SINCE WHEN do mental breakdowns kill people in police custody? "Bowie State Advisor Dies [in police custody] After Possible Mental Breakdown" http://bowie.patch.com/articles/bowie-state-advisor-dies-after-possible-mental-breakdown - "Police transported Patrick Raphael Toney to the hospital Friday after he was acting irrationally in a busy intersection in Odenton. He died Wednesday [at Baltimore Washington Medical Center], and the cause is under investigation." The report says police had shackled Toney when he began acting irrationally. Hopefully, further reports will reveal what happened to Toney in police custody between his arrest on Friday, April 13 and his death on Wednesday, April 18.
Hopefully, Toney's family members will not be deprived of information regarding their loved one's death like the family of schizophrenic heart patient Larry Neal. Larry was secretly arrested for 18 days in Memphis/ Shelby County, Tennessee Jail in mid-summer 2003 and died under yet undisclosed circumstances. Information and accountability about Larry's murder is illegally withheld in defiance of constitutional law as well as Freedom of Information Act requests and federal subpoenas to the United States Department of Justice and Shelby County Government, respectively. The mentally ill in the USA do not seem to have rights, and neither do their families. Rights are not arbitrarily given or withheld depending on the race and socioeconomic status of justice seekers. Accountability and prosecution for crime victims in America are treated as privileges rather than as rights. There is no equal protection under the law for mentally challenged Americans of any race, but this is particularly true regarding minorities.
Please use the link above (one of five(5) links in this article) for information that has been made available to date about the mysterious death of Patrick Raphael Toney - another name in the growing list of dead people of minority races who experienced mental health issues in police custody. Police take mentally challenged people to prison, unlike physically challenged people who experience health emergencies, for the simple reason that our mental hospital beds were nearly diminished in the 1970s to seed private jails and prisons with mentally ill people. Rather than tranquilizers, straight jackets and rubber rooms that hospitals have, jails and prison guards use batons, Tasers, pepper spray, guns, solitary confinement torture cells, and other methods of control over sick people, including food deprivation. Deaths are all too common.
See my articles regarding Mitrice Richardson, of California. She disappeared for a year after reportedly being released from police custody in a desert area at 1:30 a.m. without her car, money, or water. Her bones were recovered a year later. Timothy "Bulldog" Allen of Benton Harbor, Michigan was "missing" for months after being last seen speaking with police on a St. Joseph, Michigan bridge. Police refused to drag the lake for his body, which was recovered from the lake a month later. Carlos Umana, a Latino, starved to death in solitary confinement in a private jail in Utah in February 2012 within four months of his arrest. There are others. What is happening to black and Hispanic people in America who have mental health challenges? Why is Larry Neal's death in secret jail custody treated like a national secret?
This is evidence of the mass arrest and deaths of mentally ill minorities - the Maryland story. Approximately 1.25 million mentally ill people are currently imprisoned rather than treated in mental hospitals or community care programs like they should be. When emergency response is needed for anyone having a physical health crisis, ambulances respond and crisis victims are transported speedily to HOSPITALS. But in the USA, when people have mental health crises, they are immediately JAILED FOR THEIR ILLEGAL HEALTH DISABILITY AND SOME ARE PROMPTLY KILLED DURING THE LUNACY ARREST OR PERHAPS SLOWLY KILLED BY NEGLECT OR DESIGN WHILE UNDER INCARCERATION, WHITES INCLUDED.
Google "Timothy Sauders" to access information and a television documentary about a Caucasian youth who died of dehydration and CRUELTY after four days in restraint in a Michigan jail. See articles about Sean LeVert, a famous entertainer, who died after restraint during a crisis in a jail where he was interned on a child support charge. Google "Taser and Shooting Deaths of the Mentally Ill" to read about numerous fatal lunacy arrests. Visit "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog at http://DogJusticetoMentallyIll to read about mentally challenged people facing imprisonment for being sick and some who are already unfairly punished for behavior caused by untreated mental illness. The mentally ill are at a tremendous disadvantage during criminal investigations as people who are mentally challenged and children are responsible for around 25 percent of false confessions that lead to wrongful convictions. Prison and allowed deaths must stop being America's response to mental illness. Consider the fact that police were recently absolved of all charges in the death of an Autistic youth.
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED TO PROTECT MENTALLY CHALLENGED PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO LIFE IN THE USA. Start by demanding full accountability regarding the secret arrest and wrongful death of Larry Neal. Please write to Attorney General Eric Holder at the United States Department of Justice: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov - Request justice from the agency that has the responsibility of protecting the rights of institutionalized persons (in prisons, jails, hospitals, nursing homes, care homes, etc.). Demand an end to health discrimination. Mental illness should be treated medically, not legally. While writing, please congratulate the USDOJ for certifying Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) programs, which provide for mandated treatment for acute mental patients and subsistence assistance. Then contact officials in your state to ensure that AOT programs are used there rather than condemning acute mental patients to forever revolve in and out of prisons until they eventually die of violence or neglect or bring harm to you or your neighbors and thereafter be used to enrich prison investors at taxpayers' expense.
Thank you in advance for participating in making our beloved country more just and compassionate. Our condolences to the family of Patrick Toney. We empathize with all neglected, brutalized, and murdered mentally ill people in America and their families. Visit Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI), and consider joining the advocacy to decriminalize mental illness. Unite for justice.
"All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper." ~ Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill: http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/aimi
Website: Wrongful Death of Larry Neal: http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com
