Newsfeed Continued.

Dateline March 10, 2018. The state's most read newspaper, Arizona Republic (Phoenix), opts for some reason to censor citizen generated comments specific to recent developments at the Arizona State Hospital. Including ours.

Don Bolles

       Go figure.

September 14, 2011, me to Cory Nelson: "Just do the right thing. That's all I'm asking of you."

Cory Nelson back to me: "Patrick, you have your prerogatives, and I have mine."

Early October, 2011 (following the murder of April Mott), Cory Nelson, to me: "I know you have been talking to JJ Hensley." 

Me: "Good. You should know.... That you aren't going to get away with it."

"Our son is at ASH, has been since 2011 (he claims to know you), and we have been very worried about him in the last few months (as though we hadn't been prior to then). Would you be willing to help us in transferring him to a better run hospital somewhere? Don't care where, as long as it's not in Arizona...." (Comment to this publication, received Saturday, March 10, 2018)

----------------------

INTRODUCTION: No huge surprise. 

The Arizona Republic serves as the state's most read newspaper, largely due to its base in Phoenix, which by far has the largest regional population in Arizona. 

In late May, 2011, while hospitalized at Arizona State Hospital (ASH, Hospital), I contacted the news desk of this paper in order to report the (yet to be reported) escape of a violent patient named Jesus Rincon Murrieta. 

As previously reported in this publication, I had serious concern for public safety as well as this individual's welfare. But it was as much my suspicion that Hospital administrators were willfully denying this information to the public in order to avoid oversight and accountability, that compelled me to take this good faith action. 

This suspicion was based on my experiences to that point of my time at ASH (four months, out of thirteen total), wherein I had come to quite easily recognize that Hospital administrators and senior ranking medical staff (namely staff psychiatrists) were willing to willfully ignore issues negatively impacting the ASH patient community, including but not limited to staff abuse(s) of patients. 

(And I may as well mention, yet again, that  ASH's longstanding Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Dingle, bears more responsibility then any other medical staff member to ensure that public safety and other like matters of concern are a priority of the operation of ASH. As the Hospital's CMO, Dingle is 100% responsible for each and every major medical decision as that relates to the operation of ASH [in general]. He likewise had full awareness of Murrieta's known behavioral characterstics- this, too, one core element of Dingle's overall responsibility as ASH's CMO, bottom line. 

Which is to say, it was Dr. Steven Dingle more then anyone else who is responsible for the decision to deny the public knowledge specific the risk posed by Murrieta's presence in the city of Phoenix at that time. 

Following the preventable death of April Mott [see below], one time-since fired ASH CEO Cory Nelson attempted to justify the cover up of Murrieta's escape on the basis of patient privacy [I call this "hiding behind HIPAA"), while stating as well that patients with voluntary status have a right to literally "walk away" from ASH at their leisure. Nelson has since been identified as a overt threat to the safety at AZ citizens across the board (much like his known reputation in South Dakota), and this specific aspect to his behavioral characteristics is representative of the atmosphere at ASH, especially in the case of the patient experience. I can and do attest to this.  

The legal and medical standard "Duty to Warn" is a strictly required responsibility of any licensed physician should they have any knowledge of risk to the public. Any physician, in any medical setting, anywhere in the United States. 

This standard of law was reasonably established over forty years ago in a landmark legal case convened under the authority of the California Supreme Court. The findings of that court, in Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California [17 Cal. 3d 425, 551 P.2d 334, 131 Rptr. 14 1976], held in part that any licensed mental health professional has a duty to warn individuals threatened by a patient. While this finding was technically  limited to protecting individuals who are specifically being threatened by a patient, the majority stated, "We conclude that the public policy favoring the protection of the confidential character of patient-psychotherapist communications must yield to the extent to which disclosure is essential to avert danger to others" [Justice Matthew O. Tobiner]. 

Herein the standard by which Dingle [and every other psychiatrist at ASH] acted in complicity with Nelson in patent violation of this critical standard of law and directly associated medical policy. It would have been simple for these people to "avert danger to others." Including to protect the general public, as may apply, and as did apply in Dingle's case.

But as personified by the following, this is just not how things go at Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility.)

The Republic editor who I spoke with (above) immediately responded to my reporting this issue with the classic phrase, "That's a great tip!" 

I subsequently received a call from a cub reporter named JJ Hensley, at which time I provided as much information as I had about the matter as it stood at that time; including that Murrieta had violently ripped an electronic pass card off the neck of an ASH employee in order to initiate his escape (by which otherwise secure doors could be opened, etc.), the date and time of the escape itself, the names of various ASH staff who I knew were involved (such as that of Murrieta's primary psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen O. Morris), and other like central details in context.

Hensley then advised me that he would begin an investigation into my report.

As a matter of standard journalistic protocol, such investigations typically begin by seeking to confirm the first aspects of information provided. Hensley did this by contacting ASH's administrative office, and whoever he spoke with denied all elements of what he asked them, and then went farther in stating that no escapes had occurred in the time frame relevant to Murrieta's very real escape, as it had occurred.   

I fully understood it when, in short time, Hensley advised me that he could not confirm my report, and would have to drop the story. 

It does not take a journalist to realize this standard of practice. But as importantly, I was able to grasp the fact that, simply due to I being just one of the hundreds of seriously mentally ill individuals hospitalized at ASH (just another crazy person, in other words), it was additionally difficult for Hensley to justify taking a deeper look into this issue. 

So I let it go to the best of my ability. As to the one's running ASH in relation to the issue, I remember thinking, "Bastards... And they will likely get away with it."

During the summer of 2011 (June-August), Murrieta literally ran amok in Phoenix. On no less then three occasions, he had direct interactions with city police, who had no idea who he was, in fact, thus taking him into custody, only to release him time and time again. 

Murrieta also stalked an ASH staff member for some period of time, but when the staff member reported this to ASH administrators, the Bastards yet again refused to share this information with the public- including police.

It was that bad. Dingle, Morris, Rudd, Nelson... the whole stinking lot of them.

Approximately three months after his violent late May escape from ASH, Jesus Rincon Murrieta brutally murdered a young woman named April Mott, by viciously slashing her throat and nearly severing her head from her body. He was subsequently arrested at Mott's apartment following a missing persons report. Police found April wrapped in a piece of carpet.

I well recall sitting one morning out on the ASH patient grounds, and the female security guard who approached me with these words:

"Have you seen the paper? It's 'Ricky' (Jesus). It's bad, really bad."

That day's AZ Republic had a front page story (which included both Murrieta and Mott's photos) relating this horrific development specific to the fact ASH administrators had put the public in grave risk of harm by covering up Murrieta's escape. But, due to the impact of ASH refusing to meet their obligations as per the public trust, the story itself was limited to Mott's death, and Jesus' arrest.  

As soon as I saw that story later that morning, I recontacted JJ Hensley. My exact words:

"Dude, do you recall the guy I told you had escaped from here last May? Well, he is on the front page of your paper today."

Hensley's reaction, verbatim:

"Oh, my God.... I feel like I have her blood on my hands...."

Me: "In a way, you do. But it's not you. It's the ones behind covering his escape up."

I met with Hensley in person within 24 hours. We had two such meetings, following which he produced a four 1/2 page feature article. See: 

Phoenix victim's family questions why man was free. JJ Hensley. September 26, 2011.

I have extensively written about this particular issue in a number of prior articles in this publication. It was in fact, the topic of my first actual article, written and published within weeks of my discharge from ASH. See April 05, 2012: 

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 Avoid Scrutiny, Leading to the Brutal Murder of a Citizen.

I later encouraged Hensley to consider making the highly substandard conditions and care practices at ASH a subject of 
a far broader formal investigation. I honestly saw it as great way for a young reporter such as he to make a splash, and I told him as much. But Hensley balked, telling me that his "bosses" were unwilling to grant him that nature of opportunity.

For over four years following my interactions with staff of the AZ Republic newspaper- as this blog developed, and as story after story about ASH emerged via the investigation of Phoenix area ABC Ch15 journalist David Biscobing (who contacted me via the blog itself in 2013, asking to collaborate), and as consequent repeated interventions of the federal government occurred- this major news publication failed to meaningfully share in reporting it all. 

Leading me to realize that AZ Republic newspaper is just one more element to the abjectly underreported realities throughout the virtual entirety of Arizona's state agency system.

All of this patently accurate. 

I could not make it up if I had to. 

-----------------------------------

So, after the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital's provided comments to the Arizona Republic newspaper through its monopoly site, AZ Central.com, in association with an story about the State's attempt to block members of the ASH Human Rights Committee from direct interaction with ASH patients- comments which carried for over 24 hours- that body of public feedback was removed from the site itself.

Not too concerned. We know, for example, that at some number people had ample opportunity to review those comments; this, as per a number of comments provided to our blog site since late yesterday. Those comments, which we will likely publish in full in the near future, all agreed with the our primary concerns.

One such comment, in part:

"Knowing as I and my family do how screwed up the ones responsible for April Mott's death  are, and all the other shit that went on between her death and events of 2015, it is pretty obvious what they are trying to do today. Sad, very sad... Our son is at ASH, has been since 2011 (he claims to know you), and we have been very worried about him in the last few months (as though we hadn't been prior to then). Would you be willing to help us in transferring him to a better run hospital somewhere? Don't care where, as long as it's not in Arizona...."

Maybe ADHS lawyers or their miscreant associates working for the attorney general have challenged the Republic's initial willingness to publish my comments.... Or not.

Again, we are not too concerned that Phoenix's main newspaper has for whatever reason taken this action. The fact  is that, Phoenix and Arizona government still stand today as one of the more corrupted systems in USA. As they have long been. Several gubernatorial impeachments, the murder of at least one journalist, a longtime and well hated Phoenix sheriff  convicted of felonious contempt of court, and on that list goes. 

It has also long been my firm belief that AZ Republic's editorial staff are far more interested in avoiding controversy then they typically are in providing the public with well researched and ethically produced stories in the public interest about corruption in state government.

Including state agencies such as ADHS.

IN CLOSING:

As a matter of plain fact: 

Less then four weeks after my February, 2012, discharge from ASH, during lunch in Flagstaff, a former law school friend of mine, Charlie Babbitt (of the esteemed, AZ based Babbitt family), asked me a very pointed question. This, after he had learned of my intent to bust open the issues I was aware of at ASH, and most specifically, the role of the Arizona Office of The Attorney General involvement in it all.

"Do you know who Don Bolles was? He was the last writer willing to go after this level of state related bullshit.... They blew him up in his car. Be careful with these people, man, be careful." 

In certain respects, this is what's saddest to me about the AZ Republic newspaper. Don Bolles, a former AZ Republic investigative reporter of note, a legitimate award winning muckraker in all senses, gave his life in attempting to investigate and expose such corruption in the late 1970s. 




He did so to the best his actual ability, that is, until they blew him up in his car as he began preparing to publish a story about AZ congressional figures directly involved in mafia controlled dog racing.

I have since learned, too, that Bolles was no favorite of the AZ Republic's editorial staff. He had so long committed himself to independently investigating stories that he believed crucial to the public's right to information, that his "bosses" had all but given up on directing him what to go after. In fact, those people had one time tried to shut him down, threatening his job should he not do what they told him to investigate, but he prevailed via his status as a union member journalist in thwarting their shit.

Notable that the AZ Republic made little effort to investigate Bolles' murder, one of their senior and most dedicated employees. While at some point after his tragic death, the paper's managers divorced themselves from the union system. Go figure.

This is- all of it- documented fact.... Only in Arizona.

As to my friend Charlie's words over lunch that day. I could hardly have cared then, and sure as hell don't today. My interest in existing in this world has been tenuous for many, many years. This, an element of my given diagnosis, and my personal history of lethal suicide attempts. 

Fact is, I would gladly put the interest and lives of other persons less fortunate then I before my own. Including those of the entire patient community at ASH. Not much scares someone like me, in other words. 

Including the Rat Bastards central to this blog's objective.

paoloreed@gmail.com  

Newsfeed. 

Took a while, but big thanks to the folks at AZ Central-The Arizona Republic newspaper for getting this story out.

GOOGLE ALERT. ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL DAILY UPDATE

(RECIEVED AT PAOLOREED@GMAIL.COM, FRIDAY MARCH 09, 2018)

	NEWS
	State imposes limits on Arizona State Hospital human-rights committee, cites violations AZCentral.com March 09, 2018 The Arizona Department of Health Services has reined in an Arizona State Hospital volunteer committee after a legal review concluded the committee violated its authority.

“They are trying to crush us out of existence. This is like swatting a mosquito with a bazooka.” Founding HRC member Sharon Ashcroft. 

The following was posted by PJ Reed to the Arizona Central website's coverage of this issue.

I strongly disagree with the actions of ADHS and Office of the Attorney General in this matter. Most specifically, it is my firm belief that this action is a combination of retaliation and an arguably unlawful attempt to thwart the good faith efforts of ASH's Human Rights Committee (HRC) to do all they can to defend and preserve the rights and care needs of the Hospital's disabled patient community. It was unlawful as well for ASH CEO Aaron Bowen to deny the patient who in November sought to express his valid concerns of ASH psychiatrist Dr. Steven Dingle's public record of sexual abuse and harassment of resident level women working under his authority, which I see as textbook sexual predation consistent with the national attention being directed to sexual abuse of women; while Bowen's effort to silence that patient is a gross violation of the individual's right to free speech. 

I spent 13 hellish months at ASH, Jan. 2011-Feb. 2012, at that time when the facility was being operated in patently substandard medical standards, which they got away with until early 2015, following my having dedicated myself to exposing those issues in my blog for three full years (PJ Reed The Arizona Hospital and Patient Abuse), the related work of ABC Ch15 investigative journalist David Biscobing, and the crucially needed intervention of federal government in 2013-15 (which led to the firing of seven state employed individuals directly associated with the ASH operation, inc. two CEO's and an ADHS attorney). 

Likewise, ASH was violating state law in that period by not even having the lawfully required presence of HRC, an issue was only resolved after I effectively demanded that that be established in a letter to former ADHS director Will Humble. 

I attest from my learned experiences at ASH that this taxpayer funded public health care facility has been operating in gross breach of the public trust for many, many years, as proven by such federal interventions that have repeatedly occurred since the early 1990s. ASH's HRC serves as all patient's best hope of being provided their due health care in a manner consistent with state and federal law, and Sharon Ashcroft's concerted willingness to serve the Arizona citizens hospitalized at ASH stands a shining example of the good faith efforts of HRC over the last six years. For Christ, ADHS attorney Greg Hogin, and Bowen etc. to try and crush HRC's good faith and legally required presence at ASH is representative of just how and why ASH administrators keep getting in serious trouble, as personified by the events of 2014-2015. Shame, shame, shame on these people for furthering the historically proven record of ASH and many other state mental hospitals, contributing as such to culturally and societally systemic abuses of persons affected by serious mental illness.

PJ Reed Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse. 

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WHILE THE FOLLOWING WAS POSTED TO MY FACEBOOK PAGES.

Ongoing.

“They are trying to crush us out of existence. This is like swatting a mosquito with a bazooka.” Sharon Ashcroft, founding member, Arizona State Hospital Human Rights Committee. 

I WILL AGAIN ASK MY FRIENDS IN PHOENIX AND ELSEWHERE TO HELP GET THIS CRAP CLEANED UP, BY CONTACTING THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITALS ADMIN. OFFICE @ (602) 244-1331, OR YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, OR BY COMMENTING TO THIS ARTICLE (SEE BOTTOM IT), ETC. ETC. ANYTHING-EVERYTHING CAN SERVE TO HELP.

ASH'S SERIOUSLY MENTALLY ILL PATIENT CLIENTELE NEED US RIGHT NOW. DIRECT ACTION, PEOPLE, PLEASE, ON BEHALF OF THOSE PATIENTS.

THANKS. PJ REED. 

IN CLOSING: Thanks as always to Sharon Ashcroft, who I have supported and at times collaborated with since the legally required establishment of ASH's HRC finally occurred in 2012. 

This is indeed ongoing. If the ones behind this corrupted attempt to deny ASH patients the full benefit of HRC believe we are going let them get away with it all, they have another thing coming. 

This, we do.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Jesus Rincon Murietta. (Yet again). And the simple fact that the administrators of Arizona's sole long term public mental facility are 100% behind each and every aspect of the issues that federal authorities repeatedly have needed to intervene. 

(Originally published on April 06, 2012)

It took about 4 weeks for Jesus Murietta's defense attorney to even realize that he had issues relating to mental illness- again, this due to ASH administrators failing to meet their obligations in terms of the public trust. He sat in Maricopa county's jail for that period of time, effectively facing the death penalty, before the county's prosectors and his own representative defense attorneys came to realize this fact.

After the point, that is, that I contacted his lawyer on one of the Hospital's patient phones and shared crucial information specific to Murietta's state of health and mind as a man affected and disabled by serious mental illness. Speaking with both patients as well as Hospital staff about this issue, I was sincerely compelled to take this simple action on behalf of Jesus himself, who I do consider a personal friend, and deserving, as such, the full breadth of civil rights that all Americans possess in this day of age.

As a direct consequence of my willingness to challenge the Hospital's attempt to cover up Murietta's escape- which I know occurred on the basis of ASHs administrators desire to avoid due accountability- by in fact contacting his attorney in this matter, this young man was not sentenced to death. Instead, as per law, he was prosecuted and convicted of second degree murder (vs. first degree homicide), and sentenced to 22 years in the state's prison system. Not that this wasn't a better turn in the process, the plain fact remains that Murietta, affected as he is by serious mental illness, should still be hospitalized today, versus imprisoned.

While, in equally plain fact, April Mott should still be alive today.

Dr. Steven Dingle (the acting chief medical officer at ASH at the time), and a host of others directly involved in this horrific story (most of whom have either been fired, or otherwise departed from their positions in relation the operation of ASH), has everything to do with how this went down. Bottom line.

And yet today, Dingle is still playing that role, acting as the Hospital's most authoritative medical officer, while also getting away with his unlawful involvement in this matter as well as his longer history as a sexual abuser of women under his direct authority; all of it to the detriment of the ASH patient community as a whole. With the overt, loudly presented support of current ADHS Director Cara Christ , ASH CEO Aaron Bowen, and their various associates throughout the office of Arizona's Behavioral Health Services, including attorneys, entrusted medical professionals, and so on as it applies.

Dingle and his kind are used to getting with this sort of wrongdoing, as personified by the slap on the wrist he got twenty odd years after found guilty of breaking state and federal law as a known sexual abuser of women working under authority. Following, in graphic defiance of his then very recent depravity, this so called provider of "excellence in psychiatric care" found a nice, safe home in the ADHS/BHS construct as an ASH psychiatrist.

ASH is a public entity, licensed in accordance with regulator authorities  here in Arizona, as well as at the federal level. How is it, then,  that ASH' administrators could get away with this sort of activity? That is a question that I have had to consider for many many months, the vast majority of it while there in ASH, where patients are supposed to have a reasonable expectation of safety, ASH being a "hospital" and all; and today I am working to explore this mystery through participating in critical inquiry such as the blogging networks. But I have my own notes, too (and man did I ever take good notes while I was a patient at ASH).

When I first arrived at ASH, I was personally pretty freaked out by the possibility that I would be surrounded by a bunch of raving lunatics, even some of the hospital staffers in the Tucson hospitals made comments to the effect of ASH being a really scary place. I learned, however, in relatively short time, that the patients are not the problem at ASH, and in terms of any justified fears that I heard from other patients, it was all about abusive staff.

But before I go much further into detailing my experiences at ASH, I need to state a disclaimer of sorts: There are good people at ASH. Sadly, they are the minority, and power dynamics being what they are, the miscreants (including doctors, nurses, security, and administration) rule the land once anybody enters the grounds of ASH. 

But I definitely met a handful of basically nice folks working there at ASH, and I feel that I made some good Friends among certain of the staff that I had dealings with. And speaking of you folks, I thank you from my heart for your goodness in the face of all the wrongdoing there in ASH. You know who you are, and I would not have gotten through my experiences there if not for the likes of your kind, pearls in a virtual wasteland of utter depravity and inhumanity.

I did have one problem however, relating to the fact that even the good people at ASH don't take a meaningful step forward and speak out publicly about the shit going on around them day in and day out. Yes, of course it is question of job security, but that is simply not a sound justification, for the state employee contracts obligate employees to report abuse, and so on.

What, then, is the problem?  Why won't any of the ASH staff file reports on behalf of the patients? From what I saw, it is all about an endemic fear that is instilled in the staff with job security in mind. I had the opportunity to briefly interact with more than one good hearted staff person on this question, and it was made clear to me that they were afraid for their jobs. Retaliation, in other words, which is patently illegal.

These are employees who fully understood and agreed with my strongest concerns about abuse and so on. For example, with the Jesus Murietta affair in mind, ASH administrators refused to confirm Murietta's very existence to their knowledge when the reporter JJ Hensley asked about the escape, citing HIPPA and basic privacy standards Which of course is a crock of shit, because ASH administrators are not allowed to hide behind HIPPA in order to further their unlawful misconduct.

So Hensley asked me to at least try and find one employee- anybody- willing to drop a dime and anonymously call him from a pay phone or whatever, merely to verify that Murietta was a former patient at ASH. But the two persons who I suggested this to literally cringed at the idea of doing anything like that because they knew that no matter what the circumstances, if they took action in contradiction to ASH obvious flow of practice, they could lose their jobs.

Instilling any such fear into the minds of employees is in direct defiance of federal statutes relating to work place safety and related responsibility. Whistle blower statutes, too, apply in contexts such as this, but the state representatives responsible for hiring ASH staffers somehow instill in them that they better not speak out about anything, aka make waves, or else they can kiss their jobs goodbye.

Therein, I believe it is nothing any more or less glamorous or dastardly than common state government malfeasance, all at the expense of the patients.

I will now offer a quick peek into what my literal admission to ASH was like, because things took a turn towards the worst that quickly. I had no longer arrived to my new unit (ward) at ASH, than I learned that someone at ASH, most assuredly a member of the security staff, had stolen a bottle of my medication. My property, in other words.

The staff at ASH didn't put it that way, of course. But I went to the trouble of looking into the disappearance of the meds in question in my own with the assistance of the Arizona State Police, and much to the chagrin of the rat bastards at ASH, confirmed the truth of the matter. 

This is how it went down: I arrived at ASH in an ambulance that had transported me from the Tucson hospital that handled my reference and application to ASH. In that ambulance was a sealed plastic bag containing my medications, including a full (unopened) bottle of sixty 10mg Ambien sleeping pills. I know there was an unopened bottle of Ambien in the bag because I had watched a nurse at that Tucson hospital inventory each medication in full as he then placed them into and then sealed the plastic bag. Such processes are standard practice when it comes to medication.

Likewise, the ambulance attendants are required to submit written notice confirming the presence of such sealed bags of medications at both ends of the transport, and there are cameras on board the ambulances that come into play with this process in mind. At ASH, however, staff did not inventory my medications when they entered them into the ASH system; and I was informed  a later time that the Ambien was missing. On the street, Ambien has a reasonable street value. I have heard one 10mg pill can sell for $5.00, translating to as much as $300.00 of street value for the medications stolen from me.

It's that simple, and when I continued over time to ask for a full explanation from ASH administration, including my final assigned social worker, Mr. Robert Washington, all I got was a run around. Plain and simple stonewalling, all for a measly couple of bucks.

So far as ASH administrators are concerned, it's all business as usual.

As my first primary assigned psychiatrist, Dr. Laxman Patel, put it:

"This is the state hospital. 

What do you expect?"

Proving, as such, that the highest ranking physicians at ASH are complicit in condoning substandard care practices and conditions there, by refusing to take action in relation to issues that have repeatedly led ASH into trouble over the last 20 years. This fact is plain, disturbing to the core, and 100% in defiance of numerous efforts over the years to get ASH and other like public mental hospitals up to speed with established medical standards.

IN CLOSING: Please help me fight for the rights of the patients at the Arizona State Hospital. My email address is as follows:

paoloreed@gmail.com