Jared Lee Loughner: "That beautiful day our mental health system failed us."
             
                   (Patricia Maisch, November 07, 2012)

On January 08, 2011, a very young, untreated schizophrenic man opened fire with a 9mm handgun on a crowd that had gathered in NW Tucson, AZ, in order to meet with former US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Jared Lee Loughner's intent was to assassinate Giffords, and while he did gravely wound her, she survived the attack, while six others died. After almost two full years of procedural activities designed to see that Loughner be held accountable for his actions with little to no regard for the fact that he was in the thick of a psychotic break, yesterday he was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole in a sentencing hearing convened in a Tucson area federal court. 

One of the citizens who was present that day is Patricia Maisch, 61, who effectively disarmed Jared Lee Loughner as several men pounced on him and threw him to ground. As they struggled to hold him down, Maisch joined the scrum on the ground, clinging to the gunman's ankles. Maisch presented testimony yesterday at Loughner's sentencing hearing, and was in fact the first of several involved parties to do so, and she expressed her deep concern for the fact that Lougnher, as with all of the involved parties, deserved far better than this tragic sequence of events. 

       "On that beautiful day, our mental health system failed us."

I commend Ms. Maisch for her forthright courage and perseverance throughout this process as it has played out to date, with particular respect for her compassion and related willingness to express concern about Jared Loughner's welfare. In this case, it has been established that if various state officials, including employees of a local public college, had met their obligations to the citizens of Arizona prior to that point in time when Loughner's state of mind became so acutely distorted that he could no longer maintain control over his delusions, the horrific events of January 8, 2011, would never have occurred. 

This aspect of the matter is 100% on point with my disdain over the fact that the administrators and senior clinicians at The Arizona State Hospital directly contributed to the equally horrific cycle of violence that began on the day that Jesus Rincon Murietta criminally escaped from that facility (this occurred in late May, 2011, but was never reported to the public by Hospital staff), which in turn led to the brutal murder of an innocent young woman named April Mott (in late August, 2011), and that those highly paid state employees (ASH staff) have never been held accountable. (See my April 05, 2012 article: A Modern Horror Story: Wherein the Administrators of the Arizona State Hospital Willfully Put the Safety of the Greater Phoenix, AZ, Community at Risk In Order to Avoid Scrutiny, Leading to the Brutal Murder of a Citizen.  (May 17, 2011-August 30, 2011)

The uproar over the Loughner affair in terms of the state mental health care systems' failure to intervene when they could/should have was heard loud and clear across the nation, and without a doubt, this is directly due to the fact that a United States congresswoman was the central figure in Loughner's actions on January 08, 2011. I recall that day very clearly. I was hospitalized at the time in Tucson's University Medical Center-South Campus, in the psychiatric unit known as Five Northwest, and on the verge of being transferred to The Arizona State Hospital in Phoenix. And I had briefly seen Loughner in Tucson at one time, at an annual (fall 2009) event held on 4th Avenue, not far from the University of Arizona, where he had set up a simple booth designed to express ideas and sentiments about the role of government in contemporary society; I recall this brief meeting quite clearly, because Loughner was clearly unstable even then, albeit not so markedly that I suspected him of being a threat to anyone.   

Little did I know at the time that I would ever hear about that young man again, nor that I would find myself hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital at any time in my future. But I did wind up in such a facility less than a year later. And about six months before the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords, in the summer of 2010, I was hospitalized in another Tucson hospital, St. Mary's Extended Care Unit, where I met and befriended Jesus Rincon Murietta. He was a very nice and intelligent young man, clearly very mentally ill and at times unable to control his behavior, but we had numerous pleasurable conversations, and as stated in earlier articles about this matter, I do consider Jesus a friend. 

That said, I still have very grave concerns about the fact that the brutal death of April Mott in late August, 2011, which occurred following the escape of Jesus Rincon Murietta and the subsequent related cover up of the escape by the administrators of The Arizona State Hospital, received so little attention. The fact is, if I had not put the amount of time and effort that I did into alerting reporter JJ Hensley of the Arizona Republic Newspaper about Jesus' unreported escape, the whole affair would have become just one more murder in the vast sea of crime and violence that dominates the Phoenix metropolitan landscape. (see Hensley's article on-line: "Phoenix victim's family questions why man was freeMental hospital halted search; escapee now a murder suspect."
JJ Hensley, Arizona Republic, Sept. 29, 2011) But it's still very, very sad to consider, because the fact is, April Mott's death did not rate much of a reaction from anybody other than her family…. And me. 

As it turned out (I learned later), Ms. Mott herself had some nature of relationship with the Arizona mental health care system, albeit not so serious that she had needed expended time in a place like ASH; but nonetheless, she shared the same effects of disregard that all mentally ill persons do, wherein even after being brutally slain as a consequence of the state's sole long term public mental health facility (ASH) graphic failure to meet their most fundamental obligations in terms of the public trust, the matter was covertly swept under the rug, and to date, has remained unaddressed to any meaningful extent. Therein, the fact that the highest ranking state employees at The Arizona State Hospital were never held accountable for their role(s) in the Jesus Murietta-April Mott affair, and all of these persons are still collecting their citizen funded salaries as though none of this had ever occurred (specifically: ADHS employee/interim ASH CEO Ann Froio, ASH CEO Corey Nelson, AZ Assistant Attorney General Joel Rudd, ASH psychiatrist Dr. Morris, former ASH Cheif Medical Office Dr. Stephen Dingle, ASH Chief Operating Officer/interim CEO Donna Noriega [to name but a few]).     

Jesus Rincon Murietta, meanwhile, was also sentenced this month for his role in April Mott's death, and as usual in the state of Arizona, the directly related criminal conduct of state employees was not included in the proceeding or the underlying investigations by which Murietta's conviction and sentencing came about. And at ASH, the substandard mental-medical health care practices are still in effect, and ASH' patients are still being subject to abuse and systematic violations of their most fundamental civil and human rights. 

I am not in a position to share any more of my concerns about ASH at this time, for as I have already described, my writing(s) relating to ASH and the state of Arizona's Department of Health Services/Behavioral Health Services is now in a process of manuscript production, and I am obligated via contract to not divulge information flowing from my research into ASH and my related writing efforts, for the time being, at least.

But there is no reason for any of you, my readers, to hold back on doing whatever you can to defend the rights of Arizona's most seriously mentally ill citizens. The patient abuse in the The Arizona State Hospital is ongoing, and the complicity of the Hospitals' highest ranking administrators and senior clinicians has yet to be meaningfully addressed. ASH is the sole long term public mental health facility to the state of Arizona, and it is operating at a level of substandard 
mental-medical care and practice, and they are getting away away with it, lock-stock-and barrel. This is unacceptable. Patient abuse is sickening to the conscience of any reasonable moral human being, and the abuse of Arizona's most vulnerable adults at ASH needs to stop. 

paoloreed@gmail.com