Of Friends and Strangers.

The 2013 Murder of
James Boyd.

INTRODUCTION: I only know what I know. That, over twenty years before my first formal diagnosis of mental illness (major depressive disorder and associated traits), and my first experiences in mental hospitals, Carlos Garver was murdered. That, his status in society is shared by each and every other person so affected, many of whom still suffer from abject discriminations on the basis of illness and disability. I can and do attest that even in the hospitals, this still exists. 

Carlos "Ragmen" Garver, just one more American affected by serious mental illness, whose brutal killing barely garnered attention from the public. Unless you knew (of) him, that is. Knew him, as I know so many today.

That, in March, 2013, a schizophrenic man named James Boyd was shot and killed by six involved police officers, all of whom who were standing a good fifty feet from Boyd and the four inch kitchen knife he held by his side, all of whom are public servants, all of whom were harassing  Boyd  for peacefully camping in the foothills outside Albuquerque, NM. That, none of these police officers were formally held accountable for Boyd's preventable death, in a manner 100% consistent with the fact that none of the psychiatric staff at ASH contributed to the preventable deaths of at least three innocent people and all other elements of why ASH has repeatedly sanctioned by federal health care regulators. 

James Boyd.
Born April 08, 1975.
Died March 16, 2013.
One more preventable death
of a man affected by serious mental illness.

I don't much care where they are, what their diagnosis is, what their history is. They mean more to me then all but my oldest of friends, all of whom- these friends- know just they are and what they mean to me today. 

A whole hell of a lot more to me then the Rat Bastards behind ongoing corruption and abuses of patients in state managed public mental hospitals. 

In that same vein, then- I don't much care who you are, where you work, your education, your professional history, or what your stinking title is today. If you are up to no good, we will find you and expose you for just what you are, in fact. 

Carlos will tomorrow turn sixty six earth years old. We, meanwhile, will continue busting chops in his memory, and beyond. 

Prose: Of Carlos Garver.

(Originally published March 03, 2013)

Birth:	Jan. 24, 1956
Death:	Mar. 5, 1988 New Mexico, USA
At about 0355 hours (3:55 a.m.), Mr. Richard Thomas was enroute to work and noticed a fire behind the pharmacy at 2132 Central SE and a subject laying unconscious in the alley near the fire.  Garver was severely burned and pronounced dead at the scene. Subsequent investigation showed signs of an accelerant in Garver's clothes. Mother: Alice, born in Toledo OH, artist Father: Jack, married 1946, abstract artist, studied with Raymond Jonson, born in Larned Kansas. d 1987 (1)

starman/window to all souls one a.m.  i'm done reading now I will do some writing i am thinking about Carlos "Ragman" Garver.  you see,  i used to watch ASH staff   move past patients in a cafe' not willing to wait for patients  who had been waiting in a line these ASH staff would do this  as if we were made of wood and i said one time:    hey what are you doing?    we are here, you know-     we are here.  you see,  i always related to how that must feel nobody willing to look to you nobody willing to be near you people moving far across the given street, and you,        Carlos Garver you are  my alley jazz cat reminder. i saw it all as singing a crazy tune in a mad mad world and never counting it as something, in fact;  it wasn't a lonely neighborhood  even in 1988,  nor is it today  though you are still missed.  I don't believe it was ever found out who had done it to    Carlos Garver     "skinheads" was one rumor "wandering skinheads"     those same who'd been busting up the punk shows           downtown on a night when the temperatures     would still have been cold.     albuquerque in the early spring is my hometown, too times like this  i see you in this place and i have been in your alley    Carlos Garver in this sense  i think of one place more than others  but they are all significant as if basement like underbellies where all things die alone therein as personal as it gets so so alone.            Smoke inhalation             3rd degree burns on half of the body            his bedding had burned around him             and there was evidence of fuel            possibly kerosene and therein             its known that he was murdered             and we recall him- all of us yelling there  there outside of the Frontier restaurant      (who doesn’t?)     (hey did ya' hear?)     Ragman is dead     and his name is Carlos Garver.      i saw another man once sleeping this would have been after you died, Carlos and a police officer goaded that man  with the toe of his police officer boot to which the man was up pronto and like a bursting star in action mode doing his business and nobody elses.            "Oceansize! No talking! And all ack-shun!" (2) sometimes I would see or hear a son of artists  in alleys round there all boxes glass and forlorn cats   (where skinheads roam?     or is it where humanity wonders about itself             one tragedy at a rusty time?) and you bet I was nervous about it    (as i crossed that street with all the others)  i was nervous because i somehow saw his point i somehow saw myself there a-wandering i have been so so so alone in my  rusty heaven-earth sort of theme park...    the sesame street kids were always happy for Carlos!    he lives as he sees fit!    high adventure in the great outdoors!      and then-    he died doing what he could!    berating the common folk with their steeled eyes          carrying his flag      his well earned Freak Flag              Starman! i see you by the libraries i see you in the food lines i see you at the walls i see you in the jails i see you by the malls i see you by the rivers i see you in the wisdom flags i see you in all stars i see you, i do howling your prayer song to: Ruby Fish       with her golden eyes  Frankee (3)       ever pushing for change Ernesto Madrid (4)       with the talking tongues of                 his shoes. all of these, my teachers today  who I already look back to once I grow old.                                                        (PJ Reed 2013)

NOTES:

   

 - (1) Carlos Garver obituary. March 07-12, 1988.  (Albuquerque Journal.)

 - (2) Perry Farrel/Jane's Addiction

            "Oceansize" (Nothing's Shocking.  Warner Bros. Records. August, 1988.)

- (3) Mary Adams, AKA “Frankee”. A personal friend of mine, and one of three people    

        to die a preventable death circa 2011-2015 in direct relation to the substandard 

        care practices at ASH (Mary Adams, Chris Blackman [also a friend], April Mott).

- (4) Ernesto Madrid. Who became somewhat of a nuisance, regularly threatening, 

        harassing,  or actually assaulting me, albeit not too significantly, and who I 

        sincerely hope is well today.

DATELINE 2018: It's gone on long enough.

"Numerous state psychiatric hospitals have recently been exposed for violations and/or deficiencies in patient care and safety, including several that have come under U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation. The reports show that these facilities are not safe, sanitary or rehabilitative places." (S. Wagner, Director of Litigation and Prosecution, The Citizens Commission on Human Rights. November 24, 2007)

The patent, seemingly immovable, endemic presence in American society of discriminative discomfort if not outright hate directed towards persons affected by mental illness. Must end once and for all. And particularly, in those places where the public would most expect safety and optimum care to be the norm.

Does not matter much where they are, what their given diagnosis is, or what their history is. This, the world we, the mentally ill live in today, personified not only by publicly exposed police shootings, the horrific murder of Carlos Garver, and other such tragedies, but also by the very real histories of state managed mental hospitals. 

Of which Arizona State Hospital is one, and of which Montana State Hospital is another.

Taxpayer funded sites of treatment of individuals who all have families, snake pits of systemic patient abuse and preventable patient deaths, safe havens for incorrigible perpetrators of  crimes that for the most part, are kept well out of the public's eyes.

"What happens at ASH stays at ASH." 

I have described already my now diminished sense of discomfort over the presence of the mentally ill, in contrast to my previous state of mind, “...where I would cross the street anytime I saw the approach of a man shouting at the sky….” 

For this change of heart, for whatever sense of sincere compassion I may in fact hold today for anyone at risk of harm on the basis of given vulnerability, I owe all thanks to my former patient-peers at Arizona State Hospital, and elsewhere over the years. These ones hold my heart today, I and the staff of this publication work for them, the patients, and not ourselves. Because someone has to, and nobody else will.

Nobody, including the vast majority of individuals working at ASH, even today, after even the most recently exposed scandal(s) there, which hardly stands alone. 

It has been made clear in this blog that there are good people at ASH, the “good staff”, who work tirelessly on behalf of their patient clientele under the duress caused by an administration that literally punishes staff who would dare to speak out on patients' behalf, or otherwise challenge the status quo at ASH by which these scandals have repeatedly erupted in the last 20 years. 

An administration that would, in fact, as recently as only last week, demand that no ASH staff attend any more meetings of the Hospital's Human Rights Committee (HRC), an order that I contend arose on the basis of the knowledge that I am now attending those meetings. Taking close note, as I always have, of all employee statements, particularly those of ASH administrators, persons who have no actual right to privacy so long as they are on the clock, as it were. 

Close note of all such statements, which will also include notice of any  legitimate positives; as in, any evidence of actual improvements at ASH, versus propaganda, should that actually occur (so take a hint, why don't you?). 

I will say again, to each and every one you- good staff- that we are on your side, too, just as we always have been. For if not for you, we’d fall deeper into the maelstrom, and lose the struggle to suffer and somehow survive the depraved misconduct of at least some lower ranking staff at ASH, and the role of highly entrusted psychiatrists in allowing abuses of patients to occur, and willingness of these issues to become standard practice. I  know all too well about how it is to be subject to the presence of the Rat Bastards breathing down your beautiful necks, and this too, I will not forget. (Contact me anytime. Please. You can do so anonymously, which is how it has almost always gone, or not- your role will be kept confidentia, also as always.)  

As to this, all of this... What might we expect? For after all, "This is the state hospital." (Dr. Laxman Patel, 2011).

I became aware not too long ago, that somebody in ASH's administration spoke wih a Montana State Hospital (MHS) nurse practitioner named Carly Hillenbrand. That somebody (was it you, Bowen?) advised Hillenbrand that I may not be quite so affected by serious mental illness as it may seem (?), this despite my very real history- which is central to my medical records circa 2010 to the present- specific to my mental health diagnoses and need occasional need for mental health treatment. 

Why, then, would any hospital have agreed to treat me, in fact, if this was truth? I mean, for crying out loud, I was involuntarily court ordered and committed to and hospitalized at ASH for thirteen freaking months!

This questioning of my health status, I know, is a direct result of the horrendously wrongful and yet ongoing stigma associated with persons so affected, including me. The belief, in short, that persons affected by serious mental illness could in no way exhibit the strengths and dedication to human rights that I exhibit, and the character requisite to caring about the needs and rights of others. All of it, all such attributes, are beyond the prehistoric beliefs of many licensed medical professionals unable to believe that such individuals have such potential. 

Tell that to Mark Vonnegut, a practicing M.D., and author. He is just one. Of us.

Idiots, these people. Including one Dr. William Holt,  an MSH psychiatrist  who literally feigns a British accent on the basis of having spent "some time in England", an egoist who loves to brag about having walked the same Viennese paths that Freud once walked (as though that magically accredits Holt's self  declared  talents. Herein one more fool-fool-fool; just one more licensed physician who could likely not survive in his profession if not for opportunities offered through state managed mental health care systems. Namely, public mental hospitals, such as ASH, and yes, MSH. 

Holt unethically re-diagnosed me in 2016 (without even formally examining or evaluating me!) as a matter of convenience to him and the administrative staff of MSH, and as a means to prematurely discharge me with no regard for my given state of mind and emotion (less then eight weeks after that premature discharge, I attempted suicide yet again, in the state with America's highest rate of suicide, in fact); MSH administrators and senior ranking medical staff who just like the Rat Bastards at ASH circa 2011-2012, resent the fact that it was I in part who got one of their doctors fired and the hell away from MSH' patients (Colby Wang), and who subsequently alerted federal authorities about MSH’s shortage of direct care staff, an alert that did, as a matter of plain fact, lead MSH into the same process of decertification and de-licensure that ASH has been faced with in recent past.

Couldn't make it up if I had to. Since that highly questionable 2016 re-diagnoses, I have been legitimately reevaluated by three separate licensed mental health professionals, including two Montana based psychologists, and none of whom- go figure- work for the state. All three of these professionals have objectively confirmed my long standing diagnosis of major depressive disorder, associated post-traumatic trauma disorder, and substance abuse. These valid diagnoses are not only based on valid evaluation and assessment, but on my known history, as well.   

Holt's attempt to impose on me the new fangled, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5 (2013), suggested (that is all the DSM-5 is about, suggestions) of "factitious disorder" holds no water when my history and the extensive amount of time I have spent under the care of other licensed psychiatrists and psychologists are taken into account. These more recent care providers have all exclaimed in one way or another, "How could this man diagnose you with this, given that you have been dealing with severe depression since you were a boy, and your documented history of suicide attempts? Who did he think you were trying to fool?" 

It is that bad. State employed psychiatrists, such as but far from limited to Holt, Patel, Akhter, and on that list can go with little to no effort, each and every one of them entrusted health care providers who willfully go around the mountain and back in order to get away with failing to live up to the standards by which they are licensed. 

More later. For you Carlos, for you Frankee, for you Chris, for you Robert, for you , dad... For all of you. More later, indeed.  

paoloreed@gmail.com