San Francisco v. Sheehan: Psychiatry, police and your rights

The American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief arguing that hundreds of disabled Americans are killed in police encounters every year. It was filed in support of a mentally ill woman suing police for shooting her five times.

In the case of San Francisco v. Sheehan, Teresa Sheehan argued that police shot her five times even though she was experiencing a “psychiatric emergency.” The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on Monday.

Sheehan argued that when police came to her room in a group home in 2008 to take her to a hospital, they violated her Fourth Amendment rights and her rights under the American Disabilities Act (ADA). Sheehan's home aide called police to take her to a hospital for an evaluation after he noticed she had stopped taking her medication, stopped eating and hadn't changed her clothes in a few days.

During the police encounter, Sheehan threatened officers with a knife. The interaction escalated and police ended up shooting her five times. She survived and consequently sued the city. At issue for the nation's highest court is whether and how the ADA applies to interactions between police and people with disabilities.

http://rt.com/usa/242769-aclu-police-shootings-disabled-americans/





August 14, 2014: Phoenix police officers arrive at the apartment of Michelle Cusseaux, 50, to take her to a mental health facility and they break into her house ! She has a hammer. She winds up dead.

June 14, 2014: A Dallas mother calls the cops for help taking her son, 39-year-old Jason Harrison, to the hospital. Harrison winds up dead.


January 5, 2014: A North Carolina family calls 911 for help when their son, Keith Vidal, begins "acting out". The 90-pound 18-year-old winds up dead.

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I don't think psychiatry should be able to use police against people accused of mental illness and the 4th amendment says that too.

In the story I posted Teresa Sheehan had stopped taking her medication, stopped eating and hadn't changed her clothes in a few days.

Withdrawal symptoms from antipsychotics emerge during dosage reduction and discontinuation. Withdrawal symptoms can include nausea, emesis, anorexia, diarrhea, rhinorrhea, diaphoresis, myalgia, paresthesia, anxiety, agitation, restlessness, and insomnia. The psychological withdrawal symptoms can include psychosis, and are usually mistaken for a relapse of the underlying disorder.

She got angry and grabbed a knife when police invaded her home without a warrant. Of course the story said nothing about the abusive process that is an involuntary "evaluation" in one of psychiatry's hell holes complete with strip searches, coerced drugs, threats and actual violence (forced drugs) and an unknown period of detention.

I don't know what else to write just now I just hope the court takes away psychiatry's free pass to violate the constitution with it's current use of men armed with guns (police) against people who reject psychiatry's lobotomy pills and "treatment".

Just reading more about this case.

Sheehan v. City of San Francisco

In the case under discussion, a social worker believed Teresa Sheehan, the plaintiff who has a mental illness and was not taking medication prescribed for her condition, to be a danger to others due to her threats to the social worker. The police were subsequently called to transport Sheehan to a 72-hour involuntary commitment under California law. When the officers arrived, they were informed there were no other residents in the group home building and there was only one other way out of Sheehan’s room, aside from the door to her room—a second-story window. The social worker did not give the officers any information that indicated that Sheehan was likely to injure herself.

The officers entered Sheehan’s room without a warrant to confirm the social worker’s assessment and to take Sheehan into custody. When the officers entered the room, Sheehan grabbed a knife and threatened to kill them, stating that she did not want to be detained in a mental health facility. The officers went back into the hallway and closed the door to Sheehan’s room. The officers called for back-up, but before the back-up arrived, the original responding officers drew their weapons and forced entry into Sheehan’s room. Sheehan threatened the officers with the knife and the officers fired five or six shots. Sheehan survived and sued the officers, claiming the officers violated her Fourth Amendment rights by entering her room without a warrant and using excessive force. Additionally, Sheehan brought a claim under Title II of the ADA, along with other tort and statutory claims under state law.

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/maga ... e_id=72014

"stating that she did not want to be detained in a mental health facility."

That's the part that sticks out to me. Who the heck want's to endure that nightmare ?

Look at this story,

Suffolk police were summoned to the Maryhaven Center for Hope group home in Middle Island at 8:18 p.m. after the staff was unable to bring Simmons under control, Fitzpatrick said.

Simmons, who stood 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 240 pounds, had been causing a disturbance at the facility for nearly 30 to 40 minutes before staff called 911, Fitzpatrick said.

By the time officers arrived, Simmons -- a resident at the home for the past six years -- had calmed down and was sitting on a couch in the living room, Fitzpatrick said.

Officers told Simmons they were placing him in handcuffs and taking him to a psychiatric emergency facility and that is when Simmons became violent and fought the officers, Fitzpatrick said.

The officers killed Simmons with their Tazer high voltage stun guns.

http://www.google.com/search?q=+Dainell+Simmons

See the pattern ? People lash out when they find out about being sent to the psychiatric hell hole for "evaluation" I can dig up these stories all day but not one of them explains WHY people fight like hell to avoid lockup in a psychiatric hell hole.

Not one 'mainstream' news story explains why people refuse psychiatric lobotomy pills or the nasty withdrawal reactions they label the 'illness' itself when people do try and quit them.

Psychiatry, a crime against humanity.

Our legal justice system has become the garbage disposal for the mentally ill. Stories like this are common because most police officers have absolutely no knowledge no how to handle a mentally ill person. Police are taught to be intimidating, threaten and shout complex orders with punishment to be followed if not fulfilled. And while this may work on criminals this is absolutely the worst way to handle a mentally ill individual. The situation will escalate, that is a given.

Even if the mentally ill are brought to jail and charged without incident the legal justice system is just as ignorant. Most mentally ill are homeless or in prison. The legal justice system doesn't understand why people do what they do, the entire system is written on the notion that a person is always aware and has conscious effort behind all behavior. That is not the case. Further mentally ill people are coerced or manipulated into pleading guilty so a trial can be avoided placing them onto to a fast track to prison without the person having an understanding of what is actually happening.

I don't blame people for lashing out either. Some psychiatric hospitals are so abusive that patients walk out detesting authority. Repeated inpatient stays just re-enforce that belief to the points it becomes autonomic. I have seen it first hand especially for programs centered around troubled youth and child/adolescent inpatient. Patients walk out seeing authority as evil, often thinking authorities are plotting a conspiracy against them. From that point on they loose all trust lashing out an anyone perceived as authority. Even a reasonable request or genuine help is seen as an attack against them.

The truth behind it all is that the mentally ill are trapped in a system which destroys them. Their physical health, trust, sanity, reasoning, emotions and so forth. There is no group of people more defenseless, terrorized, abused, ostracized, or ignored than the mentally ill. Our current system is nothing more than covert eugenics under the cloak of institutionalism.

The entire system needs to changed starting with our understanding of metal illness.

From NAMI, just read the comments. This happens all to often.


***Trigger Warning***



https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/Ma ... His-Mother’s-Screams


http://www.nami.org/

My apologies if the link does not come through.

What we are experiencing is a police state in America. Local stations are given military grade equipment through the federal government in order to maintain control over inevitable riots.

American police and soldiers are nothing more than Nazi's. The tragedy of 9/11 is eclipsed by the deaths of innocents overseas. American's hands are stained with red. Ignorance is not a viable reason for forgiveness. We are all the guilty party that do not speak up and relent.

Police kill all minorities because this is still a nation controlled by white figureheads. Anyone who doesn't submit is destroyed. That is not to say that it is an issue of race, it is an issue of class.

The mentally ill are subjected to poverty. They cannot work and cannot afford health insurance even under Obamacare. Therefore they are extinguished because they cannot serve as another slave to the American institution.

Most jobs in America are part-time service jobs. The norm will be to work two to three jobs in the corporate market or become a government employee with false security for retirement.

The mentally ill could not withstand these working conditions. The amount of time and effort it takes to juggle two to three jobs is staggering even to the most healthy individual.

The key for the mentally ill is entrepreneurship, though many won't see the light of day and will become consumed by the system that sought to "fix them".

Have you all seen this website yet ?

http://killedbypolice.net

-- Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:20 pm --

Whats also interesting is to just search "police kill" http://www.google.com/search?q=police+kill

Then click on the news tab. It's like a war zone in this country as they struggle to keep the prisons full and profits for the justice industry flowing.



-- Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:23 pm --

WanderedTheWrongRoad wrote: That is not to say that it is an issue of race

Of course it's black vs white and all about race.

When faced on the battlefield with a numerically superior enemy, one must attempt to divide his enemy into smaller, more easily dispatched opponents - or even more ideally, divide them against one another, and have them defeat each other without ever having to kill them for holding a screwdriver. Never in human history has there been a more effective way for tyrants to rule over large groups of people who, should they ever learn to cooperate, would easily throw off such tyranny.

Riccola wrote:From NAMI, just read the comments. This happens all to often.

That's interesting, NAMI (sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry) has been telling families to call police for years.

What are they going to do now ?

You are absolutely right in that respect that it is about race.

What I meant was that we are struggling in a world of rich vs. poor.

Copy_Cat wrote:Have you all seen this website yet ?

http://killedbypolice.net

-- Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:20 pm --

Whats also interesting is to just search "police kill" http://www.google.com/search?q=police+kill

Then click on the news tab. It's like a war zone in this country as they struggle to keep the prisons full and profits for the justice industry flowing.



-- Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:23 pm --

A horrible oxymoron.

I am willing to bet that the abusive psych hospitals, psychiatric behavior modification industry and our punishment orientated criminal justice system is helping with that statistic. People don't learn how to behave or get better, they become more brazen criminals.

Psych hospitals rarely rehabilitated people and created a system where no one wants to go near them. The mentally ill homeless increased with a system that could not and does not know how to take care of them. Eventually they have a police encounter, charged with a crime and wind up in prison.

The police brutality is absolutely disgusting. Police are ill equipped to handle them as the very practices used to subdue criminals instigate outbursts from mentally ill individuals.


Extreme Trigger Warning

If one wants to view a typical example Google Kelly Thomas.

End Trigger Warning