Posts Tagged ‘Anita Alvarez’
Cook County Jail Staff Daily Commit Assault with a Deadly Weapon
Jerry Brown, the Attorney General of California has indicted a doctor, a nurse, and a pharmacist for elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon for forcing high doses of psychotropic medications on Alzeimer’s and other patients to shut them up and keep them in a zombie like state. Three patients died due to results of these wrongful acts.
In Illinois it is illegal to involuntarily force psychotropic drugs like Haldol, Zyprexa, Ativan and even Benedryl by injection on patients unless they are an immediate danger to their own life or someone else’s life and then a court order must be obtained to continue the medication involuntarily. Also Haldol has very unpleasant side affects in a large proportion of patients including akisthesia (an inability to stay still – the person has to get up from bed and from sitting down – so the guards will think they are uncooperative and will assault the person even more), dystonia (muscle spasms, involuntary movements, tongue handing out, inability to control muscles of speech so slurred or difficult speech, if it happens with muscles of larynx the person will spasm down the airway and suffocate).
Cook CountyDept. of Corrections (Cook County Jail or CCDOC) officers constantly request nurses to give such medication to shut up complaints by inmates, to quiet them even though they are not harming anyone and are locked in their cells, and in retaliation for disagreements with the officers. Nurses call doctors on the phone and ask for prescriptions and the doctors illegally prescribe the medication without examining the patients. Even if they examine the patients, doctors at CCDOC under the direction of the Director of Psychiatry, Dr. David Carrington, continue to violate ethical standards and the law with such prescriptions when they are not needed and when there has not been adequate evaluations or diagnoses that require such medication. Even if the medications may be indicated, they cannot be given involuntarily except under strict guidelines. Haldol is a dangerous drug that should not be used like a pair of handcuffs and the person must be carefully monitored. It is a drug of last resort, not a weapon of restraint. Anyone using it as a restraint tool should be arrested.
I complained to the Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commissions Human Rights Authority Branch that by law must investigate complaints of violations of the Illinois Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code. They sustained my complaint that psychotropic drugs were being given illegally to inmates to shut them up. After the HRA warned Dr. Carrington that this illegal practice must stop, Dr. Carrington and his staff with assistance of the officers are continuing to violate the law. Each act of forcing psychotropic drugs on an inmate/patient without proper diagnosis and without documentation that they are a danger to their own life or the life of others is a class A misdemeanor.
For more details about this “Haldol Menace” see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA2S-oOOJyY&NR=1
A second investigation concerning the illegal involuntary drugging of Mr. More is occurring right now.
Dr. Carrington should be disciplined, his license revoked, the nurse’s involved licenses revoked, and the officers retrained to understand the law and how to properly help in the mental health care of mentally ill persons without assaulting them.
If this was California, Dr. Carrington would be charged with abuse of patients and assault with a deadly weapon and face up to 11 years in prison. Why is State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez doing nothing? Why is the United States Attorney who came to the same conclusion about this medical battery and malpractice doing nothing? We need a public outcry, legislative hearings, and indictments and action by the Illinois Department of Professional Responsibility.
Please complain to:
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, Cook County State’s Attorney, 50 W. Washington, Room 500, Chicago, IL 60602,
Patrick Fitzgerald and Joan Laser, Asstant United State’s Attorneys at 219 S. Dearborn, 5 th Floor, Chicago, IL 60604, and
the press.
This barbaric medical battery and abuse must stop! Injection of these drugs into asthmatics or others without careful review of their medical records and careful diagnosis is malpractice, assault with a deadly weapon, and medical battery. It may cause death in certain persons (fatal laryngospasm in asthmatics) and permanent brain injury. Haldol has now been documented to cause brain atrophy in long term use and has a half life of 8 days in the brain – and leads to serious complications in at least half of people it is given to.
Sheriff Staff are Puppets of Corruption – Keep Corrupt Machine Alive
A person asked on line about the fights at the jail where inmates stabbed each other. “With todays riot I think all tax payers should call Sheriff Dart and ask why he refuses to hire more staff as federally mandated, why the E.R.T. (emergency response team) doesn’t search or respond to trouble, why doesnt he fire Director Godinez.”
The answer is not wasting tax-payer dollars on more guards. We need to reduce the jail population to less than 6,000 from its previous high of nearly 11,000. Non-violent offenders should be sentenced to alternatives other than jail that actually benefit society. There are lots of things a sentenced criminal can do as community service other than just picking up garbage, including providing free or reduced services as an employee for the state in almost any job category. Mentally ill convicts, including addicts, should be treated not just jailed so jail does not become a revolving door. There is not even 1/4 the mental health services available to probationers or parolees that are needed. Guards should be required to have a higher level of training, not only in terms of judo, but also in recognizing and de-escalating violence due to mental illness, as well as not treating every refusal to do as told as voluntary and requiring force. Mentally ill are often confused and react better and more compliantly with “herding them gently” or backing-off and giving them space, instead of with brute force, which generally will be irrationally resisted. Women who have been raped or assaulted may go into flashbacks and not even realize where they are, as they are reliving in their mind the brutal attack. Guards need to be taught to control without brutality and foul language. This is not a good example. They should be teaching inmates how to resolve conflicts peacefully and civilly not escalate them to violence as the officers often do, because that is what they are trained to do.
Another internet writer stated: “Amen to that, Linda. Why are so many non-violents that could be on house arrest still in jail. And why does the judge get to say “this drug addict is not fit for rehabilitation” without even giving it a try? It baffles me.”
You have to understand Cook Co runs on patronage. You have to have large armies of uneducated workers who vote for you as a candidate, and bring out the vote by acting as poll watchers and bringing people to the polls, especially dead people. Sheriff deputies, Court Clerk staff, DCFS workers, IDOC staff, etc., fullful this role nicely.
To hire such a large army you need to make sure they take long lunches, do only half the job they could so you can hire two for every one employee needed, or campaign on public time. You make your payroll bloated with excess staff. You fire employees who are efficient. You remind employees that if they work to fast they are depriving another person of a job. You promote only those who enforce campaigning and fundraising efforts. You promote incompetents who don’t think for themselves, never questions “authority”, and are loyal to the patronage system.
In order to have lots of guards you need to deny personal recognizance bonds for non-violent (I-Bonds). You need to put people in jail instead of on probation. You need excessive sentences, particularly for drug and non-violent crimes. You need a revolving door of a corrupt parole system and no mental health or drug addiction treatment.
So you need lots of prisoners or you can’t hire lots of guards and keep complaining that you need more guards! That’s the way the machine works to keep the corrupt in office. Guards are used! They are coerced and manipulated and made to think that if they squeal by going to 2111 S. Roosevel FBI office and ask for a duty agent and then provide evidence of corruption, patronage, brutality, medical neglect, excessive force, and fraud, that they will lose their jobs! Guards are fools to cooperate with this corruption. They would have a better job, better working environment, better benefits, if they were trained properly, if they followed the law, and if 10 % of our tax dollars weren’t going into political campaigns, like (“Friends of Madigan) through illegal kickbacks (bribery).
Remember the guards are abused as much as the inmates because they work in crowded unsafe conditions, are improperly trained and encouraged to be sadists, foul-mouthed and vulgar, intolerent, and violent hotheads, and without proper mental health and drug addiction treatment the inmates are dangerous. Guards are simply crazy to keep voting for the same idiots who are USING THEM and demanding 10 % kickbacks (bribes) to their political funds like “Friends of Madigan”. We need a massive grass roots movement, including the guards to vote out of office these criminals including Stroger, Madigan (Lisa & Michael), Dart, the Daleys, Beavers, Burkes, Jones, Steeles, Lipinskys etc., and their puppets. Political office in Illinois needs to stop being an inherited oligarchy. We simply have to help the FBI and U.S. Attorney take down King Richard Thompson, his Lords Madigans, Daleys, Burkes, Beavers, etc., the Sheriff of Nottingham Dart (previously Sheahan), and his high executioner Alvarez (previously Divine).
Anyone who wishes to help me do this – citizens and officers alike – you can even help in anonymous ways – e-mail me at picepil@aol.com.
