‘Come Back When You’re Dangerous’: How Police Are Failing The Mentally Ill
Rather than providing the
mentally ill with an opportunity to see a mental health professional, one
expert says, “We say, ‘Come back when you’re in a crisis. Come back when you’re
dangerous.’”
By Sean Nevins
WASHINGTON — Natasha McKenna
was killed in February by a Special Emergency Response Team officer at the
Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in Virginia. She had been shot four times
with a taser while her hands were cuffed behind her back, her legs shackled,
and a mask secured to her face to prevent her from spitting.
The Washington Post reported
that her last words were, “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!”
The Fairfax County Police
Department released the findings of an investigation into the death of the
37-year-old woman on Monday. Video of the incident has not been released to the
public.
The official cause of death, as
reported in April by the FCPD, is: “Excited delirium associated with physical
restraint including use of conductive energy device.” Schizophrenia and bipolar
disorder are also listed as contributing causes.
The official “manner” of death,
however, is ruled an “accident” in the autopsy report.
In other words, the SERT
officer accidentally killed McKenna, who is survived by a 7-year-old daughter.
This seems typical for the way
that black and brown people are treated by law enforcement in the United States
– unarmed persons are killed, and the offending officers walk away with, at the
most, a slap on the wrist.
Matthew Fogg, a retired chief
deputy for the U.S. Marshals Service, agrees.
“As a Marshal and having
handled prisoners, thousands of prisoners, in my career, this seems like it was
an unnecessary use of force,” Fogg, who has no professional connection to
McKenna’s case, told MintPress News. “You’re talking about a female here, only
130 pounds, and you’ve got her restrained, and you’re tasing her!”
“Why so much force?”
McKenna’s situation was
compounded by her mental health issues, according to Pete Earley, a former
reporter for The Washington Post and author of “Crazy: A Father’s Search
Through America’s Mental Health Madness,” a book about his son’s experiences
with mental illness and the failings of the criminal justice system.
“This is a woman who had a long
history of mental illness. She got into an argument at a car rental place, the
police showed up, [and] she became belligerent,” Earley told MintPress.
“They did what they thought
would be a mercy arrest, took her to a hospital where apparently she did not
get any decent care, and in the process she was charged with assault… and ended
up with a felony [charge] just like my son,” Earley continued, explaining the
sequence of events that led to McKenna’s jailing.
On Jan. 25, McKenna was
arrested after calling police to report that she had been assaulted. While
police were investigating her complaint, they discovered a warrant for
McKenna’s arrest for assaulting an officer in neighboring Alexandria, Virginia.
The Alexandria incident is the
“mercy arrest” Earley referred to, which occurred on Jan. 15. Five days later,
on Jan. 20, a warrant was issued for her arrest.
While it is unclear what
happened during the initial interaction with Alexandria police, it does seem
like McKenna was experiencing some kind of episode associated with her mental
illness because police took her to the hospital rather than jail, reported
WUSA9, a CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C.
Earley believes the assault
charge could have been baseless. “She was charged with assault, and that could
be everything from not obeying a policeman’s orders to just walking away,” he
explained.
Fogg backed up this analysis,
telling MintPress that part of his training as a U.S. Marshal was that people
should be charged with assault if a Marshal has to put his or her hands on them
in any way.
“If you’ve got to put your
hands on somebody – that’s the first thing you do: you charge them with assault
so that they can’t come back and try to sue you,” Fogg explained.
‘That’s just outrageous’
According to the National
Alliance on Mental Illness, “In a mental health crisis, people are more likely
to encounter police than get medical help.” Indeed, the organization continues,
2 million people with mental illnesses are booked into jails each year.
Further, Human Rights Watch
released a report in May, which reports that it is common for staff in jails
and prisons across the country to use unnecessary, excessive, and malicious
force against prisoners with severe mental health issues, including
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
The report, “Callous and Cruel,”
states:
“Corrections officials at times
needlessly and punitively deluge them with chemical sprays; shock them with
electric stun devices; strap them to chairs and beds for days on end; break
their jaws, noses, ribs; or leave them with lacerations, second degree burns,
deep bruises, and damaged internal organs. The violence can traumatize already
vulnerable men and women, aggravating their symptoms and making future mental
health treatment more difficult. In some cases, including several documented in
this report, the use of force has caused or contributed to prisoners’ deaths.”
The report explains that staff
are often authorized to use force against inmates when an inmate’s behavior
threatens the immediate security of officers and other inmates, and other
efforts have been made to secure the compliance of an inmate.
However, HRW noted that many of
the incidents in their investigation were non-threatening in nature, so the
abuse meted out against inmates may constitute torture, cruel, inhuman, or
degrading punishment, according to international human rights prohibitions.
Pete Earley argues that Natasha
McKenna should have never been taken to jail: “When the officers came, they
should’ve had what they call a Crisis Intervention Trained (CIT) police
officer, who’s somebody’s who’s undergone 40 hours of training to understand
the difference between mental illness and someone just being a trouble-maker.”
If law enforcement had more
humane mechanisms in place for handling people with mental illness, McKenna
would have been brought to what’s called a drop-off center, where she could
have been evaluated by a mental health professional and an appropriate
treatment program could have been recommended.
Earley told MintPress:
“This thing could’ve been
avoided. It’s very startling that if you look at the picture of Natasha McKenna
that we put up where she’s booked into jail. She’s not some wild-eyed person in
the midst of psychosis. She’s smiling, and that’s a contrast to someone who
gets held down and repeatedly tasered when they’re in a controlled environment,
when they’ve already had leg irons attached, when already been hanged up.”
He added: “I mean, that’s just
outrageous.”
Reverting back to colonial days
Echoing the National Alliance
on Mental Illness report, Pete Earley told MintPress it’s more common for
people with mental illnesses to encounter police than get treatment because of
the backward nature of how today’s system treats people with severe mental
health issues.
Indeed, the way in which the
mentally ill are imprisoned and sometimes abused is similar to the situation in
colonial America, when there was an official policy to imprison the mentally
ill, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization that
promotes laws, policies, and practices that give timely and effective treatment
to the mentally ill.
“As early as 1694, legislation was passed in
the Massachusetts Bay Colony authorizing confinement in jail for any person
‘lunatic and so furiously mad as to render it dangerous to the peace or the
safety of the good people for such lunatic person to go at large,’” according
to a 2014 TAC survey of how mentally ill people are treated in jails and
prisons across the U.S.
A growing movement of activists
in the 1820s and 1830s influenced a new set of legislation to confine people in
psychiatric wards instead of prisons because of the inhumane ways in which they
were often treated.
“Thus, for approximately 100
years, the problem of mentally ill persons in prisons and jails appeared to
have been solved. These individuals were treated as patients, not as criminals,
and were sent to mental hospitals for treatment,” states the TAC report.
But, starting in the 1960s,
de-institutionalization marked a massive shift in this policy. The severely
mentally ill were transferred from state institutions, and those institutions
were closed. This process has been called “one of the largest social
experiments in American history” — and it’s one that has clearly failed individuals
with mental illness.
The TAC report concludes:
“[I]t has been known for almost
200 years that confining mentally ill persons in prisons and jails is inhumane
and fraught with problems. The fact that we have re-adopted this practice in
the United States in recent years is incomprehensible. Prison and jail
officials are being asked to assume responsibility for the nation’s most
seriously mentally ill individuals, despite the fact that the officials did not
sign up to do this job; are not trained to do it; face severe legal
restrictions in their ability to provide treatment for such individuals; and
yet are held responsible when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under such
circumstances. This misguided public policy has no equal in the United States.”
‘It’s not illegal to be crazy’
Matthew Fogg, the retired U.S.
Marshal, told MintPress that the present state of indifference toward black and
brown people by law enforcement in the U.S. is systemic.
“When it comes to
African-Americans and people of color,” Fogg said, “I’ve seen excessive force
used in extraordinary ways that you just don’t see on people of non-color,
white.”
The only options he sees for
exposing and tackling this pervasive attitude include community action and the
various movements springing up across the country. People are standing up to
law enforcement and saying, “We’re no longer going to be treated this way. If
you’re outside the bounds of the law, we want to expose you to be prosecuted,”
he said.
This kind of public awareness
is also what’s needed for the systemic issues with law enforcement’s handling
of the mentally ill to be addressed. Earley told MintPress the current
situation drives the families of the mentally ill to take desperate measures to
secure treatment for their loved ones.
“A family knows that they have
to wait until somebody becomes dangerous because that’s the threshold,” he
said. “You have to be dangerous. It’s not illegal to be crazy.”
“So they’ll wait or they’ll
agitate the person. The person will react by maybe pushing the father. They’ll
call the police. The police will come. Then the person gets arrested, and then
they’re told they can’t go home. And then they release them into jail. And so
all you’ve done is made a situation worse.”
Earley’s son, Mike, has been
hospitalized five times to date, and during one crisis Mike became violent.
Earley called the police, and when they came, they shocked his son with a taser
twice. “This is just an example of how difficult it is to get anyone decent
care in this country,” he said.
To combat malicious treatment
of the mentally ill, like Natasha McKenna and his own son, Early suggests
improving community-based services for the mentally ill, widening access to the
mental health care system, and changing the criteria that allows the mentally
ill to seek help.
“What happened was we closed
down all the state hospitals and promised to use that money to help people in
communities, but that didn’t happen,” he said, referring to the process of
deinstitutionalization, which was supposed include mechanisms to bolster
community-based services but never did.
Earley says it’s extremely
difficult to gain access to mental health care — and this has got to change. “I
couldn’t get in it,” he said. “I couldn’t get my kid in it until he became
violent.”
Finally, he explained that the
criteria used to assess whether a person can be treated need to be changed.
“We also need to look at
first-time breaks,” he urged. “Most people who have a mental illness are
confused the first time [they realize they’re having a mental health crisis]
and are willing to see a doctor, and that’s the best time to try and engage
them.”
“We don’t do that. We say,
‘Come back when you’re in a crisis. Come back when you’re dangerous.’”
Just when you think the fairfax county police can't sink any lower they pull this stunt
Family slams subpoena of John
Geer’s teen daughter to Fairfax grand jury
By Tom Jackman July 13
As the special grand jury
investigating the Fairfax County police shooting death of an unarmed Fairfax
County man in 2013 prepares to meet later this month, prosecutors have
subpoenaed one of the man’s teenage daughters, prompting fears from her family
that her testimony will be used to disparage John Geer in front of the jury.
The teen did not witness the shooting but made comments about her father’s
temper and drinking immediately afterward that her mother says were irrelevant
and untrue.
The officer who killed Geer,
Adam D. Torres, remains on the job and has not faced internal discipline or
criminal charges since the shooting 22 months ago. Commonwealth’s Attorney
Raymond F. Morrogh launched the special grand jury to determine whether Torres
should be charged with a crime.
A police internal affairs
investigation that began in September 2014 is not complete, and Chief Edwin C.
Roessler Jr. said he could not comment on when it would be concluded.
Geer’s longtime girlfriend,
Maura Harrington, with whom Geer had two daughters, said she was not surprised
to receive her subpoena to the grand jury but was stunned when a detective presented
one for her now 19-year-old daughter, Haylea Geer.
“Why does she have to relive
this in front of the grand jury?” Harrington asked in an interview last week.
“What purpose does it serve?”
Undated photo of John B. Geer
with his daughters Haylea and Morgan. (Photo by Maura Harrington)
Harrington and her daughters
were in a neighboring townhouse in the Springfield section of Fairfax County
when Geer was shot and killed. After he was shot, Geer stumbled into his home
and closed the front door. When a SWAT team found Geer dead nearly an hour
later, homicide detective Robert Bond was assigned to speak to Harrington and
the girls and make formal notification of Geer’s death.
The younger daughter, Morgan,
was too upset, but Haylea agreed to go with Bond, Harrington said. “I thought
they were just going to tell her what happened,” Harrington said. “It just did
not occur to me that they were actually questioning her. She didn’t know she
was being tape-recorded. I didn’t know they were doing that.” It wasn’t until
more than halfway through the conversation, attorney Michael Lieberman said,
that Bond told Haylea that her father was dead.
According to Bond’s report,
Haylea told him that “her dad is mean to her mother” and that Geer had once put
a gun to her mother’s head. Haylea also said that her father “drinks a lot,”
but “she didn’t think her dad was drinking today,” Bond wrote.
Harrington said the claim about
the gun to her head was false. She said that she, too, did not think Geer had
been drinking that day.
“Whatever happened in their
house,” Lieberman said, “how is that relevant
to why Torres pulled the
trigger over an hour later? Is this going to be a fair replay of that day, or
are they just going to be in there trying to destroy John?”
Morrogh said that Haylea Geer
had witnessed events prior to the arrival of police. “As far as the information
regarding Mr. Geer’s background goes,” Morrogh said, “under Virginia law
evidence of the turbulent character of a decedent is admissible in evidence
whether the defendant is aware of the decedent’s turbulent character or not.
The rationale is that the prior character of the decedent is admissible to show
who was the aggressor in the situation.”
Morrogh noted that in many
cases he has tried, “defense attorneys spend a good part of their efforts
trashing decedents on all sorts of background information which is considered
exculpatory material.”
John B. Geer. Killed by Fairfax Officer Adam
D. Torres in August 2013. No charges or internal discipline have been filed
against Torres but a special grand jury is about to begin investigating. (Photo
by Jeff Stewart)
Last month, Morrogh said that
he had subpoenaed about 20 witnesses to the special grand jury. Fairfax police
declined to discuss which officers had been called to testify, and whether
Torres will appear before the grand jury could not be determined. His attorney,
John F. Carroll, did not return a message seeking comment.
[John B. Geer had hands up when
shot by police, four officers say in documents]
Fairfax prosecutors rarely use
special grand juries, which are empaneled to hear evidence on one case only,
and prosecutors typically do not invite the subject of a grand jury
investigation to testify.
On the afternoon of Aug. 29,
2013, Harrington came home to the family’s townhouse on Pebble Brook Court to
find Geer tossing her belongings out of the house, in response to the news that
Harrington was moving out.
Torres and Officer David Neil
were dispatched to the domestic disturbance call. When they arrived, Geer and
Harrington were speaking in front of the house with their daughters, then 17
and 13, nearby. Geer knew Harrington had called the police, and when he saw the
officers he turned and walked into the house.
Harrington said she never saw
Geer with a gun, as Torres has told investigators, and that she never told
police Geer was considering “suicide by cop,” as an officer radioed to
colleagues during the 42-minute showdown before Torres suddenly fired one fatal
shot. Police photos show a holstered gun on the landing near Geer’s body.
Harrington said she was told
that prosecutors wanted to review her daughter’s “taped statement” given
moments after her father’s death, and they were told the purpose of the
conversation was for Detective Bond to make notification of the death, not to
do an investigation of Geer’s background.
Harrington said: “I want to
have confidence in the commonwealth’s attorney. I want this to be done fairly.”
In April, Fairfax County agreed
to pay Haylea and Morgan Geer $2.95 million to settle their civil suit.
Tom Jackman is a native of
Northern Virginia and has been covering the region for The Post since 1998
Don't be fooled into thinking the Fairfax County Police well ever wear body games without a court order
Area Police Meet With Body
Camera Vendors
By David Culver
As more police departments move
ahead with plans to equip officers with body cameras, there are questions about
how the video gathered is stored and secured. Northern Virginia Bureau reporter
David Culver reports. (Published Tuesday, Jul 14, 2015)
Law enforcement from across the
D.C. area are meeting with body camera vendors Tuesday and Wednesday to explore
implementing them in local jurisdictions.
Police are examining new body
camera technologies and looking into the complexities of storing and securing
all the data.
There’s been a growing push for
more transparency by police. Law enforcement from Fairfax County and Prince
William County are now moving forward with their own body camera projects.
“This is the next big thing for
law enforcement," said Capt. Robert Blakely, who is helping Fairfax County
Police lead the effort while acknowledging it’s complicated. “It’s how the
departments deploy the cameras and what they do with the data," he added.
Police departments across have
the option of using several different types of body camera, but storing the
hours and hours of video data is the challenge.
Steve Petruzzo’s GreenTec-USA
is among the many companies that thinks it may have a solution. It's pitching
storage capabilities that hold the original video quality that's untouched by
any officer.
“Digital evidence has to be
recorded in a way and handled in a way such that it’s immutable, you can’t be
challenged in court that the data’s been deleted or modified or edited or
altered," Petruzzo said.
Green Tec-USA says its business
is booming after only two years in the body camera market.
“Need for video and need for
evidence is probably going to be around for a long time," said Richard
Detore, Green Tec CEO. "We’re going to need to be able to manage it and
deal with it and more importantly protect it.”
Detore said cyberhacks are
something they feel confident they can thwart.
Prince William County Police is
among the agencies funded to move ahead. The department’s IT manager, Lt. Javid
Elahi, is looking at several vendors to start testing.
Northern Virginia Police Body
Camera Policies:
• Fairfax City: Funded; initial stages of testing
• Prince William County: Funded; meeting with vendors
• Fairfax County: Not yet funded; meeting with vendors
• Fredericksburg: Began using last year (2014)
• ArlingtonCounty: Not immediately pursuing body cams
• Alexandria: Not immediately pursuing body cams
• Loudoun County: No response
Former Loudoun County Sheriff’s Deputy Indicted for Asset Forfeiture Embezzlement
Allegedly Embezzled More Than
$200,000 from Asset Forfeiture Fund
U.S. Attorney’s Office July 09,
2015 • Eastern District of Virginia (703) 299-3700
ALEXANDRIA, VA—Frank Michael
Pearson, 44, a former Loudon County Sheriff’s Deputy from Winchester, Virginia,
was indicted by a federal grand jury today on four counts of theft concerning
programs receiving federal benefits in relation to his alleged embezzlement of
over $200,000 from the asset forfeiture fund at the Loudon County Sheriff’s
Office.
Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney
for the Eastern District of Virginia, and David J. LeValley, Special Agent in
Charge of the Criminal Division, FBI Washington Field Office, announced the
charges after the grand jury returned the indictment today. An arraignment has
been scheduled for July 24, 2015 at 9 a.m. before U.S. District Judge T. S.
Ellis, III.
Pearson faces a maximum penalty
of 10 years in prison on each count if convicted. The maximum statutory
sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational
purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court
based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
According to the indictment,
beginning in 2006 Pearson was designated as the deputy responsible for
overseeing the asset forfeiture program for the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office.
The indictment further alleges that from in or about 2010 through in or about
2013, Pearson embarked on a scheme to embezzle and steal money totaling in
excess of $200,000, which had been entrusted to him in connection with the
program. The indictment further alleges that Pearson concealed his embezzlement
scheme by making false statements to his coworkers and others about the timing
and fact of whether he had deposited seized money into an escrow account
maintained by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office at a local bank.
This case was investigated by
the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Virginia State Police. The Loudon
County Sheriff’s Office cooperated with the investigation. Assistant U.S.
Attorneys Matthew Burke and Mark D. Lytle are prosecuting the case.
Criminal indictments are only
charges and not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent until
and unless proven guilty.
A copy of this press release
may be found on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern
District of Virginia. Related court documents and information may be found on
the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on
PACER by searching for Case No. 1:15cr193.
This content has been
reproduced from its original source.
These companies sponsored the Police game in Fairfax County, thanks for nothing
The NACOLE Digest
News and events in civilian
oversight and police accountability.
In this Edition...
• Early Registration Deadline Approaching for 21st Annual
Conference
• Purchase Your Annual Scholarship Fundraising Dinner
Tickets Today
• Nomination Period Open to Run for the NACOLE Board
• Announcing 2015 NACOLE Award and Scholarship Recipients
• BART Police Department Adopts Transgender Policy
• NACOLE Attends 39th Annual NOBLE Conference in
Indianapolis
________________________________________
Early Registration Deadline
Approaching for 21st Annual Conference
The early registration deadline for the 2015
Annual NACOLE Conference is JULY 31, 2015. All paid registrations received on
or before this date will qualify for the reduced rate. To guarantee your
discount, register today!
REGISTER NOW
This year’s conference will feature a
conference schedule with more topics, more speakers, and more opportunities to
contribute to the growing national dialogue around civilian oversight.
For a copy of the complete 2015 conference
schedule, go to the website
________________________________________
Purchase Your Annual
Scholarship Fundraising Dinner Tickets Today
Join us for our annual
scholarship fundraising dinner at Heroes Restaurant and Brewery, located in
downtown Riverside. In addition to good food and good conversation, you will be
supporting NACOLE’s efforts to offer financial support to those wishing to
attend the Annual Conference, to increase the reach of civilian oversight, and
to promote participation by individuals from a broad spectrum of social,
economic, racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Seats to this event are limited
and WILL NOT be available for purchase at the conference. Make sure to purchase
your tickets today!
________________________________________
Nomination Period Open to Run
for the NACOLE Board
The nomination period to run
for the NACOLE Board of Directors is open until September 6, 2015. File your
declaration today! Serving on the Board is an exciting way to help shape the
direction of the association, to work closely with your oversight colleagues,
and to support communities across the country looking to establish or improve
oversight of the police.
To be eligible, candidates shall have been
association members in good standing for one year; they must have attended at
least one of the two previous annual conferences; and their membership dues
must be current. This year, the membership will elect the President, the
Vice-President, and two Board members at the Annual Meeting on October 7, 2015.
How to file: Send your signed declaration form
(and bio and photo) to the Election and Bylaws Committee by no later than
September 6, 2015. Please mail or email your declaration to: Ainsley Cromwell,
Chair, NACOLE Election Committee, 1063 Trevor Place, Detroit, MI 48207, or
cromwellac@yahoo.com.
All election-related material and information
can be found HERE on the NACOLE website.
________________________________________
Announcing 2015 NACOLE Award
and Scholarship Recipients
NACOLE is pleased to announce
the recipients of its 2015 Flame Award and Achievement in Oversight Awards.
They are:
Charles D. Reynolds, recipient of the 2015
Flame Award, is a court-appointed consent decree monitor, a former chief of
police in five communities, a past-president of an international police
executive organization, a recognized expert on police organizational and
management issues, and a past NACOLE board member.
St. Louis City Aldermen Terry Kennedy and
Antonio French serve their community with distinction as elected
representatives of their wards on the Board of Aldermen and are together
recipients of one of this year’s Achievement in Oversight awards.
Samara Marion, a policy analyst and staff
lawyer with the San Francisco Office of Citizen Complaints, is a recipient of
the second Achievement in Oversight award.
NACOLE is also pleased to
announce the recipients of the 2015 Scholarship Awards in the following
categories:
Founders’ Community Scholarship Award: Deborah
Jacobs, Melissa Smith, Olga Orraca, Torin Jacobs
Presidents’ Scholarship Award: Lynn Erickson,
Marielle Moore
Membership Scholarship Award: Richard Olquin,
Aisha Miles
________________________________________
BART Police Department Adopts
Transgender Policy
As a result of a recommendation
made by its Civilian Review Board, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police
Department adopted a policy on interactions with individuals identifying as
transgender.
The policy aims to increase awareness among
officers and to support the need for all members of the community to be treated
fairly and with respect.
________________________________________
NACOLE Attends 39th Annual
NOBLE Conference in Indianapolis
NACOLE President Brian Buchner and Cameron
McEllhiney, NACOLE’s Director of Training & Education, attended the 39th
Annual Conference of the National Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) in Indianapolis,
Indiana. NOBLE invited Mr. Buchner to participate in the Opening Plenary
Session where the Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice Loretta
Lynch delivered the Keynote address. As an invited guest, NACOLE was also given
free booth space in the Exhibition Hall, which turned out to be a great
opportunity to meet and speak with law enforcement officials and NOBLE members
about NACOLE and civilian oversight. It was a good opportunity to build a
relationship with NOBLE and its members, as there is alignment between what
NOBLE and NACOLE have been working toward for many years. NOBLE’s 40th
anniversary conference will be held in 2016 in Washington, DC. More information
about NOBLE is available on its website, www.noblenational.org.
Our mailing address is:
NACOLE
P.O. Box 87227
Tucson, AZ 85754
Police Reports
BROUGHT TO YOU BY................................
THE TORRES TWO YEAR PAID VACATION PLAN
ITS LIKE GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER!
ENDORSED BY THE SHARON BULOVA AND THE FAIRFAX COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
Police
Reports
The following are copies of
written statements submitted to the police on report forms The drivers were
instructed to give a brief statement on the particulars of the accident in
their own words.
Coming home, I drove into the
wrong house and collided with a tree I don't know.
I pulled away from the side of the road,
glanced at my Mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.
The gentleman behind me struck me on the
backside. He then went to rest in the bush with just his rear end showing.
In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a
telephone pole.
I had been driving my car for forty years when
I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.
MD: An invisible car came out
of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished.
The pedestrian had no idea
which direction to go, so I ran over him.
I saw the slow moving, sad
faced old gentleman as he bounced off the hood of my car.
The guy was all over the road,
I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
To avoid hitting the bumper of
the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.
I was sure the old fellow would never make it
to the other side of the roadway when I struck him.
My girlfriend kissed me. I lost
control and woke up in the hospital.
When I saw I could not avoid a
collision I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other
car.
As I approached the
intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had
ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.
The indirect cause of this
accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.
I collided with a stationary
truck coming the other way.
I told the police that I was
not injured, but on removing my hat, I found that I had fractured my skull.
Mass killings, school shootings are contagious
Mass killings and school
shootings in the U.S. appear to be contagious, according to a team of
scientists from Arizona State University and Northeastern Illinois University.
Study author Sherry Towers,
research professor in the ASU Simon A. Levin Mathematical, Computational and
Modeling Sciences Center, explained, "The hallmark of contagion is
observing patterns of many events that are bunched in time, rather than
occurring randomly in time."
Her team examined databases on
past high-profile mass killings and school shootings in the U.S. and fit a
contagion model to the data to determine if these tragedies inspired similar
events in the near future.
They determined that mass
killings -- events with four or more deaths -- and school shootings create a
period of contagion that lasts an average of 13 days. Roughly 20 to 30 percent
of such tragedies appear to arise from contagion.
Their paper, "Contagion in
Mass Killings and School Shootings," appears in the July 2 edition of PLOS
ONE.
The analysis was inspired by
actual events in Towers' life.
"In January of 2014 I was
due to have a meeting with a group of researchers at Purdue University,"
she said. "That morning there was a tragic campus shooting and stabbing
incident that left one student dead. I realized that there had been three other
school shootings in the news in the week prior, and I wondered if it was just a
statistical fluke, or if somehow through news media those events were sometimes
planting unconscious ideation in vulnerable people for a short time after each
event."
The researchers noted that
previous studies have shown that suicide in youths can be contagious, where one
suicide in a school appears to spark the idea in other vulnerable youths to do
the same.
"It occurred to us that
mass killings and school shootings that attract attention in the national news
media can potentially do the same thing, but at a larger scale," Towers
said. "While we can never determine which particular shootings were
inspired by unconscious ideation, this analysis helps us understand aspects of
the complex dynamics that can underlie these events."
On average, mass killings
involving firearms occur approximately every two weeks in the U.S., and school
shootings occur on average monthly. The team found that the incidence of these
tragedies is significantly higher in states with a high prevalence of firearm
ownership.
________________________________________
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted
from materials provided by Arizona State University. Note: Materials may be
edited for content and length.
________________________________________
Journal Reference:
1. Sherry Towers, Andres Gomez-Lievano, Maryam Khan, Anuj
Mubayi, Carlos Castillo-Chavez. Contagion in Mass Killings and School
Shootings. PLOS ONE, 2015; 10 (7): e0117259 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117259
________________________________________
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Arizona State University.
"Mass killings, school shootings are contagious." ScienceDaily.
ScienceDaily, 2 July 2015.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150702151520.htm>.
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