Posted on 09/20/2007 2:48:58 PM PDT by brwnsuga
A 60-year-old woman who is mentally ill has filed a $2 million lawsuit against the city of Virginia Beach, the state and Sheriff Paul Lanteigne.
The lawsuit, filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court on Tuesday, says Janace Johnson, who has schizoaffective disorder, was wrongfully arrested and prosecuted. It also says Johnson did not receive necessary medical care and that law enforcement officers used excessive force against her while she was in the Virginia Beach jail.
The retired nurses' aide supervisor was released from jail May 18 with a broken nose, a busted lip, a black eye, broken dentures and other bruises. Sheriff's officials have said that Johnson, who was 59 at the time, sustained the injuries when she was "taken to the ground" after she "attacked a female deputy."
The incident occurred after Johnson's arrest on May 17, on a domestic violence charge. Throughout that day, Johnson's family said, she was agitated, hallucinating and hearing voices. By nightfall, they said her mental health had deteriorated. She was drinking and chain smoking. Her family called Johnson's psychiatrist's office, where she had been earlier in the day and received an increase in her medication. The office advised the family to call police for help.
Virginia Beach attorney Timothy Anderson, who is representing Johnson, said the family thought police would assist in getting an emergency mental health screening for her as had been done several years earlier during a similar episode that led to Johnson's psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. Instead, Johnson was charged with domestic violence after she kicked a lamp shade down the stairs. Johnson was then taken to jail.
"While she was restrained, she had the living daylights beaten out of her," Anderson said. "You had untrained deputies who reacted to her behavior as combative when she was extremely mentally ill. She looked like she was in a fight with Mike Tyson."
The sheriff's department charged Johnson with felony assault. Video recordings of the jail incident exist, but sheriff's officials have said they are being withheld because they are "evidence in a criminal prosecution... and they are part of an administrative investigation."
Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Paula Miller said Wednesday that the video recordings will remain withheld because of the pending litigation. The administrative portion of the internal investigation is over, Miller said. Details of the findings or any disciplinary action taken were not released, she said, because they are considered a personnel matter.
Anderson said Edwin Johnson, Janace Johnson's husband, received an anonymous letter in June in which the sender informed him that there was a videotape of the "assault" on his wife.
Later that month, Johnson pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. She received a suspended sentence of six months, provided she maintained her medication and remained on good behavior for two years.
The domestic violence charge was also dismissed in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Anderson said the city was included in the lawsuit because there is no safety net in place to ensure that mentally ill patients who arrive at the jail at night are taken to psychiatric hospitals rather than being placed in lock-up.
Mark Stiles, a Virginia Beach deputy city attorney, acknowledged that the city received notice of the complaint but declined to comment on the allegations, because the city had not yet been served.
I wish I knew how to insert pictures in my posts, she looked horrible.
A hot topic in our house is the mentally ill. My wife is a mental health counselor and I was, in another life, a LEO.
The thing people do not understand is when someone becomes combative for whatever reason the problem is there is always a weapon involved ( the LEO’s ) and all precautions must be made to win the altercation since the non-LEO’s always go for them. My lovely wife thinks that time to reflect and question the person as to why they are twisting off is warranted.
I say there is time for that after someone is cuffed. If they are nuts and take more effort to subdue I am sorry but it is hard to interview while you are being crawled up one side and the other.
I have mixed feelings in a case like this (without knowing all the details).
No one deserves to be brutalized. But if the woman is this ill, why is she out loose in society?
This is one of those cases where I think both sides are wrong.
enclose the whole thing with “<” on the left and “>” on the right.
can’t you cut and paste?
And if she is a 60 year old mentally ill woman as they say she is ... would she even know how to go about suing much less suing for $2 million dollars?????
Thanks for providing insight from the trenches. Those of us who have never had to face this type of situation have no idea of the risks involved.
Maybe the LEOs and the mental health community could come together to find better, realistic options for cases like this. Options where everyone gets a better deal.
Maybe some of the mental health experts should ride along with a LEO who deals with situations like this to see what it’s really like. Probably a little different than how they are used to seeing patients in a nice, clean office.
>> Beach deputies battered mentally ill woman
I suppose its not good that my first thought was that the headline might continue,
“... tossed her in buffalo wing sauce, fried, and served with ranch dressing or bleu cheese.”
Sorry ... I’m hungry, and I could really go for some chicken wings right now.
H
That was my thought as well. But there could be a family member exploiting the situation or an ambulance chaser that contacted her. 2 possible guesses. By the sound of it, I doubt she’s stable enough to do this on her own.
It seems sometimes to be a circular argument. The person is loose in society. The person kills someone and asserts an insanity defense. So, if the person was insane, why was the person allowed to be loose in society?
You know you are in trouble when you are talking to someone and they look at you and you see in their eyes that nobody is home and it is just you and them and they have to go to jail. You know it has a high probability of being a bad time.
I followed the link but didn’t see any pictures.
Has she ever watched “Cops”.
You only have to see a couple of big cops trying to cuff a tiny little crazed women to understand the problem.
Cops are fighting for their lives every time. Oh, and by the way, protecting everyone else standing around watching.
Sadly you cannot talk sense into someone who is senseless. Obviously she was mentally ill. What is an officer supposed to do when confronted with gaining control of this woman?
Her own family tried to talk sense into her. You can bet on that. That didn’t work. As a last resort they called the police so they could do the dirty work. Well they did.
I doubt anyone is happy how this turned out.
Look folks, getting someone under control when they are experiencing a physycotic episode is no picnic. You can’t count on their compliance, and they’re going to be striking out, kicking, scratching, poking in the eyes or whatever else they can do. They have to be taken down and subdued. That isn’t going to be pleasant.
There is absolutely no reason for the police to allow themselves to be injured, as a result of dealing with this woman. They don’t know what her full medical condition is. They don’t know if she has blood born diseases.
If it is proven these officers acted improperly I’ll reconsider. Until then, they’re going to be getting the benefit of the doubt from here.
This woman needs help. That may not be easy for the family to obtain. But this isn’t working either.
I’m sorry, there ought to be a constitutional amendment in the Bill of Rights that gives you the absolute right to clock any schizoid-defective ogress that comes a screechin’ at you out of the darkness.
ML/NJ
If they broke her nose and her dentures in the course of subduing her, then it was probably justified.
If they battered her after they got her to the police station and tied her up, which seems to be the accusation, that’s another matter.
I’d be curious to see the videos. I hope they don’t somehow get erased.
People with mental illnesses can have up and down times. Sometimes it’s the illness reoccurring or reoccurring with more or stronger frequency. Sometimes it’s a prescription thing (too much, not enough, wrong meds for condition.) People with schizophrenia, bipolar and other conditions can often function normally with the right meds and therapy. They don’t need to be locked up 24/7. I worked with a man who was a highly functioning engineer but until they got the right combo of meds for him, he was hither and yon with bipolar disorder. Never a threat to anyone else, just to himself. He now has not had an episode in years.
Another issue is that psych hospitals often keep people just long enough to get the meds regulated and get the patient stable and then release them, advising them to take their meds as prescribed and keep their outpatient appointments. If there is family support, often the patient does well. If there isn’t support -or if the patient just starts feeling better and thinks they don’t need the meds anymore, they’re right back where they started.
Not everyone who has a mental illness is a threat needing to be put away and many people who have one are highly functioning people, capable of living on their own, holding down a job and filing lawsuits. And if they aren’t capable of filing but are abused (by LE, by hospital staff) then a family member has a right to step in and file for them.
The dirty little secret in one word: VOTE.
In the 1970s the RATS, in the name of "modern medicine" and "compassionate care" brought about, in effect, the closure of the insane asylums and state hospitals, and the "assimilation" those patients into half-way houses, out patient clinics, sidewalks, subways, and city parks. They were "free", they were "assimilated", they could - and were, and are, rounded up and herded to -- vote.
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