speech laws which so agitate Mr. Watts were at one time a part of the council’s business.
My take is that, even if you strongly disagree with an ACLU approach to these types of questions which might come before the city council, you have to weigh them in the larger context of decisions the council makes.
I would not preclude a candidate who I agree with on the most important business of the council just because I don’t necessarily share his views on the issues of lesser importance.
——————
*Literally millions of Americans have been materially harmed by the decision in Lessard vs. Schmidt. That was the 1972 court case which nationally emptied out our psychiatric hospitals. The result has been nearly 40 years of endemic homelessness for the mentally ill, a great surge of revolving door imprisonment for the mentally ill, a great increase in the number of brutal crimes committed by the untreated seriously mentally ill, and the destruction of tens of thousands of families because they cannot get treatment for their seriously mentally ill loved ones. Just a few weeks ago in Washington, two police officers were murdered by a man with untreated schizophrenia. His parents wanted to have him committed ([url]http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/05/parents-pentagon-shooter-warned-authorities/[/url]) to a psychiatric hospital, where he could get treatment. But our civil libertarian laws prevented that. And now he is dead, and the 6 children of the police officers who were killed will grow up fatherless. Good job, ACLU.
Let me just add that I have considered Watts as my second vote . I do not think that a second vote for him seriously threatens my reasoning for a bullet vote for Krovosa although it is not beyond reason that there will be some voters who will choose to bullet vote for Watts who otherwise, if he were not on the ballot, would have voted for Krovosa.
Good point Rich, I would also add, that knowing Rusty’s view on development from past discussions, it would be ironic if he voted against Watts due to that issue and instead supported candidates who were opposed to him on development issues.
At this point, it’s easy for me to be a bit more scrutinizing since I have no allegiances to any of the candidates. I have met with two of the candidates and like them personally. I’d like to meet with the other candidates as well to see what they are about.
“….is endorsed by among others, Lois Wolk, Helen Thomson, and Stephen Souza.”
IMO, he’s the best of the lot that has a chance to sit on the dais. The real question is has he been “seduced”, by the blandishments of Lois and Helen, that he has a bright future in politics if he gets on the ol’ boy political gravy- train heading for the Assembly. If so, then he could turn out to be another Saylor. We’ll see.
[i]”… my plan … is to bullet vote for Joe [b]Krovosa[/b] … my reasoning for a bullet vote for [b]Krovosa[/b] … there will be some voters who … would have voted for [b]Krovosa[/b].”[/i]
Davisite No. 2: His name happens to be Krovoza ([url]http://joeforcitycouncil.org/?page_id=157[/url]), not Krovosa.
[i]”… he could turn out to be another Saylor.”[/i]
Joe Krovoza is also endorsed by Don Saylor.
I think it’s unwise to hold the endorsers of a candidate against a candidate, unless you also have reason to believe that the candidate endorses the views of his endorsers, or worse, owes his endorsers a favor, which he will repay once in office.
I got a detail wrong above–
Correction: “… two police officers were murdered by a man with [s]untreated schizophrenia[/s] [b]untreated bipolar disorder and manic depression with hallucinations[/b].”
“Joe Krovoza is also endorsed by Don Saylor.”
He is? It appears that Saylor has endorsed Vergis and Swanson and signed their papers, did he also endorse Kroovoza?
From Krovoza’s web page, which I linked above:
[i]”[b]Elected Officials:[/b] United States Representative Mike Thompson; State Senator Lois Wolk; State Assemblymember Mariko Yamada; Yolo County Supervisors Jim Provenza and Helen Thomson; Davis City Council Member Stephen Souza, Sue Greenwald and [u]Don Saylor[/u]; Davis School Board Members: Gina Daleiden, Sheila Allen, Katie Wynne (Student Representative), Richard Harris & Tim Taylor.”[/i]
Well there you have it.
My bigger question to Mr. Watts, if he’s reading this, is about credit card purchases. The Enterprise article introducing his candidacy says Daniel Watts believes the City should forbid merchants from charging for small credit card purchases. Daniel, if you’re there, did you really say that? Credit card companies make profits off small business, skimming 1 to 3 percent of gross credit-card-assisted sales revenue, I’ve read. I’m going to guess they also have a minimum charge per purchase. So merchants have to charge more on all their goods; it’s a sales tax but big corporations get the revenues. Personally, I pay by other means than credit card when I can conveniently do so, just because I don’t want to give Visa or Mastercard money that could otherwise go to the Co-op or Avid Reader.
Adrienne Kandel
Adrienne, not sure, but this is directly from his candidate statement:
“Require Davis businesses to obey state law, eliminate fees for credit card purchases. See Cal. Civ. Code. 1748.1.”
“Daniel Watts believes the City should forbid merchants from charging for small credit card purchases.”
It doesn’t matter what he thinks. It is a violation of our merchant agreements with Visa and MasterCard (and more-or-less with American Express) to do that. Mr. Watts shouldn’t be taking public positions on topics he is uneducated about. It would take him about one minute on the internet, and maybe two minutes on Davis Wiki, to learn the rules.
re: Rich Rifkin’s remark blaming the A.C.L.U. for nationally emptying out our mental hospitals with the Lessard vs. Schmidt precedent. I find his reasoning simplistic. Lessard did not empty out the nation’s mental hospitals. What the case did accomplish was protecting the rights of the mentally ill, and others deemed to be problematic by the powers that be, from being involuntarily incarcerated without some semblance of due process. The judges who used Lessard to overturn a history of getting rid of people by the use of involuntary incarceration complained that in 1963 (before Lessard), three times as many Americans were confined in mental institutions than were in all of the State and Federal prisons. Women who stood up to abusive husbands were often the victims of such involuntary incarcerations. Many thanks to the A.C.L.U. for taking a stand for protecting the rights of these abused individuals.
It seems to me that the primary reason we have so many homeless mentally ill is a government obsessed with funneling billions to the military industrial good ol boys network instead of providing it’s citizens with health care! My years of providing care to diagnosed chronic schizophrenics has led me to believe that the vast majority are so haunted and sleepless that they have little energy to do much more than smoke cigarettes all day long and represent absolutely no threat to anybody. Does anybody remember when Ronald Reagan cut the funding for all the mental hospitals in California? That’s when we started seeing people begging at the entrances to our grocery stores.The dramatic increase in mentally ill people on our streets had absolutely nothing to do with the A.C.L.U.’s efforts to protect the civil rights of people illegally incarcerated. Heaven help us when we have no more A.C.L.U. to protect us from the abuses of power!
[i]”Lessard did not empty out the nation’s mental hospitals.”[/i]
It most certainly did. Since Lessard, something like 97% of the beds in public psychiatric hospitals have been eliminated, largely because Lessard (and subsequent decisions which followed the same rotten logic) prevented psychiatric patients to be held involuntarily, unless they posed an imminent danger to themselves or others. In literally hundreds of thousands of cases, people who did not meet the standard established by Lessard were let out of hospitals and dead, in jail or homeless in weeks. That is what Mr. Bockrath and the extremist civil libertarians call “freedom.”
[i]”What the case did accomplish was protecting the rights of the mentally ill …”[/i]
Let me ask you a serious question: When someone is suffering from schizophrenia or from bipolar disorder with hallucinations, like John Patrick Bedell ([url]http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-03-04/news/18376405_1_pentagon-police-officers-brazen-attack[/url]) how are you “protecting his rights” by not treating him in a psychiatric hospital?
This kind of ideological slavering to “civil liberties,” without ever considering the terrible consequences it brings about and the millions it victimizes, is exactly why I hate the ACLU.
I could never be a Nazi, a Communist or a Libertarian, because these sorts of extemist ideologies always will throw out common sense and decency in the name of their extremist causes, just the way you dismiss the harm done to and by Mr. Bedell.
[i]”The judges who used Lessard to overturn a history of getting rid of people by the use of involuntary incarceration complained that in 1963 (before Lessard), three times as many Americans were confined in mental institutions than were in all of the State and Federal prisons.”[/url]
Now, as a result of Lessard, 50 percent of all people incarcerated in federal and state prisons in a year’s time, and 25% at any one given point in time, will be people suffering from severe mental illness. A decade ago there were 250,000 mental patients in prison. Now there are about 400,000. The [url]PBS documentary programs, Frontline[/url], just recently aired an episode which documents how the lack of involuntary medical care for the seriously mentally ill has led to a cycle of homelessness, incarceration, release, homelessness and reincarceration. But that God for the ACLU these folks now are “free!”
[i]”Many thanks to the A.C.L.U. for taking a stand for protecting the rights of these abused individuals.”[/i]
Yeah, the Lessard decision and its heirs sure have made life better for the seriously mentally ill. It’s good that you are so heartless, you can actually believe your ideology is not causing so much harm.
[i]”It seems to me that the primary reason we have so many homeless mentally ill is a government obsessed with funneling billions to the military industrial good ol boys network instead of providing it’s citizens with health care!”[/i]
It’s fun for you to just make up facts like this. But why not just deal with reality. The reason we have hundreds of thousands of homeless mentally ill is because they are not being treated with anti-psychotic medications involuntarily, in or out of institutions. The great majority of homeless (and imprisoned) mentally ill with serious disorders respond extremely well to medications. They can lead productive lives. However, because of their illnesses (compounded by anagnosia), they don’t follow through and continue to take their medications, even when the meds themselves are free to them (as is the case with anyone on SSDI).
[i]”My years of providing care to diagnosed chronic schizophrenics has led me to believe that the vast majority are so haunted and sleepless that they have little energy to do much more than smoke cigarettes all day long and represent absolutely no threat to anybody.”[/i]
Most schizophrenics are in fact no threat to anybody. However, there are two serious problems with you statement: 1) They are very often a threat to themselves ([url]http://www.suicide.org/schizophrenia-and-suicide.html[/url]). About 40% of people with untreated schizophrenia will attempt suicide. And about 10% are successful. They are also, when suffering a psychotic episode, often a danger to family members. They also tend to commit a large number of impulse or otherwise senselss crimes, resulting in their going to prison over and over again, as seen in the case of the bipolar man who stole cheese from Nugget Market; and 2) these people who you think it is just fine as long as “they have little energy to do much more than smoke cigarettes all day long” are, in the vast majority of cases, easily treated with very good anti-psychotic medications and thus could work and enjoy productive lives if they got treatment. But because of Lessard, et al., they very often go untreated and wind-up homeless and then in prison.
[i]”Does anybody remember when Ronald Reagan cut the funding for all the mental hospitals in California?”[/i]
Reagan is not faultless in the crisis of the homeless mentally ill. However, you have this fact wrong, as well. The funding for public mental hospitals in California came about after the Lantermann-Petris-Short Act of 1969, when Reagan was governor. Its main author was a left-wing ACLU advocate named Nicholas Petris. It preceded Lessard (which was in a federal court in Milwaukee, WI), but it did much the same thing.
What Reagan proposed three years afterward was to then cut all funding to mental hospitals. But this proposal was never implemented. In the years following Lantermann-Petris, about 200 people in California were murdered by recently released mental patients who had been discharged from state hospitals, due to that law. In the wake of these highly publicized killings — the most notorious happened in Santa Cruz, where a patient with untreated schizophrenia killed 13 people in a few days, including a Catholic priest — the legislature decided to restore all funding for our state hospitals. The problem, though, was not with funding. The problem was with the new laws, which made involuntary treatment and involuntary hospitalization practically impossible.
[i]”That’s when we started seeing people begging at the entrances to our grocery stores.”[/i]
It’s too bad you have all of your “facts” wrong. Your explanation ignores the reality that the great upsurge in homelessness among the mentally ill in the mid-1970s and beyond took place all over the United States. Because of Lantermann-Petris, it started here a bit sooner. But because of the federal case in Lessard, the mentally ill homeless surge you saw in front of your “grocery stores” was equally prevalent in the 49 states and DC where Reagan was not governor.
Ironically, of course, Reagan was not the governor in Colorado, either. That is the state which, due to Lessard, could not involuntarily treat John Hinckley, Jr., despite his parents extensive efforts to get their son treated. Hinckley, of course, very nearly killed Reagan, in order to “prove his love for Jodie Foster.”
[i]”The dramatic increase in mentally ill people on our streets had absolutely nothing to do with the A.C.L.U.’s efforts to protect the civil rights of people illegally incarcerated.”[/i]
That statement is tragically laughable. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Your statement is equivalent to sayin that the Nazi Party had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
The reality of Lessard and its heirs has been the greatest destruction of lives and the greatest affront against decency in American history since World War II. It has greatly shortened the lives of the seriously mentally ill, leading to tens of thousands of suicides which could have been prevented. It has also led to almost as many killings of the mentally ill by police and others who either with or without malice did not know how to deal with someone in a psychotic state. It is responsible for almost all of our chronic homelessness problem. And it has resulted in now 400,000 people with serious mental illness to be in prison, today.
Here are 10 stories of victims of Lessard in today’s newspapers:
1. ([url]http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2010/03/20/opinion/7124963.txt[/url]) [i]”A 2-year-old Rehoboth boy died Friday at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, where he was taken Thursday after he was allegedly beaten by his mother. Kim Peno, 38, of 19 Blanding Road, was being held without bail in connection with the incident. She reportedly has a history of mental illness and is to be examined Monday to determine if she is competent to stand trial.”[/i]
2. ([url]http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/minnesota/winona-mn-toilet-threat-cops-mar-17-2010[/url]) [i]”After he was released from the hospital for erratic behavior, 50-year-old Scott Mark Halverson holed himself up in his bathroom on the 600 block of East Wabasha Street on Sunday. When police broke into his bathroom just before 10:30 p.m., Halverson was covered in cuts and holding a toilet, ripped up from the floor, over his head. …
Earlier that day, Halverson was taken to Winona Health for mental health hold after police received a report he was off his medication and behaving erratically.”[/i]
3. ([url]http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/theblotter/2011371734_would_be_vampire_accused_in_bo.html[/url]) [i]A mentally ill man who caused a bomb scare in downtown Seattle last when he walked into a homeless shelter wearing what appeared to be a pipe bomb and claiming to be a vampire was charged Wednesday with threats to bomb or injure property. Vladimir Lestat Augustine, 33, was arrested Friday morning after police said he walked into the front lobby of the Union Gospel Mission, announced that he was a vampire and demanded to be let into the day room so he could feast on the people inside, court charging papers said. Augustine, whose body was wrapped in black electrical tape, then told staff at the mission that he was “a space cowboy,” and raised his arm to show a metal object taped to his body. Augustine announced that he was armed with a bomb. … Authorities say that Augustine has a history of mental illness. He had been in King County Mental Health Court the day before his arrest on a previous drug charge, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecutor’s Office.[/i]
4. ([url]http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/03/17/990022/make-kendras-law-permanent.html[/url]) This story regards the renewal of Kendra’s Law in New York, which reverses Lessard: [i]”When it was first proposed, in response to the death of a young Western New York woman pushed to her death in front of a New York City subway train, it drew support from this page despite concerns about possible coercion of the mentally ill. But in the decade since it was passed in 1999, a decade during which it passed one five-year renewal, the system of court orders with safeguards has worked—and, more importantly, the law has proven effective.
The law allows judges to order certain mentally ill people to remain on violence-prevention medication as a condition of release and, if that doesn’t work, to order involuntary committal to mental hospitals if shown to be a danger to themselves or others. The orders stem from a request by close family members or care providers and need a psychiatrist’s approval, and the hospitalization is only long enough to re-establish medication.”[/i]
In California, we have a very similar law, here called Laura’s Law. It was written by Helen Thomson of Davis. Unfortunately, Laura’s Law has never been funded and thus has made no difference. We still are living under ACLU tyrrany.
5. ([url]http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local-beat/Daily-Police-Blotter-Jogger-Finds-Pipe-Bomb-Mom-Stabbed-in-Park-88206937.html[/url]) [i]”A young mother is now paralyzed from the waist down after being attacked in a park. Brandi Todd, 28, was sitting on a park bench and watching her children play at a park in Stephenville on Sunday when a man walked up and stabbed her in the back, police said. Michael Howard, 42, who was arrested in connection with the attack, is in the Erath County jail. According to investigators, Howard admitted to attacking Todd, said he is mentally ill and could only say that “something took over” as his reason for the attack. Police said Howard has a history of mental illness and that he told them he was angry with a mental health care organization for not giving him the help he needed.”[/i]
6. ([url]http://www.freep.com/article/20100316/NEWS03/3160346/1001/News/Son-is-guilty-in-stabbing-deaths-of-parents[/url]) [i]”An Oakland County jury deliberated less than a day before finding a former White Lake Township man guilty — but mentally ill — in the stabbing deaths of his parents more than a year ago. … Ott stabbed his parents to death in their White Lake Township home early on the morning of Feb. 21, 2008, authorities said. He took two butcher knives from the kitchen — one as a backup, he would later tell police — and stabbed his sleeping mother, Barbara Ott, 57, more than 20 times. He then waited outside the bathroom door, and when his father, Michael Ott, 57, emerged from the shower, wrapped in a towel, he stabbed him to death.”[/i]
7. ([url]http://www.theindychannel.com/news/22853052/detail.html[/url]) [i]”A woman who left her 2-year-old son in a car to go shopping couldn’t remember where she’d parked the car, resulting in her arrest, police said. Sparks was arrested on a child neglect charge. Police said she has a history of mental illness.”[/i]
8. ([url]http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9EDUOU02.html[/url]) [i]”A parishioner accused of stabbing a south Texas Roman Catholic priest nearly 20 times has been sentenced to 12 years in prison as part of a plea deal. … Rodriguez has a history of mental illness but was declared competent for trial.”[/i]
9. ([url]http://www.dailyworld.com/article/20100309/NEWS01/3090309[/url]) [i]”A competency hearing for Sandra Joseph, charged with the 2009 Mardi Gras death of her 11-year-old son, is scheduled for Thursday at 9 a.m. in the St. Landry Parish Criminal Annex Building on Courthouse Square in Opelousas. … At the time of her arrest, Joseph was described by police as very confused and unaware of her actions. A month earlier, Joseph had been placed on forced leave from her job at the Lafayette office of Louisiana Rehabilitation Services, a division of the Louisiana Department of Social Services, for exhibiting what her employer described as manic and paranoid behavior.”[/i]
10. ([url]http://www.columbuslocalnews.com/articles/2010/03/09/northland_news/news/police_beat/nnshooting_20100308_0340pm_5.txt[/url]) [i]”Columbus police said an officer was transported to Ohio State University Medical Center in stable condition after being shot by a man in the Northland area, who subsequently was discovered dead from a gunshot wound. … Upon arrival, Officers Sean Nonn and Ricky Crum knocked on the door to the apartment, and were met with gunfire as the man, identified as Ryan Clayton, 26, began shooting through the door, striking Bonn in his leg, Columbus Police Sgt. The man reportedly had a history of mental illness.”[/i]
Cool Rich,
I’m now officially a civil rights extremist! I don’t think I have ever been called that name before. I like it! You know Rich, I can’t help but notice that you seem a bit excited about this subject of mental health and the illegal incarceration of the mentally ill. Do you have some personal experience that perhaps leads you to believe that locking up and heavily medicating mentally ill people is somehow in their best interest?
My experience with the mentally ill looks like this: When California’s mental hospitals became unavailable to the mentally ill, the not for profit residential treatment facility industry sprung up to fill the need. When I was employed by Marin Parents for Mental Recovery, we would typically reduce a patients meds by about 50% percent as soon as they came to live at one of our facilities. They almost immediately stopped slobbering on themselves and began to talk again. By treating them with love and respect, no matter how bizarre their behavior, we found that folks who had been less than alive were back among the living. Eventually, some even graduated to working in a small Crepe restaurant where they were taught rudimentary employment skills. And a very few of our residents made it out the door to live in group rentals and even their own apartments. Their quality of life, while by no means normal, was greatly improved over what it had been when they were locked up and medicated into submission. They had been given a chance to be alive instead of being warehoused for the convenience of society. They were no longer being punished for something they had no control over!
The residential model is not without it’s problems. During the four years I helped out at our facilities, two of the residents that I knew on a daily basis committed suicide, both by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. But I would submit that, tortured as these folks were, their lives were made much more livable than they had been during their period of involuntary incarceration. There were occasional affronts to the community committed by our residents, but never any form of violent behavior towards others.
These folks were the lucky ones. They got to live in a loving atmosphere. Many other mentally ill people fell through the cracks in the system and ended up behind bars, or homeless or even dead. I think that blaming the inherent problems in dealing with mentally ill citizens on the A.C.L.U. or the Lessard precedent or Ronald Reagan or Nicholous Petris tends to oversimplify a huge problem. But I think that we can agree that throwing mentally ill citizens out on the street and providing them with zero support is probably not going to make the problem go away.
I would urge anybody tempted to blame the 400,000 mentally ill Americans locked in prisons on the A.C.L.U. to remember that, here in” the land of the free”, we have a higher percentage of our citizens locked up in prisons than any other country in the world. What’s wrong with this picture?
Just read all the examples of mentally ill people loosing it that Rich posted while I was out. They are prime examples of why we need to stop ignoring mental health problems. It costs society more to lock these folks up than it does to create a humane system to treat their mental illness.
[i]”You know Rich, I can’t help but notice that you seem a bit excited about this subject of mental health and the illegal incarceration of the mentally ill.”[/i]
I am very excited about it. I am devastated by how we mistreat the seriously mentally ill due to the civil liberty extremist laws you support. I believe our epidemic of homelessness and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of seriously mentally ill people is the most important crisis in our nation and the most egregious problem we need to solve.
[i]”Do you have some personal experience that perhaps leads you to believe that locking up and heavily medicating mentally ill people is somehow in their best interest?”[/i]
Yes. I have a family member I love very much who has paranoid schizophrenia. His was a bit unusual in that it struck him in his mid-to-late 30s. Most times, that illness attacks its victims in their teens or twenties. However, he was a very smart guy. So it is possible he had this disease for much longer than we knew and was able to cover it up.
He was leading a nice life as a custom home builder in the Bay Area. He made a good living, loved his wife and gainfully employed full-time about 12 people. Yet as his disease took over his mind, he became more and more paranoid, ultimately gathering a great arsenal of guns and ammunition to (as he said) “protect myself from the CIA and the Martians” who he believed had placed listening devices in the walls and ceiling of his home.
When my relative was treated with anti-psychotic medications, he became his old self again. He did have some negative side effects from the drugs — most notably, they made him feel lethargic. But in general they worked very well and he was able to get along and go along.
However, after a month or two on drugs, he invariably stopped taking them and no one could force him to take them. Two times he was held on a 72 hour mental health hold (after psychotic, violent episodes); and other times he was thrown in jail, once after he fired over 500 rounds of ammunition with his many guns (which thankfully were taken away).
Because of Lessard, he could not be forced to take his meds. So he kept getting more and more ill and impossible to live with. His wife had to leave him for her own safety. He destroyed his business and (as far as I know) ended up living in the gutter. I don’t know where he is now or if he is in prison or dead.
I have met dozens of people who have family members with this illness and they have stories which are identical. Everyone I know who has a loved one with this condition wants the person to be forcibly treated with anti-psychotics. Every one.
It is only extremist ideologues who think “freedom!” is the ultimate value who feel otherwise.
[i]”My experience with the mentally ill looks like this: When California’s mental hospitals became unavailable to the mentally ill, the not for profit residential treatment facility industry sprung up to fill the need. When I was employed by Marin Parents for Mental Recovery, we would typically reduce a patients meds by about 50% percent as soon as they came to live at one of our facilities.”[/i]
I was under the impression that you are a photographer/photo journalist. Are you also a medical doctor?
[i]”They almost immediately stopped slobbering on themselves and began to talk again. By treating them with love and respect, no matter how bizarre their behavior, we found that folks who had been less than alive were back among the living.&#