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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 following headline rocked the Phoenix community in late September, 2011. The brutal slaying of a young Phoenix woman named April Mott laid the foundation for what today is being characterized by some as the biggest public mental health care facility scandal in the new millennium (actually, I coined the term, and it has now been co-opted to various other media resources, who readily agree). The actual full content-text of my April 05, 2012, article immediately follows the headline itself.
"Phoenix victim's family questions why man was free."
Mental hospital halted search; escapee now a murder suspect
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2011/09/27/20110927phoenix-victims-family-questions-jesus-murrieta-free-april-mott.html#ixzz1taIkd8ma
At the heart of my coming to understand how unlawfully The Arizona State Hospital (ASH) goes about its day to day business as the sole long term mental care hospital in the whole state of Arizona, is the story of Jesus Murietta. This is a shocking, and very sad story, and I do not want any of the individuals directly effected to misinterpret why I am willing to include this story in my personal writing. The fact is, ASH' administrative misconduct directly led to a young woman's death in the Phoenix community, and I know that had ASH done the right thing when they had the chance to (rather than putting their own selfish interests first), the young woman would not have died. Bottom line. Furthermore, I was centrally involved in bringing the truth of this horrific sequence of events to the attention of the public, and there was an extensive newspaper story published in the Arizona Republic newspaper in late September, 2011, that fully relates this fact. (see "Victim's Family Questions Why Man Was Free," Sept. 28, 2011) Thus, I unwillingly became very involved in this story while I was receiving "treatment" for depression at the Arizona State Hospital. I had to put myself at risk in order to try and see that ASH do the right thing, because that is how I live my life. Of course, ASH refused to do the right thing, and a person died. A travesty, and nothing less.
Jesus Mureitta and I were hospitalized together in the summer of 2010 down Tucson way, at St. Mary's Hospital Extended Care Unit (ECU), well before either one of us was referred and/or sent to ASH, and although he was typically very heavily dosed with whatever anti-psychotic medication or whatever the hell they had him on at the time, shuffling around like a mummy or something, I became casual friends with him there in Tucson, largely because he used to sit and listen to me play an electric piano that they had at ECU, and he used to joke around a little bit, ribbing me because I couldn't play any Chopin, or Monk. But I was also pretty wary of Jesus at the time, because regardless of how dosed up on drugs they had him, he pretty regularly used to attack male technicians there at ECU, and his attacks were fairly formidable, given the circumstances. But he never gave me any trouble at all, and I came to like him by the time he was shipped off to other realms once he had carried out his fourth attack on a staff member in as many weeks, I had no firm idea of where they might have sent the man at the time, but I must admit, when I arrived at ASH in early 2011, I wasn't surprised to almost immediately run into him. He was an entirely different fellow by the time I got to ASH, this would have been 5 or so months after he was transferred away from ECU in Tucson, and I could tell right away that he clearly was not nearly so heavily medicated. He was buoyant and in fine physical health, and we rekindled our casual friendship right away. But Jesus is at least 25-30 years younger than I, and as such, he carried on with his lifestyle at ASH in a manner that one would only expect out of a guy his age, hanging out with other young people on the ASH patient mall, and so on.
In late May 2011, I learned one morning from a security guard that Jesus had successfully broken out of ASH the previous evening. I was told that Jesus had grabbed a staff member's electronic i.d.card and security pass and used it to basically walk out of ASH at about 9:30 p.m., and that to the security guard's knowledge, he had not yet been recaptured. I found the story interesting, to say the least, and I immediately looked into whether there were any news stories about the matter. I presumed, in fact, that there would have to be some sort of public story about it, because Jesus is clearly a dangerous guy when his head isn't right, but preliminary inquiries I made turned up no evidence of any public news to the effect of his being at large in the community. But I was also worried about Jesus, because he had exited ASH in gym shorts and a muscle shirt, with no wallet, etc., and ASH is located in a very bad part of Phoenix's south central district. And as time passed from that first day following his escape, I began to suspect that something fishy was going on, and I suspected that it had to with ASH trying to cover up the fact that a patient had virtually walked out of the place, despite the multi-fenced perimeters, electronically secure doors, and quasi-qualified security staff. With all 3 of these concerns in mind, I decided to contact the local Phoenix newspaper, The AZ Republic, and I spoke with a reporter named JJ Hensley, who expressed a fairly keen interest in my report. I specifically expressed my main concerns about the affair to him as follows:
1) I was concerned about the public safety issue, knowing that Jesus could at times be very volatile and violent.
2) I was equally concerned about Jesus' safety as a mentally ill person, knowing as I did that he had departed ASH in the late evening dressed in very little clothing, with no identification (patient i.d.'s are taken away form ASH upon admission) and presumably little or no money, etc.
3) And I was concerned that ASH administration was in the process of trying to avoid accountability at the expense of the public's right to be advised of such concerns, as well at Jesus' expense as a mentally ill person.
Mr. Hensley told me that he would have to see what he could come up with in terms of verifying my account. and I made clear to him that I did not want my name used, because I was already pretty frightened by the things I had seen at ASH in terms of staff misconduct, and I did not wish to put myself any more at risk of harm by staff than I already was. Yes, it's pretty messed up to think that patients are frightened by ASH staff, but its true, for many of the patients who I came to know bluntly told told me that they were at times terrified of staff. In any case, Mr. Hensley and I hung up our after a short conversation, and I sat back somewhat comfortably, believing as I did that the reporter would surely come up with something about Jesus' escape. But after about 10 days, when I had not yet seen any news, I called Mr. Hensley and basically asked what was going on, and he told me that his inquiries to ASH administration had all come up short, because ASH had advised him that not only could they not comment on the affairs of any patients (even the escaped ones), but went even further in denying that no patients whatsoever had escaped form ASH during the time period of Jesus escape. In short, Mr. Hensley could not verify my report, and I could tell from his time voice at the time that he was questioning my credibility. I was frustrated by this turn of events, but I also knew that it was yet another case of ASH getting away with something. Even my most worrisome concerns regarding Jesus potential threat to the public at large could not have led me, at that time, to concieve of the full potential of the situation as it stood then, in early June, 2011.
By late summer I had basically put the Jesus Murietta affair behind me, as many other serious concerns had become central to my very survival at ASH by that time (which I will describe in detail at a later time). Sitting outside by myself one afternoon in very late August, 2011, about three months after Jesus' escape, the same security guard who had advised me of Jesus escape approached me and advised me that Jesus had savagely killed a young woman and that a story had been prominently presented both in the local newspaper as well as on television. I was shocked. I called JJ Hensley, the reporter at the AZ Republic newspaper who I had initially reported Jesus' escape to, and we had a brief, but very awkward conversation, as the both of us came to terms with the fact that the same young man that ASH had been unwilling to release information about when he escaped had gone on to brutally murder a young woman named April Moot. These are Mr. Hensley's exact words: "I feel like her blood is on my hands."
Following our conversation on that late August day, Mr. Hensley conducted a very well founded investigation into the improprieties of ASH' actions specific to this sequence of events, and he learned that not only had ASH' administration gone out of its way to alter the truth regarding the details of Jesus' escape by changing the official record in such a way that Jesus escape had been characterized as a legitimate discharge, but that they had also interfered with the flow of several criminal investigations during the course for the summer, in the months and weeks preceding Ms. Mott's brutal slaying, wherein Jesus had been arrested two or three times in relation to relatively minor criminal activity, but because the police knew nothing about Jesus connection to ASH, and so on, he was released each time. As stated at the outset of this account, this entire story was published in in The Arizona Republic newspaper in late September, 2011, in a story written by Mr. Hensley.
This was the nature of this sequence of events. When Jesus Murietta escaped from ASH in late May, 2011, Hospital administrators, and I am willing to guess that this would have included but not been limited to the chief medical officer at the time (Dr. Steven Dingle), the chief operating officer (Donna Noriega), Jesus attending ASH psychiatrist (Dr. Morris), and most likely the Hospital's legal counsel (Mr. Joel Rudd of the AZ Attorney General's Office) decided to not publicize the escape. Every morning at 9 a.m., these people meet for a general operations conference, and discussion of key facets of the Hospital's affairs occurs, and I believe one can safely surmise that the issue of Jesus' escape was on the table, and the decision had to have been made then, to not go public about Jesus' escape. It should be noted, too, that during this period of time (April-August, 2011) ASH was operating without a duly hired chief executive officer, a condition that arguably lent to the relative disarray at that time, and the related selfishness and stupidity of this formal decision. In any case, I am firmly of the opinion that ASH administration made this decision in order to avoid accountability, and the fact is, I came to realize as time progressed during my 13 month stay at ASH that they do that as a matter of standard practice, with a literal "to hell with the rights and wellbeing of others" attitude that I was personally subjected to time and time again.
In this case, that attitude led to the brutal killing of April Mott, and Mr. Hensley's story in the newspaper clearly presents a picture of the sort of misconduct I am going to expose in this blog. The people responsible for this sequence of events, and myriad other wrongdoings, need to be held fully accountable under law and public policy. The citizens of Arizona deserve as much, particularly the patients at ASH and their families. Nobody should be subjected to the egregious and sub-standard mental health care that ASH' current administration and clinical staff so willingly practice. Anybody willing and able to come to support of the patients at the Arizona State hospital can feel free to email anytime me at paoloreed@gmail.com.
(end of article, originally published by this blog on April 05)
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IN CLOSING: RE "A call out to ASH CEO Aaron Bowen" (December 17, 2015). I had really hoped a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel would be obvious by now, this following the spring, 2015, firing and potential criminal charges facing no less then 9 persons directly associated with the operation of ASH for the last 5-10 years. But, as per insider reports (from ASH patients and staff alike), I am no longer entertaining any such fantasy. As such, it is apparent to to myself, and my editor, that this story is far from over. That said. I am always to welcome any other Rat Bastards to the work of the staff of PJ REED The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse as published in this blog.
You do hear us, Dr. Cara Christ, (ADHS current director) and Dr. Bowen. Yes? Please don't force me, the author of this blog, to come with your own personal nicknames, or otherwise compel me to make you my current targets when it comes to exposing the grossly substandard medical practices and associated patient abuse at ASH.
As in- DO THE RIGHT THING. STARTING NOW.
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I would really love input of any kind from anybody with any interest whatsoever in the issues that I am sharing in this blog. I mean it, anybody, for I will be the first one to admit that I may be inaccurately depicting certain aspects of the conditions
at ASH, and anonymous comments are fine. In any case, I am more than willing to value anybody's feelings about my writing, and I assure you that I will not intentionally exploit or otherwise abuse your right to express yourself as you deem fit. This topic is far, far too important for anything less. Thank you, whoever you are. Peace and Frogs.