Caves and Chains for Mentally Ill Chinese; Bullets, Tasers and SHU for Americans

People in the UK and America are aghast at reading this headline in the Daily Mail: "Chinese father chains his blind, mentally ill son in a cave after losing their home (while he goes to live with his daughters)". People criticize the father for taking such drastic steps to protect his son, Cheng Xiangtao, 26, after losing their home. How is America better, since mentally ill people suffer 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in 9 ft x 6 ft cells? Sixty percent of inmates in SHU are mentally ill, and 1.25 million of America's prisoners are mentally challenged. Hypocrites should remove the beam in their own eye before criticizing the Chinese dad's mote. Cheng Yuanchao, 70, visits his son three times a day, does not Taser him, gas him, or let him die of starvation or brutality like some American mentally ill inmates do.

Yuanchao did not fracture his son's larynx like Maryland police did to Ethan Saylor, beat him to death like police did to Kelly Thomas, kill him through dehydration and neglect on a restraint table like Tim Souders, starve him to death behind bars like Carlos Umana, leave him to die in his own urine like Xavius Scullark-Johnson, Taser him to death like Inman Morales, or fatally shoot him like Christian Freeman, Brian Claunch, Mohamed Bah, Idriss Stelley, and many others. Yuanchao did not murder his son under secret arrest like Memphis police did to Larry Neal, or kill him through medical neglect like Anna Brown and Kathia Casseus. Yuanchao did not execute Cheng like Texas plans for Scott Panetti. Furthermore, Yuanchao does not use Cheng to enrich himself like American prison investors do to Rodriquez Nelson, who was sentenced to 56 years in prison for a domestic altercation that resulted in no lasting injuries.

"I have no home of my own now and nowhere to house my son," said Yuanchao. "This is the best I can do. I visit him three times a day with food and water so he is never hungry or thirsty. The chain is there only so he doesn't run off and hurt himself." Cheng is chained to the cave, which may seem cruel. Cheng is not free to roam alone and be murdered like Mitrice Richardson was, and her bones were found in the desert after a year's search.

Perhaps indigent and working class Americans would also seek ways to safely contain their mentally disabled relatives during heath crises when treatment is denied in order to save them from murderous police officers and ravenous private prison investors if such containment would not result in their own arrests. Humane and less expensive alternatives are offered in "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill Blog Welcome" at
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2013/07/dogjusticeformentallyill-blog-welcome.html
Corrective measures include: 1. police officers trained to make lunacy arrests without violence; 2. increased inpatient hospital space and reinstatement of Medicaid insurance for inpatient care; and 3. assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs for continuous psychiatric treatment and subsistence (food and housing). Providing adequate care for America's mentally dysfunctional citizens is significantly less expensive than fighting wars for human rights abroad, yet many families in the United States have even fewer choices for their mentally challenged relatives than Yuanchao has.

See the Daily Report article about Yuanchao's distress and love for his son at the link below:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2406853/Chinese-father-chains-blind-mentally-ill-son-cave-losing-home.html#ixzz2diH9oIyH

Cheng Xiangtao, blind and mentally disabled, enjoys the sun and wind and visits three times daily from his dad, unlike American mentally challenged inmates who are cruelly imprisoned in tiny solitary confinement cells 23 hours per day, some for decades.

Republished from my Dog Justice for Mentally Ill blog
http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com

Please share if you care! Thanks.

DOG JUSTICE NEEDED FOR AMERICA'S MENTALLY ILL

USDOJ Certifies AOT Programs for Mental Illness

Stalkers prevented me from placing my link at Twitter for good news I posted at ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL today. My online advocacy group to decriminalize mental illness was taken over by stalkers years ago; however, as the elections draw closer, stalkers become more adamant that Mary Neal shall NOT exercise freedom of press RIGHTS. At this link that stalkers will likely attack, http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=17280&pst=1071929 I wrote the following:

GOOD NEWS! The United States Department of Justice certified Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) programs! The programs like Kendra's Law provide mandated treatment for acute mental patients as outpatients and provide subsistence assistance - basics like food and shelter. This is one of AIMI's main goals. AIMI's second goal is to increase hospital beds for mentally challenged people who experience crises and for those who need indefinite containment in a treatment environment because of crimes and/or an inability to survive outside a controlled environment. We are well on our way to step 1. We must advocate for AOT programs to be set up across the nation and for every acute mental patient exiting jails, prisons, and hospitals to be mandated into an AOT. Step 2 is to open more mental hospitals for inpatient care. Some states are already building new hospitals or refurbishing those they have. But, unfortunately, some states continue to reduce mental hospital beds. More advocacy is needed.

AIMI also advocates against capital punishment. THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT JUST ENDED THE DEATH PENALTY! WAY TO GO, CONNECTICUT!

See the announcements in these two articles:

USDOJ certifies AOT programs http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe/department-of-justice-fin_b_1380308.html

Connecticut  becomes 17th state to repeal DP 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-connecticut-death-penalty-20120412,0,6052264.story

Keep up the good work, AIMI members and online friends! We are becoming more just and compassionate as a nation thanks to everyone who protests capital punishment, mass incarceration, and those who give ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL.

Justice Seekers Conference Call Report 1

Individuals, grassroots groups, organizations, and others are invited to join JUSTICE SEEKERS CONFERENCE CALLS throughout April 2012 http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/justice-seekers-conference-call-april-1.html  - Call 218-632-0550, at 6:30pm EST every Sunday in April. Dial the access code 330203# and to speak, dial *6. This is a networking opportunity for activists, organizations, lawyers and others that offer advocacy, goods and services to provide for and promote social and economic justice as well as persons who need help w/ their justice quests! I can't wait to actually speak with my online friends. UNITE for justice!

The first JUSTICE SEEKERS CONFERENCE CALL was today, April 1, 2012. It was not recorded, although future calls will be. Callers included:

Mary Neal, host, advocate for human and civil rights for all people, director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill

Anna Santiago, a New York mom who writes to prisoners. Her own privileges to visit her son who is a lifer in Pennsylvania were suspended because she writes to numerous inmates to send a friendly hello and birthday card. Authorities say she writes too many inmates. She was listed as DC15 - STJ (meaning potential gang affiliations). Because Ms. Santiago tries to lighten the burdens of inmates with short letters of inspiration and Christmas and birthday cards, she lost the right to visit her own son, who is in solitary confinement and who she dearly loves.

Brother Lukata, joined the call. He is a Mississippi prisoner advocate seeking a full pardon for the Scott Sisters and justice for James Craig Anderson, an elderly black man in Jackson, Mississippi, who was killed by young white supremacists. Anderson was beaten and run over by an SUV by youths who went "nigger hunting." Only one of the men was tried and sentenced so far.

Rozy Press also joined the Justice Seekers Conference Call. She is a former L.A. County school teacher who was attacked in her classroom by a student who sprayed her in the face with a fire extinguisher. She is very sick from the toxins that lodged in her lungs, but she is denied workers' comp and long-term disability.

Justice Seekers discussed each case as well as the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. I then informed conference call participants about several injustices, including:

(1) Kendrec McDade, a 19-year-old Pasadena, California college student whose recent death-by-police was reported by the L.A. Times on March 28, 2012 (an excerpt is below); 

(2) Benton Harbor, Michigan, a town where residents are greatly oppressed, according to reports from B.H. BANCO organization; and 

(3) Anne Brown, a homeless black woman who went to St. Mary's Medical Center in St. Louis for treatment after spraining her ankle. St. Mary's told police Brown was trespassing, and she was arrested. Brown died ten minutes after police carried her into a jail cell like a bag of cotton and dumped the moaning woman on the concrete floor. Blood clots in her legs traveled to her lungs. 

(4) Good News Report: Today on the Rev. Pinkney Blogtalk Show, I announced good news that can help homeless mentally challenged people. The United States Department of Justice certified Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) programs. AOT programs like Laura's Law and Kendra's Law provide for mandated psychiatric treatment for acute mental patients and subsistence assistance for basic needs, like housing and food. 

I will add links to news accounts about each story in this article by the end of this week. Below is a news excerpt about Kendrec McDade's death. Everyone who is interested in promoting justice is asked to join us next week with your own reports. Please also contact today's Justice Seekers Conference Call participants and lend your support to their justice quests.

1) Anna Santiago - email iceladywest@yahoo.com - phone (646) 251-5405

2) Rozy Wow - email rozywow@aol.com

3) Brother Lukata - email Afrikan_tbt@yahoo.com

4) Mary Neal - email MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com - phone (678) 531-0262

While the nation's eyes are on Florida and the Trayvon Martin case, more black youths are killed in America in similar incidents - no crime and no weapon. Kendrec McDade, a 19-year-old college student, was shot and killed last weekend by a police officer in Pasadena, California for "walking while black." Los Angeles Times reports:

L.A. Times - March 28, 2012 - Police shooting of black college student roils Pasadena
"The fatal shooting of a college student by a Pasadena police officer on a dark street last weekend has stirred community concerns and prompted the police chief to call for an independent investigation. The officer shot 19-year-old Kendrec McDade while sitting in the driver’s seat of his police cruiser in a narrow alley in the city’s Northeast district about 11 p.m. on Saturday. Police were chasing two people who they believed were armed and had stolen a laptop computer. But authorities have recovered neither a gun nor a computer from the scene." See the entire Los Angeles Times article, dated March 28, 2012 at this link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/police-shooting-of-college-student-roils-pasadena.html  

Blessings! Let us continue climbing Justice Mountain TOGETHER, without regard for race, socioeconomic class or health status, and make America a land of justice for ALL. 

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