NEW YORK
A judge has declared a former New York City police officer accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend unfit to stand trial.
The lawyer for Jerry Bowens says state Supreme Court Judge Matthew D'Emic ruled last week that his client was unfit to stand trial in the March killing of Bowens' girlfriend Catherine D'Onofrio and wounding D'Onofrio's best friend, Melissa Simmons.
Defense attorney Wayne Bodden says the 43-year-old will enter a psychiatric facility.
Bowens has said in a statement that he was trying to kill himself when he accidentally shot his girlfriend in the head. Simmons suffered graze wounds.
Bowens will be treated and re-examined from time to time. It's possible he eventually will be declared fit to face the charges.
D'Onofrio's mother, Jane, expressed disappointment in the ruling.
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Information from: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/05/13/2009-05-13_excops_ruled_unfit_to_stand_trial_for_murder.html
Showing posts with label Mental disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mental disorder. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Brooklyn Police Accused of Using Excessive Force on BiPolar/Schizophrenic Man
A family in Brooklyn is claiming police used excessive force on a man.
NYPD officers were called to the home to help a man who is bipolar and schizophrenic. They were asked to take him to the hospital.
The family claims 26-year-old Gamalier Reyes was beaten by officers. But police claim he attacked them first and may also have suffered injuries elsewhere.
It happened inside one apartment, with the alleged victim's family in another. They could hear what was going on, but could do nothing to help.
"I saw my brother," Zully DelaCruz said. "He was already handcuffed, and I could see the blood."
DelaCruz says she called 911 for paramedics, not for what she claims was police brutality.
Her brother needed a doctor Saturday because he didn't take his medication for his schizophrenia. She says minutes later, eight officers crammed into the hallway of their Bushwick apartment building and shoved her family into a next door apartment, leaving her mentally ill brother alone with police.
"He only demanded to be left alone," she said. "Instead, he was attacked by the police officers."
"Just imagine yourself on the other side of a door, while your loved one is screaming and begging for help while they hit them," sister Indhira Reyes said.
In front of the 83rd Police Precinct Tuesday morning, the family demanded the officers be held accountable.
But police tell a very different story about what happened inside the Irving Avenue apartment.
Officers say Gamalier told them, "You're going to have to kill me. I'm not going."
And they say that when they tried to restrain him, he punched one in the face and hurt another officer's leg.
Also, 911 transcripts show an emergency operator saying, "Alright, so he's threatening. Irrational. And he's restless, he won't go to sleep, right?"
Then, the family's social worker says, "No, they just came back from the Dominican Republic. They had to come back early because he got in a fight; he was very aggressive over there; he got in a fight over there; he got his head cracked open and they just came back."
Gamalier's sister admits her brother was in a fight. But she claims the multiple surgeries her brother now needs were caused by police.
"When he arrived to the United States, he was fine," she said. "He was not injured. All those bruises and broken bones, the police department did that to him."
The family put in a complaint to the precinct. They have met with an attorney and plans to fill a lawsuit.
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WEB PRODUCED BY: Bill King
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/nyregion/14complaint.html
NYPD officers were called to the home to help a man who is bipolar and schizophrenic. They were asked to take him to the hospital.
The family claims 26-year-old Gamalier Reyes was beaten by officers. But police claim he attacked them first and may also have suffered injuries elsewhere.
It happened inside one apartment, with the alleged victim's family in another. They could hear what was going on, but could do nothing to help.
"I saw my brother," Zully DelaCruz said. "He was already handcuffed, and I could see the blood."
DelaCruz says she called 911 for paramedics, not for what she claims was police brutality.
Her brother needed a doctor Saturday because he didn't take his medication for his schizophrenia. She says minutes later, eight officers crammed into the hallway of their Bushwick apartment building and shoved her family into a next door apartment, leaving her mentally ill brother alone with police.
"He only demanded to be left alone," she said. "Instead, he was attacked by the police officers."
"Just imagine yourself on the other side of a door, while your loved one is screaming and begging for help while they hit them," sister Indhira Reyes said.
In front of the 83rd Police Precinct Tuesday morning, the family demanded the officers be held accountable.
But police tell a very different story about what happened inside the Irving Avenue apartment.
Officers say Gamalier told them, "You're going to have to kill me. I'm not going."
And they say that when they tried to restrain him, he punched one in the face and hurt another officer's leg.
Also, 911 transcripts show an emergency operator saying, "Alright, so he's threatening. Irrational. And he's restless, he won't go to sleep, right?"
Then, the family's social worker says, "No, they just came back from the Dominican Republic. They had to come back early because he got in a fight; he was very aggressive over there; he got in a fight over there; he got his head cracked open and they just came back."
Gamalier's sister admits her brother was in a fight. But she claims the multiple surgeries her brother now needs were caused by police.
"When he arrived to the United States, he was fine," she said. "He was not injured. All those bruises and broken bones, the police department did that to him."
The family put in a complaint to the precinct. They have met with an attorney and plans to fill a lawsuit.
----------------------------------
WEB PRODUCED BY: Bill King
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/nyregion/14complaint.html
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Family Sues After 14-year-old Tasered in Jail
KENORA, Ontario
The father of a 14-year-old girl from a remote Ontario First Nation is suing the OPP, claiming his daughter was shocked with a Taser while in jail.
The father alleges she was stunned because she wouldn't stop scratching at the paint inside her jail cell in Sioux Lookout.
The girl -- identified only as Jane Doe -- was being held inside the cell last July for undisclosed reasons.
Court documents say she was not intoxicated, hysterical, excited or presenting a danger in any way.
The lawsuit alleges two officers went in the cell, "violently" pulled her to the floor and applied the Taser to her thigh for three to five seconds.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Her family wants $500,000 in damages, claiming the incident left her with numbness in her leg and "ongoing mental distress."
The lawsuit also calls for an order that would prohibit the use of stun guns on minors except in cases where a life is clearly at risk.
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http://www.canada.com/news/police+sued+after+teen+girl+Tasered/1245695/story.html
The father of a 14-year-old girl from a remote Ontario First Nation is suing the OPP, claiming his daughter was shocked with a Taser while in jail.
The father alleges she was stunned because she wouldn't stop scratching at the paint inside her jail cell in Sioux Lookout.
The girl -- identified only as Jane Doe -- was being held inside the cell last July for undisclosed reasons.
Court documents say she was not intoxicated, hysterical, excited or presenting a danger in any way.
The lawsuit alleges two officers went in the cell, "violently" pulled her to the floor and applied the Taser to her thigh for three to five seconds.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Her family wants $500,000 in damages, claiming the incident left her with numbness in her leg and "ongoing mental distress."
The lawsuit also calls for an order that would prohibit the use of stun guns on minors except in cases where a life is clearly at risk.
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http://www.canada.com/news/police+sued+after+teen+girl+Tasered/1245695/story.html
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tasering of the Mental Ill
One of the most distrubing aspects of the use of taser torture devices is its common use on the mentally ill. Here, you have schizophrenic man, in custody, tasered and pepper sprayed mercilessly because he woulodn't come out of his cell. He finally did when they told him he could call his mother.
New court documents reveal disturbing details of what happened to Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral, the young Orland man who became paralyzed from the neck down when he rammed his head against a wall during a schizophrenic episode in the Glenn County Jail.
The CN&R has previously reported (”Breakdown in mental-health care,” Dec. 13, 2007) how, in the morning of Jan. 6, 2007, sheriff’s officers arrested Cabral after he assaulted his girlfriend, Torrie Gonzales, at his family’s Orland home. At the time, Cabral’s brother Arturo and others told them he was ill and needed medications.
According to an amended complaint, the jail nurse, Donna Tomisch, and Jail Staff Cpl. Rosemary Carmen initially refused to receive Cabral until he’d had a psychiatric evaluation. However, a sheriff’s deputy, Brandy McDonald, told Carmen that there would be no evaluation “because inmate Cabral had tried to kill someone and that he needed to be in jail,” not sent to a mental-health facility.
Over a period of several hours, while Cabral was kept in a holding cell, various people—his brother; his mother, Rosa Cabral; his girlfriend, who didn’t want him jailed; Tony Nasr, MD, a family friend; and officials at Butte County Behavioral Health, where he’d been placed on an involuntary hold just three days before—contacted the jail to say Cabral was mentally ill.
Efforts to get him seen by health professionals were fruitless. A single call was made to Glenn County Mental Health, which punted responsibility to Dr. Robert Zadra, whose company, Sierra Family Services, was under contract to provide mental-health care at the jail. But Zadra was on vacation, and his office referred the matter back to GCMH, which in turn said it had no contract with the jail.
There was a contract, but it was with Glenn Medical Center, the local hospital. In any event, there is a “handshake agreement” between the jail and Mental Health, said Scott Gruendl, the Chico City Councilman whose day job is director of Glenn County Health Services. “If the jail requires our assistance, we’re going to provide it,” he said.
Not this time, apparently.
By early the next morning, court documents continue, Cabral began hearing voices and showing signs of mental illness. He took off his clothes, vomited, and began throwing feces, urine and vomit around his cell.
Jail staff wanted to move him into the padded “safety cell.” Lacking the help of a health-care professional, and without contacting anyone in Cabral’s family, they called in a total of four officers from the Willows Police Department and the Sheriff’s Office. Three Highway Patrol officers showed up later.
Cabral wasn’t being violent, but Deputy Paulette Blakeley testified that he was “scooping water from the toilet in his cell and rubbing it on his body, and that the water, possibly containing his own waste, was spread elsewhere in the cell.” At this point, Willows PD Officer Jason Dahl ordered Cabral to come out of the cell. When Cabral refused, saying “I’m fine,” Dahl pointed his Taser weapon at Cabral “and said he would shoot him with it if he did not do as Officer Dahl demanded.”
“Shoot me,” Cabral replied. The officers stormed the cell.
By the time it was over, Dahl had alternately demanded that Cabral come out of his cell and, when he refused, Tasered him a total of eight times, for five seconds each time, over a period of 4-1/2 minutes. “Each time, the [officers] watched … Cabral react with great pain and slide down the wall, seeking protection of the toilet,” the documents read. The Tasering stopped only when the weapon’s battery ran out of charge.
“The officers then left the cell but observed that … Cabral had reacted to the shocks by chewing on the telephone in the cell and observed that he was bleeding from the mouth.”
And so it went. The officers again stormed the cell, this time using an electric stun-gun-type shield that they applied directly to Cabral’s wet, bare skin. Cabral slid to the floor in agony. When that didn’t convince him to leave, Dahl subsequently Tasered him three more times.
Again the officers pulled back, this time to wait for the CHP to show up. Then, all seven officers went into the cell, determined to remove Cabral physically. Cabral was having none of it, continuing rather “to throw water on himself stating that he wanted to play with the water and that it was fun.” Officer Dahl then emptied a 4-ounce can of pepper spray on Cabral, covering his face, head, shoulder and back. Cabral used toilet water to try to wash it off but only got it in his eyes.
When he asked to speak with his mother, the officers said he could if he came out. He did so and was quickly handcuffed. He wasn’t allowed to make the call.
By 3:30 that morning, Cabral had finally been placed in the “safety cell.” It had “little or no light, no furnishings other than a drain in the floor, and no monitoring other than a small sliding window. … The walls had a thin coating of hard rubber.” Cabral was naked.
The rest of the story already has been told—how Cabral, hearing voices from God and still stinging from the spray, charged into the wall head-first, breaking his neck; how he lay on the floor unmoving from about 4:45 that morning until nearly 2 in the afternoon, more than nine hours; and how he told jail staff he was paralyzed and several times asked for help but was ignored.
Cabral’s civil suit names numerous defendants, from the officers at the jail to the heads of various county departments, including Gruendl. The CN&R left messages for several of the attorneys representing them, but only John Whiteside, of the Sacramento firm Angelo Kilday & Kilduff, representing the city of Willows and Officer Dahl, called back.
The firm has filed a motion to dismiss, he said, on the basis that nothing the complaint alleges to have occurred is a violation of federal or state law.
“In layman’s terms: ‘OK, so what?'” Whiteside said.
I won't comment on that sadistic and inhuman comment. It speaks for itself.
But the fact that there are no state or federal laws against torturing mentally ill citizens who are in custody seems to me to be an obvious problem in any country that considers itself to be even moderately civilized.
New court documents reveal disturbing details of what happened to Reynaldo “Reny” Cabral, the young Orland man who became paralyzed from the neck down when he rammed his head against a wall during a schizophrenic episode in the Glenn County Jail.
The CN&R has previously reported (”Breakdown in mental-health care,” Dec. 13, 2007) how, in the morning of Jan. 6, 2007, sheriff’s officers arrested Cabral after he assaulted his girlfriend, Torrie Gonzales, at his family’s Orland home. At the time, Cabral’s brother Arturo and others told them he was ill and needed medications.
According to an amended complaint, the jail nurse, Donna Tomisch, and Jail Staff Cpl. Rosemary Carmen initially refused to receive Cabral until he’d had a psychiatric evaluation. However, a sheriff’s deputy, Brandy McDonald, told Carmen that there would be no evaluation “because inmate Cabral had tried to kill someone and that he needed to be in jail,” not sent to a mental-health facility.
Over a period of several hours, while Cabral was kept in a holding cell, various people—his brother; his mother, Rosa Cabral; his girlfriend, who didn’t want him jailed; Tony Nasr, MD, a family friend; and officials at Butte County Behavioral Health, where he’d been placed on an involuntary hold just three days before—contacted the jail to say Cabral was mentally ill.
Efforts to get him seen by health professionals were fruitless. A single call was made to Glenn County Mental Health, which punted responsibility to Dr. Robert Zadra, whose company, Sierra Family Services, was under contract to provide mental-health care at the jail. But Zadra was on vacation, and his office referred the matter back to GCMH, which in turn said it had no contract with the jail.
There was a contract, but it was with Glenn Medical Center, the local hospital. In any event, there is a “handshake agreement” between the jail and Mental Health, said Scott Gruendl, the Chico City Councilman whose day job is director of Glenn County Health Services. “If the jail requires our assistance, we’re going to provide it,” he said.
Not this time, apparently.
By early the next morning, court documents continue, Cabral began hearing voices and showing signs of mental illness. He took off his clothes, vomited, and began throwing feces, urine and vomit around his cell.
Jail staff wanted to move him into the padded “safety cell.” Lacking the help of a health-care professional, and without contacting anyone in Cabral’s family, they called in a total of four officers from the Willows Police Department and the Sheriff’s Office. Three Highway Patrol officers showed up later.
Cabral wasn’t being violent, but Deputy Paulette Blakeley testified that he was “scooping water from the toilet in his cell and rubbing it on his body, and that the water, possibly containing his own waste, was spread elsewhere in the cell.” At this point, Willows PD Officer Jason Dahl ordered Cabral to come out of the cell. When Cabral refused, saying “I’m fine,” Dahl pointed his Taser weapon at Cabral “and said he would shoot him with it if he did not do as Officer Dahl demanded.”
“Shoot me,” Cabral replied. The officers stormed the cell.
By the time it was over, Dahl had alternately demanded that Cabral come out of his cell and, when he refused, Tasered him a total of eight times, for five seconds each time, over a period of 4-1/2 minutes. “Each time, the [officers] watched … Cabral react with great pain and slide down the wall, seeking protection of the toilet,” the documents read. The Tasering stopped only when the weapon’s battery ran out of charge.
“The officers then left the cell but observed that … Cabral had reacted to the shocks by chewing on the telephone in the cell and observed that he was bleeding from the mouth.”
And so it went. The officers again stormed the cell, this time using an electric stun-gun-type shield that they applied directly to Cabral’s wet, bare skin. Cabral slid to the floor in agony. When that didn’t convince him to leave, Dahl subsequently Tasered him three more times.
Again the officers pulled back, this time to wait for the CHP to show up. Then, all seven officers went into the cell, determined to remove Cabral physically. Cabral was having none of it, continuing rather “to throw water on himself stating that he wanted to play with the water and that it was fun.” Officer Dahl then emptied a 4-ounce can of pepper spray on Cabral, covering his face, head, shoulder and back. Cabral used toilet water to try to wash it off but only got it in his eyes.
When he asked to speak with his mother, the officers said he could if he came out. He did so and was quickly handcuffed. He wasn’t allowed to make the call.
By 3:30 that morning, Cabral had finally been placed in the “safety cell.” It had “little or no light, no furnishings other than a drain in the floor, and no monitoring other than a small sliding window. … The walls had a thin coating of hard rubber.” Cabral was naked.
The rest of the story already has been told—how Cabral, hearing voices from God and still stinging from the spray, charged into the wall head-first, breaking his neck; how he lay on the floor unmoving from about 4:45 that morning until nearly 2 in the afternoon, more than nine hours; and how he told jail staff he was paralyzed and several times asked for help but was ignored.
Cabral’s civil suit names numerous defendants, from the officers at the jail to the heads of various county departments, including Gruendl. The CN&R left messages for several of the attorneys representing them, but only John Whiteside, of the Sacramento firm Angelo Kilday & Kilduff, representing the city of Willows and Officer Dahl, called back.
The firm has filed a motion to dismiss, he said, on the basis that nothing the complaint alleges to have occurred is a violation of federal or state law.
“In layman’s terms: ‘OK, so what?'” Whiteside said.
I won't comment on that sadistic and inhuman comment. It speaks for itself.
But the fact that there are no state or federal laws against torturing mentally ill citizens who are in custody seems to me to be an obvious problem in any country that considers itself to be even moderately civilized.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Woman from Kansas Stuck to the toilet seat
Now this is one messed up mind disorder.
Here is the most bizarre story that I’ve heard for the day. Apparently a 35 year old woman from Ness City, Kansas, sat on her boyfriends toilet for two years, and become stuck to the seat as her skin literally grew around the seat.
While she sat there in the bathroom, her boyfriend brought her food and water. He begged for her to come out, but he apparently never thought to call for help until Feb. 27. When Sheriff Bryan Whipple tried to remove her, she stated that nothing was wrong, and she didn’t want to leave. They finally persuaded her to go the hospital, after they pried the toilet seat off the commode with a pry bar. They were unable to remove the seat from her body and had to take it with her to the hospital.
The Sheriff said that the house was cluttered but not in a big mess, but still there was an overpowering smell obviously coming from the bathroom. She had open sores on her butt, which made the toilet seat stick to her backside. They said it appeared likely that she sat on the toilet seat continually for at least a month without bathing or changing her clothes.
Her boyfriend (McFarren) continued to have conversations with her all while in the bathroom. McFarren works at an antique store and said he has been taking care of the woman for the 16 years that they have lived together. He insisted that he tried to coax her out of the bathroom everyday, but she always would reply, ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
Doctors at the Wichita hospital told the boyfriend an infection in her legs has damaged her nerves and may leave her in a wheelchair. At this time she is said to be in fair condition.
The Sheriff is recommending charges be brought against the boyfriend for mistreatment of a dependent adult.
Now here is the problem with this...Why do they need to arrest this guy? Obviously this guy has as many problems as she does. They both need to have some counseling, not the stress of possible jail time.
Here is the most bizarre story that I’ve heard for the day. Apparently a 35 year old woman from Ness City, Kansas, sat on her boyfriends toilet for two years, and become stuck to the seat as her skin literally grew around the seat.
While she sat there in the bathroom, her boyfriend brought her food and water. He begged for her to come out, but he apparently never thought to call for help until Feb. 27. When Sheriff Bryan Whipple tried to remove her, she stated that nothing was wrong, and she didn’t want to leave. They finally persuaded her to go the hospital, after they pried the toilet seat off the commode with a pry bar. They were unable to remove the seat from her body and had to take it with her to the hospital.
The Sheriff said that the house was cluttered but not in a big mess, but still there was an overpowering smell obviously coming from the bathroom. She had open sores on her butt, which made the toilet seat stick to her backside. They said it appeared likely that she sat on the toilet seat continually for at least a month without bathing or changing her clothes.
Her boyfriend (McFarren) continued to have conversations with her all while in the bathroom. McFarren works at an antique store and said he has been taking care of the woman for the 16 years that they have lived together. He insisted that he tried to coax her out of the bathroom everyday, but she always would reply, ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
Doctors at the Wichita hospital told the boyfriend an infection in her legs has damaged her nerves and may leave her in a wheelchair. At this time she is said to be in fair condition.
The Sheriff is recommending charges be brought against the boyfriend for mistreatment of a dependent adult.
Now here is the problem with this...Why do they need to arrest this guy? Obviously this guy has as many problems as she does. They both need to have some counseling, not the stress of possible jail time.
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