The Mental Health Association of Portland, along with Metro, have created an online survey to collect opinions and ideas about a new memorial space at Lone Fir Cemetery.

Input from the mental health community is being solicited NOW.

Click Here to take our survey

One public meeting has already been held to collect community input. Two more are scheduled.

Learn more about the Lone Fir Cemetery HERE

Learn about the neighborhood’s process to date HERE

Contact Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery HERE

You can also contact Metro by mail to share your opinion or to inquire about the plans at Lone Fir. Contact Janet Bebb at Metro, 600 NE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR 97232-2736

From the Portland Mercury, September 25 2008

Soon, up to 15 people who have committed violent crimes will be moving into one house in the Ardenwald-Johnson Creek neighborhood, on the edge of Southeast Portland. Neighbors in Ardenwald-Johnson Creek are, understandably, upset.

The controversial new residents are the future patients of Balfour House, a planned healthcare facility that will transition mentally ill people back into society, including some found “guilty except for insanity” of violent crimes. Milwaukie residents and city officials fought all year to keep the facility out of their neighborhood, but last week settled a lawsuit, clearing the path for the project.

Since the State of Oregon aims to build 400 more beds in community transition facilities across the state by 2011, the controversy in Ardenwald-Johnson Creek may become common as more mentally ill people find homes in the middle of Portland neighborhoods.

“People who have mental illness: Nobody in this neighborhood is against them being here,” says Ardenwald-Johnson Creek resident Matthew Rinker. “But it’s those who have a history of committing these violent acts that we’re worried about.”

The proposed Balfour House would be a 15-bed treatment facility outfitted with security cameras, a high wall, and 24-hour staff. That’s not enough to make Rinker and other neighbors feel safe, since staff is not allowed to restrain patients who try to leave, only call police.

“It’s sort of a dance that the state and agencies do, but the law is really clear,” explains Jason Renaud, an advocate for the Mental Health Association of Portland. “People with mental illness are disabled people.” Banning disabled people, including those who have committed crimes, from living in certain neighborhoods violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Renaud explains.

Not just anyone can live at Balfour House: People placed in the facility would be rigorously screened by the state’s Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB), which takes input from the patients’ psychiatrists as well as from victims. Only 2.2 percent of PSRB-approved patients re-offend, compared with over 30 percent of all criminals, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. But Ardenwald-Johnson Creek neighbors have a hard time believing that mentally ill patients who have committed crimes should be protected by the ADA and can live safely in their community.

Mental health advocates argue that the laws are in place for good reason: If residential neighborhoods could ban the mentally disabled from their midst, the population could become ghettoized in other areas.

“The wiser route is to have houses in different communities where people could be better integrated into society,” says Renaud.

Another secure treatment facility, Faulkner Place in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood at SE 134th and Powell, also works with mentally disabled people, including one criminal. While Elaine Medcalf, secretary of the Powellhurst-Gilbert Neighborhood Association, says she has never heard of any problems arising from the facility, the fear of mental patients wandering away is somewhat founded: Faulkner Place have called the police to report 19 different “walk-offs” since 2006. In every case, police returned the patient without incident.

“Since often people who really need mental health care don’t get treatment, they probably already have people who are mentally ill walking around their neighborhood,” points out Patty Wentz, spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services.

METRO is our regional government which in part manages pioneer cemeteries, including the Lone Fir Cemetery, located in inner SE Portland.

For over one hundred years Lone Fir Cemetery has been the resting place for hundreds of patients of the Hawthorne Asylum. These graves are unmarked, relatively unknown, and until recently were rudely covered with an access road, a county building and a parking lot.

DOWNLOAD & READ – The Lone Fir Cemetery and the Asylum Patients of Dr. James C. Hawthorne – PDF

These structures have been removed, and now METRO is deciding how to use the area and it needs the help of persons most interested in the welfare and dignity of persons with mental illness.

A memorial garden for Chinese persons buried at Lone Fir is well underway.

Persons with mental illness and members of the public are invited to participate in three idea-gathering sessions with METRO planners and designers. Each session will be alike – please plan to attend at least one. Information from these three sessions will be tabulated and used in the creative process of designing a suitable memorial.

September 25 at 10 AM at Cascadia’s Garlington Center, 3034 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Portland. See a MAP.
Public transportation: Bus 6 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd

October 3 at 11:30 AM at Lifeworks NW’s Gresham Clinic, 400 NE 7th Street, Gresham. See a MAP
Public transportation: Blue MAX line or buses to Gresham Central Transit Center

October 10 at 2:30 PM at Central City Concern’s 8 NW 8 Building, at 8 NW 8th Avenue, downtown. See a MAP.
Public transportation: Bus 20 Burnside / Stark

An online survey will be available in October. Watch this site for updates.

EXTRA – Lone Fir Cemetery and the Asylum Patients of Dr. James Hawthorne
EXTRA – Oregon State Hospital Patient Remains

From the Oregonian, September 18 2008

Jaws dropped in the Legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee today when budget-writers heard that the Oregon State Hospital needs 1,000 additional staff for the new mental hospital in Salem.

The estimated price: $124 million.

The Legislature had agreed to spend $458.1 million to replace the dilapidated 125-year-old state mental hospital in Salem and build a second hospital in Junction City. But news that the 620-bed Salem hospital requires a 67 percent increase in staff — to about 2,500 positions — came as a surprise.

The state will use bonds to finance construction of the two hospitals. The money for additional nurses, therapists and support staff would have to come from the state’s general tax fund. That means there would be less available to spend on schools, health care, prisons, parks and other needs.

EXTRA – Budget report for House Bill 5031, refered to in the article above. This is the only location of this document online.
EXTRA – DHS to seek $124 million for hospital, Salem Statesman Journal, September 18 2008
EXTRA – 1,000 new staffers for state hospital? Whew!, editorial from the Oregonian, September 20, 2008

OUR COMMENT – The Mental Health Association of Portland has opposed the new building construction of the Oregon State Hospital for over two years, and our opposition has fallen on deaf ears keenly attuned to civil service unions and institutional advocates. Our prediction – before the dust settles the “rehabilitation” of this boondoggle will cost Oregonians a billion dollars.

The proposal to attach 1000 new civil service staff to the state hospital seems particularly unimaginative. For the very high staff cost of $124 million proposed, each of Oregon’s 36 counties could have a team of clinicians and social workers trained to intervene with persons with acute mental illness, reducing hospitalization, reducing stress to the criminal justice system and families, reducing the chance of harm to the patient.

Given a year to get up and running, this well proven model, called Assertive Community Treatment, can significantly reduce long-term inpatient hospitalization thereby saving both lives and money. It’s discouraging Oregon’s mental health bureaucrats have frittered away political attention and bowed to union advocates instead of addressing patient needs. We hope with a new administration at the state mental health division, more thoughtful consideration of the systemic problem will start.

Cascadia’s peer-driven monthly newsletter is Eyes and Ears, 28 pages filled with resources and news clips about politics, policy and play.

Download and read the September 2008 issue.

Included in the September issue -

* The County’s Mental Health / Cascadia Update
* Lone Fir Cemetery and the Asylum Patients of Dr. James Hawthorne
* County pieces together new mental health facility
* The Community Mental Health Services Improvement Act
* Hooper Detox gets financial support

The Art Studio of the Minds Eye Closes – By Tom Trepper

Great idea; difficult road. In America everything boils down to money. The Art Studio of the Mind’s Eye is no exception.

The Art Studio of the Mind’s Eye has no choice but to close temporarily until new funding comes in.

The Art Studio has traveled from Renaissance to Garlington to its present location on SE 28th street between Steele and Holgate Street.

To picture the transition, the Studio has become peer operated, yes, without much regard from Cascadia. Peer run, a workshop area large enough to support a bunch of folks, the Gallery, ample lighting, a bathroom and sink for cleanup and a following of starting artists to rather skilled painters and mixed media artists.

The enthusiasm, the interest, and the pride of emerging artists has answered many questions and found many successes.

If things do work out then there may be the reopening of the Art Studio of the Mind’s Eye. We only hope this comes true for all the artists.

From the Portland Tribune, September 18 2008

Law’s intent debated as DHS declines to show data on specific facilities

When Oregon mental health advocates successfully lobbied for a bill last legislative session that would require hospitals to report to state officials how often they forcibly restrained and secluded psychiatric patients, the advocates thought they had won a major victory.

Finally, they said, they would be able to compare hospitals’ use of these controversial practices.

But state Department of Human Services officials have decided not to release the hospital-by-hospital data. And even the chairwoman of the Oregon Senate committee that passed the bill says DHS isn’t complying with the Legislature’s wishes.

In about three weeks, DHS is scheduled to release the restraint and seclusion numbers sent in to the agency by hospitals around the state.

But DHS officials have decided to collect all the hospitals’ restraint and seclusion data and release it as one number covering all hospitals. Mike Morris, who has overseen the bill’s implementation for DHS, says that’s how the agency reads the new law.

“We were trying to be true to the legislative directive in the bill,” he says.

But Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which passed the bill onto the full Legislature for approval, said keeping hospital-specific data from the public is definitely not being true to the Legislature’s intent.

“I don’t think anybody ever interpreted this as something the hospitals could hide behind,” Burdick says. “What use is the information to the public if it doesn’t name the hospitals?”

Restraint and seclusion are controversial but occasionally necessary methods for hospital workers to deal with out-of-control patients, most of whom are psychiatric patients.

Restraint can involve physical force such as hospital workers holding a patient down to the ground, or using leather or plastic cuffs that tie a patient to a bed. Seclusion usually refers to putting a patient in an isolated, locked room, often for long periods.

In August 2007, 50-year-old psychiatric patient Glenn Shipman Jr. died at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center in Northeast Portland while being restrained by health care workers who held him face down against the floor for at least 10 minutes.

After Shipman’s death, local mental health activists called for hospitals to reveal how frequently they restrained and secluded patients. Senate Bill 265 instructs DHS to collect restraint and seclusion data from each hospital and make it publicly available.

Transparency spurs change

National experts on mental health say that in other states where hospital-by-hospital restraint and seclusion data has been released, the numbers of restraints and seclusions dropped. Hospitals, they say, become more conscious of the public and state officials comparing their rates, and that awareness changes hospital policy.

But even after the Senate bill was passed, hospitals continued to lobby DHS to keep their individual restraint and seclusion numbers private, according to DHS’s Morris.

DHS officials, Morris says, did what state agencies are supposed to do before implementing new laws – they formed a committee to write the administrative rules that would guide implementation. While some mental health advocates were on the committee, it was dominated by officials from hospitals around the state. The will of that committee was clear, Morris says.

“The hospitals were adamant they wanted it to be aggregate as opposed to identifying specific hospitals,” Morris says.

The hospitals, Morris says, were concerned that the public might misinterpret the data showing how many seclusions and restraints were done at each hospital – possibly not realizing that small hospitals could appear dangerous if just one or two incidents were reported.

Bob Joondeph, executive director of Disability Rights Oregon, helped write the bill, according to Burdick. And Joondeph says the language in the bill, which says “aggregate data” would be made public, meant that individual cases would not be released. The idea, Joondeph says, was that each hospital’s data would be released in aggregate – not one number covering all the hospitals.

Data can be powerful tool

Beckie Child, president of Mental Health America of Oregon, says DHS’s unwillingness to provide hospital-by-hospital data reflects an attitude that mental health patients are second-class consumers.

“Tell me any other procedure that has the consequence of such potential abuse, that there’s not a stronger reporting mechanism than what we have,” Child says. “If they’re releasing information about heart procedures and other medical procedures, they can release information about restraint and seclusion.”

Knowing how much each hospital is using restraint and seclusion provides advocates an important tool as they serve as watchdogs of hospitals, Child says.

“If we can look at data and see there’s a hospital doing poorly, we can put pressure on administrators at that hospital, or elsewhere, to take a look at what’s going on,” Child says.

Told of Morris’ comment that DHS was trying to follow the Legislature’s wishes, Burdick said, “That’s disingenuous. It’s very clear the legislative intent was to protect the identity of the patients.”

Jason Renaud, a longtime Portland mental health activist, said that DHS’s decision was all about politics in a state where the hospital lobby is one of the strongest.

“Our voices certainly weren’t heard or respected in the committee process,” Renaud said. “That’s what lobbying is all about.”

When told of the comments by Renaud, Burdick and Joondeph, Patty Wentz, a spokeswoman for DHS, said DHS is open to reconsidering its policies.

“If the rules aren’t right and they do not meet legislative intent, we’ll change them,” Wentz said.

From the Portland Tribune, September 18 2008

Starting Oct. 1 – more than two years after the death of James Chasse Jr. following a fracas with the Portland Police – the officers involved finally will get their day in court, so to speak.

Officer Christopher Humphreys and Sgt. Kyle Nice will appear before a police-bureau disciplinary review board.

And if you think that normal cop-shop politics is messy, wait until you get a load of this one.

First, you have the dollar-bill politics: If officers get disciplined for misconduct during the Chasse family’s pending lawsuit against the city, it could fuel a larger payout.

Second, and pushing in the other direction, there’s public-perception politics: namely, that this is the most controversial Portland police-involved fatality since Kendra James.

Finally, there’s City Hall politics these days. Chief Rosie Sizer and Mayor Tom Potter have been waging a subtle PR campaign to prevent Commissioner Randy Leonard from becoming the next police commissioner. And they know that whatever they do in this disciplinary case, Leonard – who has been vocal about the Chasse case – will not hesitate to find fault with it.

From the Portland Mercury, September 17 2008

25 protesters from the Portland Coalition Against Poverty have been marching around the downtown justice center this afternoon with signs like this:

“We’re here to hold the police accountable for their actions through community power,” said organizer Patrick Lamson.

Behind him, protesters chanted things like “Chasse died, the police lied,” “End the silence, stop cop violence,” not to mention “I smell grease, I smell bacon…”

4:00 is time for shift change at the cop shop, so they got a few glares.

Generally I’d say the mood was determined, if a little defeated. If that’s possible. I mean, is it possible to be determinedly defeated? I don’t know. I do know that two years is an awfully long time to wait for an internal affairs investigation to be completed while the cops involved continue to walk the streets. But that doesn’t really make me feel any different from the protesters. If not worse.

From the Oregonian, September 16 2008

Mental health – Advocates remember James P. Chasse Jr., who died in police custody

To mark the second anniversary of James P. Chasse Jr.’s death, the Mental Health Association of Portland Tuesday wrote in chalk outside Portland’s Central Precinct the names of a dozen people who were either killed by officers in the region or who died in custody.

The names include six who died in Portland. The others died after confrontations with police or deputies in Silverton, Scappoose, Sandy, Gresham and Clackamas and Washington counties.

“Our goal is to remember the people who died and acknowledge that police work is difficult, but we also need to have accountability and trust between the officers and people with mental illness,” said Jason Renaud, a volunteer with the association who also was a friend of Chasse.

While the association praised several steps that have been taken in the past two years to increase services to the mentally ill and improve police training, its members are dismayed that the Portland Police Bureau hasn’t completed its internal inquiry into Chasse’s death on Sept. 17, 2006, nor disciplined any of the three officers involved.

In fact, the bureau has since hired one of them — former Multnomah County sheriff’s Deputy Bret Burton, who was sworn in as a Portland officer on June 14, 2007.

Chasse, 42, who suffered from schizophrenia, died from blunt force trauma to his chest after police struggled to take him into custody in the Pearl District. Police thought Chasse might have been on drugs after they saw him shuffling on a street corner and then possibly urinating behind a tree. When they approached him, police said, Chasse ran. Two Portland officers and the sheriff’s deputy chased him and knocked him to the ground. Chasse suffered multiple rib fractures, some of which punctured his left lung. He had no drugs in his possession.

Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer said the internal investigation to determine whether the officers followed policy was caught in a backlog of internal affairs cases, partly due to inadequate staffing and the need to interview people from multiple agencies. Yet she called the two-year wait “disappointing.” The completed internal investigation is scheduled to be presented to a use-of-force review board in early October.

Sizer said the bureau hired Burton because he passed the department’s “rigorous” hiring standards, but called the matter a personnel decision she couldn’t discuss further.

Officers entering Portland police headquarters Tuesday couldn’t miss the bright blue chalk out front that read, “I will remember James Chasse.”

Sizer said she understood the mental health advocacy group’s desire to keep attention on the case. “We all realize the Chasse incident was enormously painful for just about everyone involved and the community,” the chief said.

Chasse’s death revealed gaps in procedures because no one recognized the significant injuries he had suffered until it was too late. Ambulance paramedics said his vital signs were normal, and a Portland police officer signed for him, declining transport to a hospital. Officer Christopher Humphreys and Burton drove Chasse to the Multnomah County Detention Center. A jail nurse looked through the cell door window and told police the jail would not book Chasse, but did not call for an ambulance.

Portland officers placed him in a patrol car, and he died on the way to Adventist Hospital, after appearing to suffer a seizure and losing consciousness. Police say they were headed to Adventist because that’s the hospital the bureau contracts with for prisoners, but Chasse’s family argues the officers should have taken him to a closer hospital.

The Chasse family filed a wide-ranging federal lawsuit naming the city, the county, the ambulance company, the police chief, the mayor, the officers, paramedics and jail nurses. A trial is scheduled for April. The lawsuit contends that the officers violated Chasse’s civil rights and that the city has a pattern of failing to discipline officers involved in use of deadly force. The suit also demands policy changes to reduce excessive force by officers and provide people in custody with appropriate medical care.

The suit argues that Chasse fell victim to an unwritten city policy by Portland officials of “cleaning up the streets,” or trying to remove “undesirables” from downtown.

Mental health advocates praised the steps that have been taken since Chasse’s death: The City Council spent $250,000 for more Project Respond mental health specialists to respond with police directly to crises. The city approved $500,000 to mandate Crisis Intervention Training for all Portland patrol officers and sergeants.

To date, 557 Portland police sergeants and officers have completed the training, with 55 more scheduled to complete the course by the end of the year. Next year, Crisis Intervention Training will be incorporated into the advanced academy for all recruits, said Liesbeth Gerritsen, a mental health expert who was hired to coordinate the training.

Under a new policy, officers are directed not to transport those seriously injured in patrol cars.
“Since Chasse’s death” Renaud said, “no similar incidents have occurred in Portland. This remains the enduring tribute to James.”

Yet all agree that an important component still missing is the lack of a crisis triage center that would offer round-the-clock psychiatric and medical services. County officials are still working to determine who would run it and how to pay for it.

The following names were chalked onto the sidewalk outside the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct and the Multnomah County Justice Center on September 16 2007

Andrew “A.J.” Hanlon, shot July 30, 2008, by a Silverton police officer after a confrontation on a residential street corner.

Glenn Shipman, died Aug. 26, 2007, three days after Scappoose police used a Taser on him. Authorities said he suffocated while being held in a restraint position by hospital staff. The medical examiner said the Taser did not contribute to his death.

James P. Chasse Jr., died in the custody of Portland police on Sept. 17, 2006.

Lukas Glenn, shot Sept. 16, 2006, by Washington County sheriff’s deputies after he failed to drop a knife and then turned to go into his house.

Fouad Kaady, shot Sept. 8, 2005, by a Sandy police officer and a Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy after a confrontation in which he failed to respond to commands or shocks from a stun gun.

Joyce Staudenmaier, shot Sept. 3, 2004, by a Clackamas County sheriff’s sergeant when she charged police with a knife.

James Jahar Perez, shot March 28, 2004, by Portland police as he sat in his car during a traffic stop. The officer said he thought Perez was pulling a weapon out of his pocket. He was unarmed.

Kendra James, shot May 5, 2003, by a Portland police officer when she tried to drive away from a traffic stop. Raymond Youngberg Jr., shot on July 9, 2001, by Portland police after he fired a revolver at officers who were trying to question him.

Jose Santis Mejia Poot, shot April 1, 2001, by Portland police at a mental health treatment center when he advanced toward officers with a metal rod he had ripped from a door.

Patricia Sweany, shot Dec. 14, 1996, by a Portland police officer after she pulled a gun and shot at a paramedic who was trying to help her.

Janet Smith, shot Aug. 22, 1994, by Gresham police when she came at them holding a large knife.

Dickie Dow, who died of asphyxiation as Portland police struggled with him on October 20, 1998.

From the Portland Mercury, September 16 2008

Officers involved: Still employed by the Police Bureau. Indeed, former Sheriff’s deputy Brett Burton has since switched jobs and is now working, too, for the Portland cops.

Internal Affairs Investigation into their actions: Still incomplete. Two years tomorrow.

Peaceful Demonstration: Outside central precinct on SW 2nd, until 6pm today, organized by the Mental Health Association of Portland.

Less Peaceful Demonstration: Planned tomorrow outside central precinct by the Portland Coalition against poverty, at 3:30pm. “Come out tomorrow and show the cops we won’t take their lies lying down,” say the organizers.

Documentary about Chasse’s life and death: In production.

Benefit concert featuring Calvin Johnson, Tender Forever, and Ah Holly Faml’y: Tomorrow night at 8pm, Wonder Ballroom. Tickets at Wonder Ballroom, Reading Frenzy and Jackpot Records, Mississippi Records and Ticketmaster.

From OPB.com, September 16 2008

About a dozen people gathered outside Portland’s central police precinct Tuesday, to mark the anniversary of the death of James Chasse. He was a Portland man with mental illness who died after a struggle with police two years ago.

James Chasse was in Northwest Portland when officers thought they saw him urinating in public.

They called him. He ran. Eyewitnesses — and one cop — say officer Christopher Humphreys tackled Chasse and fell on him.

Humphreys remembers it differently. He says he pushed Chasse and then flew over him. Either way, there was a struggle and Chasse ended up with 26 broken bones and a punctured lung.

He was taken to jail, and then to the hospital on the advice of a nurse, but died on the way.

Jason Renaud is a volunteer with the Mental Health Association of Portland.

Jason Renaud: “James Chasse died because of a series of mistakes caused by the Portland Police Bureau, by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department, by the Multnomah County Jail, by the Multnomah County Health Department, which manages the health division here at the jail, by American Medical Rescue, which provided the ambulance service and by Tri-Met. Those are the parties named in the suit by the family.”

That lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in February.

Chasse’s death precipitated calls in Portland for health workers to deal with those with mental illness, rather than cops. Indeed Portland Police now put officers through a 40 hour crisis intervention course – to teach them how to look for signs of mental illness, and how to calm a situation rather than escalate it.

The idea has been applauded. But it hasn’t widely caught on.

Tracy DuMass took the train from Eugene to attend the memorial. She wants her local cops to get the same training.

Tracy DuMass: “I would say they’re moving in Eugene, but I’d say slowly. Too slowly for me. Recently, my friends neighbor was tasered and it was without cause we believe and these instances need to stop.”

She says the neighbor was mentally ill and needed help, not 50,000 volts.

Meanwhile, local filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, is making a movie about James Chasse. He hopes the film will reveal the person behind the headlines.

KBOO will run a 30 minute overview of what happened to James Chasse on the anniversary of James’ death on September 17. The production is by Erin Yanke. You can hear it here first. Thanks Erin!

LISTEN Anniversary of the death of James Chasse, KBOO (click on the graphical arrow to start audio play.)

Join us tomorrow, Tuesday September 16 for a peaceful non-violent demonstration at Central Precinct and the Multnomah County Jail, from Noon until 6 PM.

And join us Wednesday September 17 at 8 PM for a benefit concert at Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell Street. Calvin Johnson, Tender Forever and Ah Holly Faml’y will play for all ages. This concert is a benefit fundraiser for Alien Boy, a documentary film about the life and death of James Chasse.

From the KBOO site -

September 17th, 2008 is the second anniversary of the death of James Chasse, Jr. Jim Jim, an early fixture in the Portland Punk Scene, was a schizophrenic man living independently in Downtown Portland, and the victim of a brutal and fatal police beating.

Two years ago James Chasse was attacked and beaten to death by Multnomah County Sheriff deputy Bret Burton, Portland Police officer Christopher Humphreys and Portland Police Sargent Kyle Nice. on NW 13th and Everett before a dozen eyewitnesses. Chasse was not suspected of a crime, he had not committed a crime, and had no criminal record. The officers beat him, kicked him, tasered him repeatedly, and broke 17 ribs and his shoulder.

Chasse was sent by paramedics to jail, where the jail nurses refused to admit him. He died en route to a hospital in the back seat of a police car driven by the same officers who had earlier beaten him.

The Multnomah County medical examiner ruled that Chasse died of blunt-force trauma to the chest, but declared the death “accidental.” A grand jury later cleared the officers of criminal wrongdoing. The officers involved are all back on duty.

This interview is with Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland, and film director Brian Lindstrom , about James Chasse, and the film project about his life, called Alien Boy. It also includes excerpts from the Public Memorial Service held for Chasse in October, 2006.

The film’s title comes from a song written about Chasse in 1979 by his friend, Greg Sage, lead singer of the seminal Portland punk band, the Wipers. He was also the subject of the song Nothing to Fear by Portland’s first all female punk band, the Neo Boys.

About the film Alien Boy
What Happened to James Chasse
About the Mental Health Association of Portland
About Alien Boy director Brian Lindstrom
Thanks to Reading Frenzy

Opinion editorial from the Daily Astorian, September 12 2008

Shabby patchwork of safety nets makes law officers and counselors intervenors

Last week’s horrific deadly attacks in Skagit County, Wash., are a prime example of how America fails to help many mentally ill people while also protecting society from the rare few who are truly dangerous.

The six Skagit victims were very nearly preceded by two more in similar circumstances just across the Columbia River in Ocean Park, Wash., where on Aug. 28 a deranged man attempted to slash the throat of a customer standing at an ATM machine before also stabbing the customer’s son.

Although Oregon’s laws differ somewhat from Washington’s, the basic outlines of this issue are much the same across the nation. With a health care system perpetually teetering on the brink of failure for even the most understandable of physical ailments, those suffering complex and scary mental illnesses are poorly served by a shabby patchwork of safety nets.

Far too often, law officers end up in the awful position of being the front-line counselors and intervenors for people who have been tossed back out on the streets by the revolving doors of our faulty mental-health systems. In Skagit County, this cost a deputy her life.

All this is not for want of funding. An analysis of Washington state spending by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found Washington spends at least $1.8 billion a year dealing with various aspects of mental illness. But of that staggering sum, more than two-thirds ends up being spent on prisons, police, homeless shelters and other social services. These essentially only clean up some of the mess left by our failure to keep people out of crisis in the first place.

Here are just a few of ways in which we fail the mentally ill and ourselves:

• Although a lot of serious illnesses begin in young adulthood, this is just when many lose access to their parents’ insurance coverage. All Americans deserve health coverage at every age, insurance that equally covers physical and mental ailments. Early and consistent intervention is key to minimizing the harsh damage caused by ever-more-intense cycles of psychosis.

• Privacy rules are too restrictive, shutting the door on family participation in the treatment of loved ones. In Washington, this situation is made worse by laws that don’t allow families or family doctors to make involuntarily commitments. This is left up to a small cadre of overworked county-designated mental health professionals.

• Programs and state funds must be retargeted toward giving sufferers decent and well-supervised long-term community housing. This will keep the sickest patients out of trouble, giving them a fair shot at having reasonably full and rewarding lives.

• States should fund many more beds for people experiencing mental crises once they are swept up in the criminal justice system. There is now a wrenching shortage of such facilities.

America prides itself on being the best nation on earth. Taking better care of our most vulnerable citizens would go a fair distance toward making this boast a reality. Doing that would improve all our lives.

From the Portland Mercury, September 11 2008

Portland is on track to get a pilot mental health court by the end of June, with the aim of reducing repeat offenses by those whose illegal behavior is primarily the result of mental illness.

The project is good news for those like Public Defender Rachel Bredfeldt, who watched one of her clients have a nervous breakdown at the Multnomah County Courthouse on SW 4th two weeks ago. Bredfeldt’s client, who was already suffering from mental illness before her April 16 court date for a low-level misdemeanor, broke down crying before falling down on the courtroom floor to pray. She eventually had to be escorted out of court by the judge—after she refused to let anyone else help her—to an ambulance waiting outside.

“Court is such a stressful setting for everyone,” says Bredfeldt. “This was just one of those examples of criminal prosecution making a defendant’s mental illness even worse.”

The mentally ill woman, whose episode brought the busy court docket to a standstill for over an hour, had her case set for prosecution another day. Bredfeldt, who estimates she has to defend two clients a week who are suffering from severe enough mental illness that going to court is “not the best way to deal with their issues,” does not hold high hopes for her client’s next appearance in court.

“There’s a whole population of people with mental health problems who recycle through the system,” says District Attorney Mike Schrunk, who along with public defenders like Bredfeldt, and representatives from the state and Multnomah County, has been working hard to make the mental health court a reality.

“The idea is for a court to cope with the mental health aspect of the problem, so that the public is better off, the police are better off, and the person is better off,” Schrunk says.

The details: Chief Criminal Court Judge Julie Frantz has secured jail diversion funding from the state’s Department of Human Services. The money will pay for three qualified mental health professionals to work with a dedicated judge. The team’s goal is to hook mentally ill people up with medication and counseling instead of prosecuting them for low-level crimes.

The pilot project will initially have a capacity of 75 people, who will be drawn from those already on probation. To qualify, participants will need to have a history of treatment for an “axis one” mental illness like schizophrenia, paranoia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. When such a person is arrested for a new crime, they will be screened within 20 hours of arrest before arraignment, where they’ll escape charges for that crime if they agree, after consulting with a lawyer, to go into mental health court.

“Why this court can be so successful is through developing a strong bond between the judge and individuals,” says Frantz. “This is about intense supervision to ensure compliance with a plan, and about having a dialogue.”

Judge Richard Baldwin is expected to run the court. He’ll be able to set conditions for those taking part, which—on top of medication and counseling—may include things like maintaining employment, staying in school, or keeping the court informed of where the person is living. The time under mental health court supervision will last as long as the sentence for the original crime for which the person was arrested—for example, a class B misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of six months.

Frantz and Schrunk plan to announce more details of the plan to the public soon, but in the meantime activists in the mental health community are anticipating it with optimism.

“If we actually provided effective, outcome-based treatment on demand for mental health clients in Oregon, you could probably shut down one hospital and two prisons within two years,” says Jason Renaud with the Mental Health Association of Portland. “This is a step in the right direction.”

Bredfeldt is pleased, too, even though the new court will be too late to help her client this time.

“It only hurts the community when these people cycle in and out of the system,” she says.

OUR COMMENT – Congratulations go to Judge Julie Frantz who has pushed for a mental health court in Multnomah County for over a decade. Regardless of the actual court, the process has educated all persons associated with the court process, cops, jailers, prosecutors, defenders, health care administrator, mental health clinicians, reporters, court administrators and court watchers, that untreated and under-treated mental illness and addiction are a common experience for those arrested and tried.

The question for the court now is – how many persons can this boutique court serve per month? Five? Ten? Fifteen? And will those numbers of persons accumulate on the case rolls of the new hired clinical workers, or be expected to transfer to a starved agency for equal services? In both the short and the long run – what difference will it make aside from making jail space available for another person with mental illness and addiction to occupy?