Denver Heath caught dropping off mental patients at Occupy Denver

[donheld]

I have witnessed this on 3 separate occasions. I was a few feet from the guy filming this footage. It would appear Denver Health is dropping off it's undesirable for we at Occupy Denver to deal with.

[freshwest]

1. 'Undesirable...'

[saras]

2. Obviously Denver Health thinks so...

[donheld]

3. Undesirable

Mental patients. Substance abuse patients whatever Denver doesn't want to deal with. Then the Denver Post has the nerve to print stories about the Occupy Denver people with scabies etc. Then come down and "clean" the park like it's filled with hazardous material.

[undergroundpanther]

5. I visited denver

to go to a conference for the mentally ill advocacy.It is called alternatives.
Anyway I was hungry late at night I walked to that too quiet train area,the mall I think it was called. As I walked I got a bit creeped out the city was so clean like nobody lived there.Like a neutron bomb went off and the people were gone as well of any evidence people existed..there.The only thing open was a drugstore.I got a candybar and wandered around out there awhile.You won't find a single wrapper or cigarette butt on the ground.It's fucking creepy.

[undergroundpanther]

4. People with mental health issues

are NOT inferior to others. The assholes at Denver hospital don't like giving the mentally ill and injured decent and respectful treatment if they are not millionaires or know the hospital administrators it seems.

Social Darwinists want to,and Hitler killed the disabled and mentally ill first.

Some places in different states are closing the day programs.Some closings were halted because staff and clients Occupied the building.

Ironic they are dumping people at Occupy..since the rich pig re-thugs are DESPERATE to call occupy dangerous or crazy,they just need one ex patient,who may or may not have had decent treatment to get stressed &freak out to justify more police brutality and behavior to get worse to shut Occupy Denver down..It's obvious WHY mentally ill patients are being dumped at Occupy.There is an AGENDA here..
Wonder who the Denver Hospital's Administrators are cozying up to? Might be revealing if someone found out.

[donheld]

16. You are spot on

Your last paragraph is exactly what is going on. We at Occupy Denver will investigate further. Believe me.

[intheflow]

6. Oh, you mean like a half block from a major bus stop hub in Denver?

It's not exactly easy to drop people off at the corner of Lincoln and Colfax, or Broadway and Colfax. So this is a logical place for people to be let off to catch a bus.

This whole thread strikes me as very bourgeois, privileged prattle. Who is more impacted by the economic policies of this country - including lack of mental health care - than the homeless? And who, exactly, is the Occupy movement trying to help? These folks are the epitome, the height (or depth) of the 99%. If you actually think Denver Health, the City of Denver and Denver tv stations are all conspiring to make Occupy look bad, that's your problem. To me, whining about poor people hanging out with the Occupiers makes Occupy look bad.

[undergroundpanther]

7. privleged??

I live on disability,not very privleged, here.If my treatment was cut off I would slowly melt down.Found that the hard way,by taking myself out of treatment.Mental injury (I have PTSD and other issues) hurts like hell..If Denver hospital is dumping patients at Occupy,don't you think it might not be good for someone in a fragile mental state to be dumped into a protest full of people they might not know,where police get violent?if they are homeless it might even be more stress. There used to be discharge protocals as in what hospitals could not do to mentally ill people .They vanished under bush.

I know if I got dumped like that,right out of the psych unit I would be confused.

The way the homeless are treated in this social darwinist infested county is cruel,and evil. The same goes for not-rich enough people suffering from mental illness,psychiatric injuries,and addictions.

This country has too many assholes in it.

[donheld]

9. Denver is trying to make it Illegal to be homeless

without proper means to take care of homeless.

&feature=youtu.be

[intheflow]

12. So the OP is just full of compassion for the homeless?

Or is this about not being associated with them so Occupy can set up tents again in Civic Center Park? Or are you just afraid you'll get scabies, buying into the media terra about those dirty homeless people? I support Occupy, but I am saddened that you feel you have to distance yourselves from the people most hurt by the 1%, the discarded people, the mentally ill and homeless.

[donheld]

15. you couldn't be more off base if you tried.

but thanks for the kicks.

[intheflow]

10. Did you listen to the guy taping the clip?

He sounded like, "Homeless people! Ewww!" Very disdainful and completely lacking compassion for the homeless among us. Not to mention the assumption that everyone using Denver Health's mental health services is homeless. And not to mention that outpatients are free to go where they want and may have requested to be dropped off at this location. Again, this is literally the crossroads of Denver. This is where you can catch a bus to anywhere in the city.

As an uninsured PTSD sufferer myself, I know damn well what a clusterfuck our mental health services are in this country. But this is actually a very logical place to drop people off in the downtown area. Since you've only been to Denver once, you have no idea what you're talking about here. If there were cops standing at the ready in full riot gear I'd agree with you about their safety, but that is not the present situation at Occupy Denver.

[donheld]

13. I personally know the guy in the clip

he's fighting very hard for the homeless and isn't the least bit afraid or put off by them. His distain is for the city who would turn these people out at Occupy Denver and then complain about them. I not only listened to him, I was less than 10 feet from him when this video was made. This is close to where you catch a bus but not the bus stop. Probably 1/2 a city block from it.

[backscatter712]

26. I know him too - he's a really good guy.

[zeemike]

27. And too many media outlets that give the assholes the microphone...

[donheld]

8. Hundreds of busses drop off thousands of passengers on Colfax & Broadway every single day

this van stops midway between Colfax & 14th right in front of Occupy Denver.

[intheflow]

11. Those are city buses.

This is Denver Health's van. How many private vans do you see at the bus stop? Answer: none. It's illegal for private vans or passenger cars to use bus stops for loading and unloading.

[donheld]

14. It is not illegal to stop for as long as this van stops to let people off. I see it happen daily.

Yes at bus stops.

[backscatter712]

25. This. It's pretty obvious what this van is doing.

If they were dropping people off for the purpose of getting them to a bus station, they would have dropped them closer to the station.

[BanzaiBonnie]

21. Let off to catch a bus?

Yeah, that makes more sense. Give someone who's ill a ticket to "get out of town." And why wouldn't Denver Health, the City of Denver and the Denver tv stations want Occupy to look bad? It's a concerted effort. Not everyone in those groups needs to be in on it. All it needs is a few cooperative folk within the systems at large.


Whining about hanging out with poor people? You make yourself look bad for turning this on the Occupy group and other posters here. If this is happening on numerous occasions, it certainly DOES look like a set up and should be investigated. And BTW, it's a great way to get someone who has a mental illness beaten by the police. That doesn't strike me as being very caring about their welfare.

[greiner3]

22. And I thought Conservatives;

Were the Compassionate party out there.

I see you've enjoyed your stay here for some time. Hard to believe you've not had a blocked post in the last 3 months though!

BTW, bourgeois (of, relating to, or characteristic of the social middle class.), is a term I proudly hang on myself. What does this make you, a 1%er?

If my post is hidden I will consider myself 'lucky' that only a few readers of the OP will see my remarks.

Free speech is great. However, it does not include an attack on the 99.9% of all DUers, including me, who support Occupy movements across America.

[DeSwiss]

17. K&R

They should be welcomed with open arms. They've been brutalized by this corrupt system we call ''society,'' (as are we), and then drugged into a stupor. Thus subdued, they are let out amongst us -- the great unwashed. Where the cycle repeats.

- This is ''the future'' if we don't change things......

“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.” ~George Orwell

“There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” ~Aldous Huxley

''The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.'' ~Chris Hedges

[freshwest]

18. +1

[WhoIsNumberNone]

19. Where's Dana Loesh?

She's missing out on the exclusive story of how all occupiers are mentally deranged?

I smell a headline on Big Government...

[thomhartmann]

23. Please contact Thom Hartmann

If you could drop a note to my producer, Shawn Taylor, at thproducer at gmail.com we'd like to get on the show the person who filmed the video, you, or anybody who's witnessed this on more than one occasion...

Thom

[donheld]

24. I'm on it.

[SATIRical]

28. So where ARE they supposed to be dropped off? (nt)

[backscatter712]

29. If they're mentally ill, they shouldn't be just dropped off.

Assuming they're fit to be released from the psych ward, they should be having social workers making sure they've got someplace to stay, or that some family members can look after them, or something.

[SATIRical]

32. What makes you think they are mentally ill?

That is an assumption.

Is everyone who goes to a mental health organization mentally ill? Of course not. Maybe they just had routine counselling. Did anyone bother to actually TALK to these being being dropped off? Sure doesn't sound like it.


If the Mental Health Hospital is dropping off folks who should not be dropped off at all, then the issue is larger than where they are being dropped off.

[backscatter712]

33. Try a different frame.

These are patients of Denver Mental Health, so one can make the assumption that at least most of them went there for some sort of treatment, so the question is what kinds of illnesses do these people have, and how serious are they?

We could be talking about minor depression, or full-fledged schizophrenia. Or maybe some poor schlub that isn't ill at all and got sent there by the cops or something.

Either way, Denver Mental Health shouldn't be just loading them up in a van and dumping them in the middle of a big city, they should be figuring out whether they can take care of themselves, and making arrangements via social workers when people are having difficulties.

And certainly, I object in the loudest possible way to the USING of these people as a political weapon. That's fucking despicable. "Dump the crazies on Occupy Denver!" No, Denver Health, your job is to provide care for these people, not to use these people. Fucking disgusting!

[SATIRical]

36. What makes you think they don't live around there?

"dumping them in the middle of a big city, they should be figuring out whether they can take care of themselves, and making arrangements via social workers when people are having difficulties. "

And if they don't live there, where is this place where they can take care of themselves? Are there shelters near there?

[donheld]

30. Anywhere but Occupy Denver's camp site

What do they want us to do with them?

[SATIRical]

31. NIMBY

Why do you need to do something with them?

And wouldn't the people be asking the question wherever they are dropped off? Or do you propose dropping them off out in the middle of nowhere?

[donheld]

37. "Why do you need to do something with them?"

Who's going to feed them? Who's going to see to their mental health needs? Who's going to help them with their substance abuse issues?

They are welcome in our back yard (all are welcome in our back yard) you missed the whole point. I think intentionally.

[SATIRical]

39. Considering no one bothered to talk to these folks

There is no evidence they

A) don't live near there
B) are not mentally ill but went for routine counselling app't
C) Can't feed themselves. If they are as destitute as you seem to think, don't they qualify for food stamps?
D) Have substance abuse issues.

Those are mighty big assumptions about people you do not know anything about except that they got out of a van.

If they are being dropped off by the mental hospital, there is reasonable cause to believe they don't have mental health needs or that they are routinely being taken care of and were just being dropped off because they are not in-patients.

[backscatter712]

34. These people need genuine care.

In theory, it's Denver Health's job to do that, but they seem to be more interested in using the mentally ill as a weapon against political dissidents than they are in providing the medical care that is their mission to provide.

As an fellow member of Occupy Denver, I do feel obligated to help these people somehow - they deserve to be treated far better than that. Granted, I don't have a psychology degree, or a certification to do counseling, but if we could find some way to get them at least a little food, or a lift somewhere, or something, maybe that would help.

[donheld]

35. Spot on.

[Posteritatis]

38. Lotts dolts treating "mental illness" as a monolith in this thread. (nt)

[PSzymeczek]

40. Why?

Is it possible this is being done to set up Occupy Denver to be discredited as harboring troublemakers? Wouldn't doubt it.

[donheld]

41. I have little doubt.

They planted a story about scabies etc. It's all in the game.