Jail let mentally disabled man starve to death, lawsuit says.

[Quackers]

This story broke my heart and made me sick. Poor man. Long, but well worth the read.

(CNN)Arrested for stealing $5.05 of sweets and soda, a 24-year-old who doctors repeatedly diagnosed as psychotic and delusional was left to essentially starve to death over four months in a squalid Virginia jail cell, Jamycheal Mitchell's aunt alleged in a federal lawsuit.

By the time Mitchell died in August -- officially, of a heart condition "accompanying wasting syndrome of unknown etiology" -- jail staff had allegedly denied him many meals, cut off the water to his cell and left him naked with no bedding or shoes as he smeared feces on the window of his urine-covered cell, the lawsuit states, citing numerous inmates who served time with Mitchell.
Mitchell lost about 40 pounds during his time in jail, documents say. A medical examiner said he was "nearly cachectic," meaning his weight loss could not be reversed via nutrition.

More at link:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/16/us/jamycheal-mitchell-hampton-roads-virginia-jail-lawsuit/index.html

[KT2000]

1. prisons are no place

for people with mental illness. New Yorker had an article about how true sadistic guards goad the mentally ill into breaking the rules then punish them. Everyone who wants to keep their job has to keep their mouth shut.
It is our disgrace for allowing this to happen.

[pmorlan1]

2. What is WRONG with us?

This just sickens me. OMG that poor man must have suffered so much. How can these vile people even call themselves human? This just breaks my heart and sadly it's not an isolated case. When are we going to stop allowing torture to take place in our jails and prisons?

[Midnight Writer]

3. Exactly. Not one person working there had the moral sense and courage to stop this?

[ReRe]

4. Hampton Roads, Va Jail cell?

I presume Mitchell died in August, 2015. (Article only says Aug.) Wonder what does Democratic Governor Terry McCauliff say about this. I cannot believe it's 2016 when I hear this kind of horribly cruel news. Where was his family? If he was my family member, I would have stormed that place every day asking to see my son. Was he not allowed to have visitors? and yeah... where was that effing Dr? And the Co Sheriff?

[gwheezie]

5. Where to even start

1st quite a few meds given for schizophrenia or bipolar like depakote, zyprexa etc can make you very hungry couple that with the below poverty level disability the mentally ill have, there's not much money to buy a ding dong. Also, some folks are so disorganized they wind up homeless and don't keep track of their checks or don't do the required jumping through hoops to keep the check coming. Some of them have payees that keep their whole check and provide minimum food. I used to run a day program and my clients came from group homes, some were decent but several fed grown people cheese and bread sandwiches with a 25cent bag if chips and look aid at 4 pm for dinner and no more food until morning. If you miss 4pm dinner, you're shit outta luck. So some poor fella is so damn hungry he's going to snatch up something to eat. That's the 1st problem.
So poor fella lands in jail because he's black and mentally ill. Lotsa times they have also put their families through so much, the families have to bail on them. From stories I read about this young man's family they were denied being able to visit him. I get patients who come from poor families with maybe an auntie or grandma that loved the young man but lived 50 miles away and poor enough they can't get to the jail. So according to other stories I've read about this fella, the judge set the high bail to keep him locked up until he could be transferred to the state. Now he was supposed to go to eastern state but they lost their Medicare funding. The paper hot shuffled. Eastern state was a failing facility and maybe didn't want no more patients.
The jail got sick of his crazy ass. The medical and nursing staff paid no attention because the assumption is the mentally ill are gamey. The guards are stuck with him and he's an easy target because no one is showing up to visit him. The medical team thinks he's faking. The state hospital is dragging it's feet. The court lost track of him. And the guards tortured him. And he could not advocate for himself and jail made him more psychotic so he didn't know where he was, how long he was there. He didn't know if his torturers were even human. They were the demons who chased him in the flesh.
I can tell you this happens too often. I remember when this story broke last year it was right around the time one of my frequent fliers came in. He looked awful, he was a skeleton and was out of his mind. His momma came in to see him in tears, what the jail had done to her boy. I was in tears. He had been in jail for disorderly for disrupting the lives of people that ignore you until you talk to yourself too loud. My god, my god what happened to him. He could hardly stand, he couldn't keep food down. I told her about the boy down in Portsmouth and I let her use my computer to look up what lawyer the family had. I told her make them pay dearly for this. I doubt she could have. The social worker did report this but I don't know if a lawyer would have touched it. His family was poor.
And we got him back to himself. It took about a month. He might have gotten lost again. I haven't seen him in almost a year.
I don't believe in God, I really don't but I do pray for this young fella, to whatever energy force in the universe that might protect him.

[surrealAmerican]

6. Bad headline from CNN there.

They did not "let" him starve to death - they starved him to death. They withheld food and medical care. It's called torture.