Anti-Bush sign lands a woman in mental ward

[moodforaday]

From Mother Jones:

Uppity Cleveland woman carted to psych hospital by police and ordered to a psych unit by judge

For as long as we have had some kind of mental health system, women who "behave incorrectly" have been ordered to undergo its treatments. At one time or another, feminists, suffragists, menopausal women, and women who question authority in any way have been sent to institutions so that they could recieve "help." The latest woman to get such help is Carol Fisher of Cleveland. Fisher is on the staff of Revolution Books, and on January 28, while she was putting Bush Step Down posters on telephone polls in Cleveland Heights, she was ordered by a police officer to take them down or face a fine. When she complied, she was asked for her ID, which she did not have on her. He then grabbed her by the arm, pushed her against a store window, and knocked her face down onto the sidewalk. He was joined by another officer, and they both pressed their feet against her back until she could not breathe. Her chin was pressed down into the concrete; Fisher has osteoradionecrosis in her jaw from radiation treatments for cancer.

Fisher was handcuffed and shackled. During this time, Fisher yelled out to everyone who passed what the posters were about. One of the police officers then told her, Fisher says, to "Shut up or I will kill you! I am sick of this anti-Bush shit! You are definitely going to the psyche ward."

She was then threatened some more and taken away in an EMS truck. At the hospital, Fisher was asked to undress in front of the police officers, which she refused to do. The officers refused to leave, so a nurse attempted to shield her while she undressed. Fisher says she was then cuffed to the bed, given an IV of some sort, and made to wait hours for a psychiatrist to interview her. By this time, members of her World Can't Wait group were in the emergency room having a confrontation with the police, who refused to let them see Fisher. Someone called the news media, who never made an appearance.

Fisher was eventually released and sent home. On May 2, she went to court and was found guilty of two counts of felonious assault of two police officers. The prosecution's "witnesses" had not seen the alleged assault; rather, they claimed that Fisher lacked respect for authority. It took a jury more than eight hours to find her guilty. According to a letter to the editor of The Free Press, the prosecution misquoted Fisher's testimony and gave the jury incorrect information about the city's arrestable offenses. When asked to clarify the law, the judge refused.

Full story:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/05/uppity_clevelan.html

[TAPat]

1. Just absolutely infuriating. nt

[tocqueville]

2. dissidents were sent to mental hospitals in old Soviet Union

the idea was : "the System is perfect, if you criticize it, you must be crazy"...

[niyad]

3. shades of the soviet union and other repressive regimes!! actually, this

isn't anything new in this country, as you pointed out. ezra pound was locked in st elizabeth's for expressing anti-american sentiments, if I remember correctly.

this ought to be frightening the wits out of the sheeples, but they don't care. one of my little trolls said she had to be mentally unstable because she was against bush.

[northamericancitizen]

4. Revolting.

[Judi Lynn]

5. From the World Cannot Wait website:

In a hastily called hearing yesterday, Judge McGinty made a highly unusual and outrageous decision to force Carol to undergo a state psychological exam as part of her pre-sentencing investigation. From the very start of Carol's case, the judge has openly said that she must have mental problems for resisting an unlawful and brutal encounter with Cleveland Heights police. He went even further in yesterday's hearing, saying that her opposition to the Bush regime makes her "delusional."


The small courtroom on the 21st floor of the Justice Center was ringed with 5 armed court bailiffs. McGinty started off the hearing by making Carol stand up and had one of her attorneys read her t-shirt, which said:

"Wanted for Illegally Crossing Borders: The Bush Regime

"If you are going to insist that crossing borders illegally is a crime which cannot be tolerated, how about George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice (and yes, Colin Powell) and the rest of that gang, with their highly illegal, and violent, 'crossing of the border'-into Iraq, among other places?!"

McGinty then said this was proof of her delusion! He also kept saying Carol "wants" to go to jail, and that she has a "martyr complex." When Carol tried to explain why she wouldn't take this test, the judge's only response was, "I do not negotiate with felons."

Does Carol really want to go to jail? No! But she is not willing to comply with a vindictive court ordered test to "prove" her sanity. And more than that, she is taking a stand for everyone who is angry and fearful of a government that, under the rubric of "national security and the war on terror," willfully and unapologetically tramples on the most basic rights of privacy. Think about this in light of the NSA spying scandal, and now Bush wants to install the head of the notorious NSA to be CIA chief! As Carol said before she went to jail, "I'd be crazy to go along with this shit! That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn--or be forced--to accept."

Just look at this whole case: a woman posts a "Bush Step Down" poster on a telephone pole, being brutalized by the police in the process, and now not only faces 3 years in prison but also a mandatory psych exam. As Terry Gilbert, one of Carol's attorneys said, "This is Gulag stuff--saying that people who are dissidents are crazy." He further added that in his 33 years of practicing law, he has never seen anything like this.
(snip/...)

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1534&Itemid=61

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her own account, posted at the website says her group contacted the media while she was kept at the hospital, and the media simply refused to appear to cover the story:

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=842&Itemid=184

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Cleveland Indymedia:

CLEVELAND -- The woman arrested and accused of assaulting police officers after hanging World Can’t Wait posters in Cleveland Heights January 28 was
arraigned in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court February 16.

Carol Fisher, 53, a resident of the inner-ring suburb known for its liberalism was charged with two counts of assaulting Cleveland Heights police officers Daniel Downey and Mike Frinzl.
(snip)

http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/18874.php

[fleabert]

10. has the ACLU been involved? nt

[Mr_Spock]

13. That's fucking insane! I hope the ACLU will be taking her case.

This is the most outrageous thing I've read in a long, long time.

[MikeNearMcChord]

6. Comrade Citizens!! I detect a lack of enthusiasm

for the great programs gloriously brought to us by are great leader
Great Brother Comrade BOOOSH! I have but no choice, but to report you to the Cheka, for rehabilitation,at the Great Brother Comrade Cheney Patriot Encouragement Center, operated by Haliburton, and given Psychiatric drugs provided by the Pfizer Corp!:smoke:

[Lerkfish]

7. and so it begins...

:cry:

[JuniperLea]

8. I wonder if Halliburton is building a DU ward as we type...

See you guys later! I'll wear a pink carnation so you'll recognize me. I wonder if we'll get shock treatments or heavy psych drugs...

[Neoma]

9. Terrible!

:cry:

[ixion]

11. so who has the real mental problem here... the woman, who was

expressing her right to Freedom of Speech, or the cop, who brutalized her simply for expressing that right? Hmmmm? :grr:

[Mr_Spock]

12. Bush does drive us all to the edge of insanity...

...but this is ridiculous. Someone is in trouble in Cleveland.

Looks like a couple of officers are going to jail and a judge may have to be removed.


This is serious shit if true as written.

[niyad]

14. has the recall petition on this idiot judge been started yet? CAN he be

recalled? I know I would have been on the streets with a petition as soon as I could get to the elections office if I lived there.

[PDX Bara]

15. PRO-Bush Women

...are the ones who belong in a psych institution, in my opinion, but of course I would have been one of Ms. Fisher's cell mates.

[Ilsa]

16. This is why people are nervous about speaking out. Malloy had a caller

on last night who was worried about this shit happening to people. We have to get prepared to deal with these tactics by the Bushivics.

[Generic Other]

17. Smells like totalitarianism to me

Very scary article.

[Kolesar]

18. There is more to the Carol Fisher story than what is in the MoJo blog

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=172&topic_id=17567&mesg_id=17567

[niyad]

19. not to be picky or anything, but do we know anything about this person

posting? is it possible the "story" is put there to make her look bad (standard rw tactics)? just wondering.

[moodforaday]

20. Well, therre is another POV

There's an interesting counterpoint in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=172x17567

I hadn't seen it before posting the MJ piece.