Posted on 08/16/2008 8:38:23 AM PDT by reaganaut1
On June 20, 2006, William Bruce approached his mother as she worked at her desk at home and struck killing blows to her head with a hatchet.
Two months earlier, William, a 24-year-old schizophrenic, had been released from Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, Maine, against the recommendations of his doctors. "Very dangerous indeed for release to the community," wrote one in William's record.
But the doctor's notes also show that William's release was backed by government-funded patient advocates. According to medical records, the advocates -- none of them physicians -- appear to have fought for his right to refuse treatment, to have coached him on how to answer doctors' questions and to have resisted the medical staff's efforts to contact his parents. As one doctor wrote, William told him his advocates believed he is "not a danger, and should be released."
William's father, Joe Bruce, obtained his son's medical records from Riverview eight months after the killing. "I read through the records and I just remember crying all the way through," Joe Bruce says. "My God, these people knew exactly what they were sending home to us."
...
The story of William Bruce -- based on medical records made available to The Wall Street Journal -- as well as interviews with relatives, doctors, advocates and hospital administrators brings into sharp focus the impact of a little-known government-funded advocacy program for psychiatric patients.
Congress created the national Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness program, or PAIMI, in 1986 to curb abuse and neglect of the mentally ill, primarily in institutions. In the 1960s and 1970s, many abuses were uncovered at hospitals, where patients were physically restrained, neglected or overmedicated.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I hope that father sues the smitherines out of those lawyer/ advocates!! I would be furious!! Haven’t they ever talked to a crazy person who was quite convincing? Haven’t they ever studied history? Hitler comes to mind. et al.
Six million ghosts would probably take issue with the notion that their status was the result of someone's mental illness.
Let’s call them both Evil. But the advocates, THEY are the ones who are truly evil.
“Helen Bailey, one of William’s advocates, declined to discuss the details of his case but says the handling of it was consistent with her professional duties. “My job is to get the patient’s voice into the mix where decisions are made,” says Ms. Bailey, an attorney with Maine’s Disability Rights Center in Augusta. “No matter how psychotic, that voice is still worthy of being heard.”
Reminds me of that idiot bureacrat who let Mohammed Atta threaten her very life for hours on end but didn’t report the incident due to cultural sensativity. All the more reason govt needs to be reduced in size and scope.
The libs want schizophrenic axe murderers to have the freedom to turn down medication and to be out stalking freely in our neighborhoods, but they are eager to deny the civil rights of a veteran who got counselling because he is depressed after seeing his friends die in battle.
“Many of those who are labeled “homeless” today are mentally ill would would have been institutionalized with 3 hots and cot before the ACLU forced states to put them on the streets. Now we have to endure dangerous mental cases on the streets until they commit a crime that merits incarceration...often murder. It’s a damn poor approach.”
Could have been worse. The original plan was to establish half-way houses in all residential neighborhoods to house the mentally ill in group homes. I know the effects of the ‘homeless’ on urban areas has been severe, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a ‘group-home’ housing 10 or 12 of these next door?
ping
Ping.
If these advocates are so hell bent on release, they should take the patient into their own homes and care for them.
I wonder if they would be so adamant in their perspectives if they would be made accountable and responsible.
If these advocates are so hell bent on release, they should take the patient into their own homes and care for them.
I wonder if they would be so adamant in their perspectives if they would be made accountable and responsible.”
IF this were to be done, I would need a signed release from EVERY home owner, shop owner, etc, in a 2 mile radius.
Neighbors have a right to know what kind of looney is being parked next to them.
Should these advocates wind up dead at the hands of a revenge minded family member, and I was on a grand jury or regular jury I would find it very difficult to vote to indict/convict.
Why do we have to endure these busy body do-gooders who spend our money to do us harm, knowing full well what they are doing?
They ought to be sued, but first, all of them should be tried as accessories to murder.
Half-way houses are just operating bases for criminals on their way out of fully supervised incarceration. Petty thieves, druggies, sexual perverts and worse. The "plan" may not have been fully executed, but it exists in many communities anyway.
“The “plan” may not have been fully executed, but it exists in many communities anyway.”
Another aspect of liberal planing is to move welfare families out of public housing into ‘neighborhoods’. The idea is that there are no good ‘role models’ in public housing and that once these welfare families see how the people in your neighborhood live their lives, then they will be inspired to make good grades in school, get off the drugs, quit having illegitimate kids, get jobs, etc., etc. I’m sure that one will work out quite well, aren’t you?
Yeah, but they want to move them where you and I live. They do not want them near where they live.
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