1y ago

Charged with no crime. Locked up for 12 days. He died waiting for help

James Tatsch was not charged with any crime. But when he was found unresponsive in an isolation cell at the Alcorn County Jail on Jan. 17, he had been locked up for 12 days. He died at the local hospital.

Tatsch was waiting for mental health treatment through Mississippi’s involuntary commitment process. Every year, hundreds of people going through the process are detained in county jails for days or weeks at a time while they wait for evaluations, hearings and treatment. They are generally treated like criminal defendants and receive little or no mental health care while jailed.

Mississippi Today and ProPublica previously reported that since 2006, at least 14 people have died after being jailed during this process. Tatsch, who was 48 years old, is at least the 15th. No one in the state keeps track of how often people die while jailed for this reason. The news organizations identified the deaths through lawsuits, news clips and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation reports. MBI investigates in-custody deaths only at the request of the local sheriff or district attorney.

75 comments

Conservatives are not able to see others as humans. Empathy is simply not a conservative trait. As such, conservatives should never be considered appropriate choices for leadership positions. The result is always oppression and death. Always. This has been true throughout human history.
These innocent people were killed by conservatives just being conservatives.
- Conservatives are driven by fear. It's hard to show empathy when you see others as a constant threat.
  "We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala"
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
  
  Fucking phrenology.
  
  And as we all know, liberalism and conservatism are the only forms of politics.
- A problem never exists until it happens to them personally. And even that's a stretch.
- Conservatives are not able to see others as humans.
  I'm not so sure. In fact, I don't think they would enjoy being so cruel if they didn't think they were doing it to other humans.
  They just see most humans as lesser humans.
  
  Interesting angle. I can see that being accurate.
- It's not that empathy isn't a conservative trait, the range is the issue.
  You can see it in how all the "pro gay" and "pro stem cell" conservatives in the US are ones who had a family member come out as queer or who contracted an illness which could be treated via stem cells.
  It's like they never quite got object permanence down pat. They can only believe queer folks are people if they see one themselves, they can only understand a moral abortion when they or one of their family members needs one, they only believe in welfare when its coming to their community, because they know that their community ain't mis-usin' it.
  Obviously some of it is down to just plain ol' bigotry, but a lot of it comes from the fact that these people can't empathize with what they haven't ever seen in person.
  It's like the mirror test but for screens, liberals, progressives, and leftists are able to recognize through a screen that the person on the other side is a real person with a real life experience that can really be related to even if only a little bit. A conservative in the modern day is someone who's just incapable of that, or even worse, someone who is capable of it but has opportunistically chosen to ignore it.
  A proper rural political campaign has to bring these issues to these folks front and center, you're not gonna make progress in small town America unless you campaign on the theory of EXTREMELY visual learning, you need black historians telling the story of Tulsa at town hall meetings, you need queer rights advocates telling the story about how their parents disowned them for being queer, you need folks who have had abortions and people who never would but understand that it isn't their place to stop others to explain their experiences and journeys.
  Most importantly you need to pay these folks a kings ransom because every single one of them is gonna need to be equipped with the patience of fucking Solomon to bring these issues to where conservatives will be able to see it and really have a chance to empathize with, and that's gonna involve a lot of answering very stupid and insensitive questions, and also dealing with people looking for a fight so they can keep villainizing over everyone else who might be able to get their grok on for these people.
- I've been detained and unlawfully searched dozens of times but the worst offenders are cops in major cities. 95% of my terrible cop experiences were in Democrat run cities. Authoritarianism runs strong on the left.
  
  Authoritarianism is a notoriously conservative trait. It is not a trait of progressives. I think you know that and are engaging in bad faith with a suspicious personal anecdote.
  
  Well just becauar a democrat runs a city does not mean the cops are Democrats. The mayor doesn't get to hire each cop or fire and replace the whole force.
- That is a gross generalization that contributes to the "us" v "them" idea. Plenty of people see others in the abstract until they are faced with it. And there is a small group of humans who don't care. Don't make things worse with this bullshit.
  
  Calling out conservatism for its cruelty is not "making things worse". It is not divisive to point out the root of oppression. Resisting oppressors should not be discouraged.
  Conservatives are the core of the world's most horrific problems. They resist any attempt to address global warming. They gleefully support oppressive governments. Conservatives openly engage in racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, antisemitism and other bigotry. Conservatives are doing this. Not their victims.
This happens every week, all over the country. It’s a shameful disgrace.
We need to start putting the death penalty on the table for criminally negligent officers.
- The death penalty isn't justifiable for any reason, much less this. Lock up the negligent officers and give them the same treatment they give their prisoners, shown them what it's like to be abused.
  
  Isn't that the death penalty as well?
  
  It's justifiable for pedophiles.
Almost one death a year. Should probably call Sherlock soon.
Wait, if they are sending patients to jail and treating them as criminal defendants what's up with habeas corpus in that scenario? And if they're not criminal defendants and are committed for mental health treatment why are they in jail? I mean, even before 15 deaths, that probably shouldn't be how that goes.
- They're there pending a mental health evaluation. In this situation, the person is held until a mental health practitioner is able to meet with them to evaluate their eligibility for a treatment program, or to see if they are competent to stand trial for a crime they committed while of questionable mental stability. Importantly, in neither example has the person been charged with a crime.
  The administrative reason they are in jail is that they have been ruled a danger to self, others or unknown risk factor. They have to be contained until evaluation, and we have literally no other choice but to use a jail for that. There are only around 400 beds total at the iirc 3 institutions in Mississippi that are certified to perform forensic mental health evaluations, and... well they're full. It's either put them in the jail, where at least they have a bed, or chain them to the gurney and leave them in a hallway at an overworked mental health institute (which is literally what happens. But trust me that somehow its much worse than you think.)
  
  Yeah, okay, but sue the goverment to shit, then. Or whoever runs the medical institution in question not providing adequate service. The people responsible not having the resources or the political will doesn't remove the rights of a patient. If I have a mentally ill relative that needs to be committed and they end up in jail for weeks I'd be pissed and extremely litigious even before they end up mysteriously dead.
  And also, does "pending evaluation" suspend habeas corpus if there is no evaluation in place to deem them a risk? WTF? What's to keep a hostile actor from maliciously putting a person in this track instead of properly charging them if they're just trying to dump them in a hole for two weeks? How does that hold to any constitutional scrutiny in the US? Surely you're either deemed incompetent and you are involuntarily committed until you're not... or you have habeas corpus. The hell is this limbo in between?
  I know even here there is a lot of grey areas in this subject and some shaky legal foundations to safety measures for people who can't look after themselves, but... yeah, this seems messed up. More messed up than the baseline level of messed up around this thing.
A process of indirect cost-shifting may have led to a form of "re-institutionalization" through the increased use of jail detention for those with mental disorders deemed unmanageable and noncompliant.[19][20] When laws were enacted requiring communities to take more responsibility for mental health care, necessary funding was often absent, and jail became the default option,[21] being cheaper than psychiatric care.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalization_in_the_United_States
in the US the solution to mental health was locking people up in "institutions" staffed with doctors but now we have them locked up in what amounts to zoos and staffed with "correctional officers"
meanwhile we have Biden's failed promise of police reform and healthcare
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1519/use-national-commission-address-policing-issues/
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1558/offer-public-option-health-insurance-plan-medicare/
and Trump and Obama and the other presidents from years past on both sides have not helped to improve the situation either (maybe the people allowed to vote should look at other parties?)
articles like this come out all time and their meaning has been lost for a while now with no change in sight but still holding out on hope
Man thats weird seeing a photo of my town on the front page
I watched We Own This City yesterday. Absolute fucking wild what is happening in that country. Shit you'd expect in Colombia or Kenya.
I looked at their 2022 audit and they got a glowing review!
Somehow they still managed to torture an inmate to death in solitary confinement though. Weird; you'd think something would come up on the report.
Some highlights:
115.35
Specialized training: Medical and mental health care
Auditor Overall Determination: Meets Standard
Auditor Discussion
Mental Health Services are provided not in an RCF, but through the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Because of this, an offender requiring the previous mentioned services would need to be transferred back into the State prison system. Any offender in need of mental health services would be transferred on an emergent basis, and would have the possibility of returning, depending on the reason for transfer. If necessary, a telehealth consult could be conducted with the state facility to see if there was an immediate need for transfer.
Based on the organizational chart, it was confirmed that two medical staff are employed at ACRCF. Both employees have received appropriate training on how to detect and assess signs of sexual abuse and harassment, and are educated on how to preserve physical evidence of sexual abuse. These staff members have also received the appropriate training of how to respond effectively and professionally when dealing with victims of sexual abuse, harassment, or assault. There are no forensic examinations conducted at ACRCF.
115.82
Access to emergency medical and mental health services
Auditor Overall Determination: Meets Standard
Auditor Discussion
The facility has an option to transfer any inmate in need of immediate medical and/or mental health care back to MDOC for evaluation of needs.
Agency and facility policy support all areas of this standard and mandate immediate access to medical and mental health services. Included in this policy not only the timeliness of emergency medical treatment but the crisis intervention services as well. These are steps to be taken by the first responders in order to ensure protection of the victim. In addition to this, the policy also provides timely access to emergency contraception and sexually transmitted infection prophylaxis. In the event of needing these treatments, the victim would not face any financial cost for services.
Despite immediate care being provided at Magnolia Regional Hospital, any inmate needing extensive or long-term care will be transferred to a DOC prison with a larger medical or mental health unit in order to provide the appropriate form of treatment.
115.35 (d)
Specialized training: Medical and mental health care
Do medical and mental health care practitioners employed by the agency also receive training mandated for employees by §115.31? (N/A if the agency does not have any full- or part-time medical or mental health care practitioners employed by the agency.)
yes
Do medical and mental health care practitioners contracted by or volunteering for the agency also receive training mandated for contractors and volunteers by §115.32? (N/A if the agency does not have any full- or part-time medical or mental health care practitioners contracted by or volunteering for the agency.)
na

75 comments