4/15/14

Deaths of Two Young People At the Alaska Department of Corrections, People Knew It Was Unsafe, I Risked My Safety to Tell Them

"Cruelty is a kind of cowardice. Cruel laughter is the way cowards cry when they are not alone, and causing pain is how they grieve." Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

I am much more ill than usual due to stress, under attack for retaliation purposes and having to fight back which means I have limited energy and some of it needs to be used for grocery shopping today.  Expect crappy editing. I will fight back until I collapse because I am on my own in a very corrupt state. These stories however must be addressed.

I was very upset to read about 24 year old, Davon Mosley dying at the Anchorage Jail and I knew the Department of Corrections would orchestrate their usual cover up and lies. His family says he had bipolar disorder and was schizophrenic. We have huge problems in the evaluation and treatment of the mentally ill in Alaska, API has more to do than the state will budget them for. But really considering Mr. Mosley’s history why was there no court action to monitor him considering he had attacked people with a machete in the past? “A mental health evaluation from API said Mosley was "stressed" but not sick enough to stay. So he left.” They only kept him for four days.

There is little help for those who have mental health problems in Alaska and those who can’t make good decisions or are a danger to themselves or others are just thrown to the wolves. Stopping meds is a normal thing that happens often with people who are psychotic and if it can’t be dealt with in a person who can become violent a mental health court needs to intervene to protect that person and the public. In Alaska they use the laissez-faire method of mental health treatment, you are on your own, but when your psychosis leads you to commit a crime we will then punish you harshly. That does not protect the mentally ill person or the public. Not too long ago the Parnell administration cut $3.8 million from a mental health budget that had been dwindling for years and was pitiful before this even happened. They hate low income people and anyone with a disability here, believe me I know. If you complain they go after your Social Security and yes I have that going on right now along with huge issues where I live.

There is huge ignorance about mental health issues including among the mental health professionals. I know that is hard to believe, but believe it absolutely. The mental health professionals, nursing and medical professionals in the jails in Alaska are  incompetent with a few exceptions and they have corrections officers make medical decisions. The legislators and two governors in this state have know for many years about these problems. I have gone to considerable effort and risk to tell my own story and observations. Yes, there has been retaliation.

I am sorry this happened to the Mosley family. People don’t know Alaska is a brutal and cruel place with a very corrupt justice system because who could imagine such a thing is allowed in the United States, but it is and not just in Alaska. The Department of Corrections does not follow standard procedures even though they do write policies and have some corrections officers who bully inmates, especially those with mental health issues and they goof off acting like junior high kids. I had them threaten me and try to put me in administrative segregation for filing copouts and grievances. The grievances were disappeared. Others in the state of Alaska have known this for years and have helped the DOC gaslight me. My story is absolutely all true. There are posts all over this blog about the DOC and their Department of Probation. It was horrifying, made my PTSD significantly worse and of course I can forget even getting counseling in rural Alaska.

Last night when I read the Anchorage Daily News article about 24 year old Amanda Kernak who died at Hiland Mountain I had to go in the bathroom and throw up. My PTSD was already triggered by other issues and now is off the scale, the ME/CFS is flaring up and I am getting really sick. Apparently she had been arrested for DUI. Hiland Mountain is the women’s prison in Alaska and most of the women there are transferred from another jail or prison. She had been at Hiland Mountain for two days. I am assuming she had been incarcerated somewhere else first which means she could have been in withdrawal from alcohol for about three days which would put her in the most dangerous time period for delirium tremens when she died. D. T. causes heart arythmias and seizures which are especially a problem if the person is also on other substances. According to the article in the A.D.N. she had been having a cardiac problem of some kind. I doubt she did not tell the staff at Hiland Mountain. She should have had a consult with a cardiologist or internal medicine doctor, a 12 lead EKG at least and been on continuous cardiac monitoring if this is the case. She certainly should have been observed either by camera or eyeball continuously with frequent close checks. This by my own observations does not occur in the prisons of Alaska. Alcohol withdrawal is a very common medical problem that has good treatment which includes medication and close observation for complications. Some people need to be on cardiac and SAO2 monitoring and some have to be restrained a short time to keep them from getting hurt. There can also be issues when people are first incarcerated of alcohol poisoning and drug overdoses which can cause respiratory arrests and seizures, especially if they have something secreted on their bodies and ingest all of it to keep the staff from finding it. That is why observation and monitoring are so important.

The DOC always claims it will take a month to get the results of the autopsy and tox screen. By now in both of these cases the medical examiner knows a great deal, but they help with the cover up. This is a delay tactic so they can spin the story and let the interest die down and why wouldn’t they use this tactic as it has worked for them in the past.

Schroeder would not say whether Kernak was detoxing from alcohol in the jail. She said generally the DOC provides medically supervised withdrawal from alcohol. Inmates are sent to a hospital if they are showing signs of "severe withdrawal," she said.

I observed women having seizures in a unit that was not general population, but some kind of orientation unit who were coming off drugs and alcohol. They allowed them to just have seizures and refused to give them their usual medications. No one got their meds, they abruptly stop them and for many medications this is dangerous. They did this to me and little old ladies who needed their cardiac and blood pressure meds. I really doubt much has changed, it has probably only gotten worse. As a former RN who worked both critical care and psych and worked some in prisons I was horrified beyond belief. While going to college I worked with mentally ill legal offenders. One could wonder why I was shocked after having worked at Norton Sound Regional Hospital by the ignorance and horrible conditions, cover ups and abuse but I still am.

From a blog post that is several years old:

This unit is where I found out they withhold everyone’s medications. There were little old ladies who could not get their blood pressure medicine. No one got their psychiatric medications and then when they acted out which they could not control unmedicated they were in trouble. There were heroin addicts going cold turkey. Some of the symptoms of coming off heroin are muscles constantly contracting, vomiting, incontinent diarrhea, a feeling on the inside that they are going to jump out of their skin and severe pain. They were throwing up all over the place and having diarrhea in their pants. We even had one woman who was passing blood in her stool and they acted like she was making it up when she complained. They did not supply her with extra clothing when she had diarrhea in her pants, another inmate gave her pants to her. One little girl passed out coming back from the dinning hall. Heroin addicts have low blood pressure and with the throwing up and diarrhea they become dehydrated. She passed out shortly after getting in line, after going from a sitting position to standing. I realized what was going on and went over and lifted her legs above her head to help her perfuse her brain. She came to almost immediately. The officer came over and yelled at me to let go of her. I was doing the right thing! He then proceeded to tell her she was faking a seizure. There was no seizure activity whatsoever. She simply passed out. This particular officer was the dumbest SOB I have ever seen in my life, officer Pass. Of course what do you expect from people who get about six weeks of training. They allow them to make medical decisions about the inmates. This is unconscionable. The worse thing I saw was a woman with a seizure disorder who was refused her medication. She had at least three seizures that I knew of and his attitude was that she would probably live. Not only did she have a seizure disorder, but she had been clubbed in the head by a cop. This made it extra dangerous to withhold the drugs as she probably had a concussion. She should have had neuro checks done frequently and been seen to by a neurologist. The inmates should have medical care available at all times. There should at least be a nurse for evaluations. Someone should be checking the vital signs of a lot of the inmates. The corrections officers are not medically trained. None of them have been to medical school. Their training is just a few weeks.

The Alaska Department of Corrections and the Alaska Bureau of Investigation so far have offered no explanation for Mosley's death, saying only that there is an ongoing investigation. They have also declined to provide any details about the time he spent in the jail.

Corrections authorities will not say whether Mosley was isolated in a "segregation unit" of the jail or a special unit for mentally ill prisoners when he died. They will not say when a guard last checked on him, or whether he had suffered injuries that required medical treatment before his death. They will not say whether he was taking medication or if he had been disciplined for behavior problems.

Just like in my case, the Mosley’s know what the DOC has to say is bullshit. They know because one of them works in health care in a prison in California. She knows the regulations and the constitutional rights inmates have to health care. She knows the safety procedures for mentally ill inmates. She knows that a person in isolation is to be observed either by eyeball or camera. She knows documentation of those procedures is to be filled out accurately as they are done, not later or before they are done as cover or because they actually are not done. She also knows Davon would most likely not be dead if he had been observed.

The M.E. office is claiming a G.I. bleed. What would cause a sudden bleed like this in a man of 24 20? The family claims he was physically healthy and even if he did have a risk factor for G.I. bleed he most likely would have had symptoms before a crisis of bleeding and he would have complained about it. Stress can cause G. I. bleeds as well as some medications. Did they ignore him and tell him he was imagining things when he complained? Did he ask to fill out a copout over and over and over, was he abused for asking? If they had put him on Lithium and those who have been at A.P. I. were about the only inmates that got their meds it can cause some bleeding issues. He has a long history of taking Lithium, but the extra stress added on top of the med could cause more of a tendency to bleed. That is why those on psychiatric meds should have regular evaluations and staff working with them should be trained to watch for side effects of their medications as well as look out for overheating and other issues that can harm them. The attitude at the DOC is everyone is a scumbag, every inmate is lying, manipulating and seeking attention, so they just gaslight and ignore all complaints. They also do not want to pay for basic health care so let corrections officers who have no training as health care professionals evaluate medical complaints. I doubt the G. I . bleed story, but don’t have all the information and never will. Davon according to the ADN article told a family member he was not getting his Lithium in jail and that is SOP.  I am speculating, but it is speculation born of experience.

When the family observed Davon’s body at the funeral home they noticed signs that lead the father to say, “He looks beat up.” They took pictures and have hired someone to do a second autopsy.

Lorriane Mosley works as a certified nursing assistant in a California prison, she said. She knows the regulations governing the medical care of inmates and the monitoring of incarcerated people who suffer from mental illness -- because that's her job."It does not add up," Lorraine Mosley said, standing in the parking lot of the Anchorage medical examiner's office."If they were watching him, why would he be dead?" Bruce Mosley asked.

They don't follow those regulations here in Alaska and I have been YELLING about it for years. It was clear there was the usual cover up going on. They always say the same things, it will take a month to get the autopsy and tox screen back. I called wanting to know why information in another case had not been released and they said it was due to privacy issues. Yes they did and then I called the ACLU and they repeated this using the same exact words of the DOC staff. Autopsies are not public information in Alaska which I was shocked to find out. The DOC refused my FOIA request illegally in that case. Yea, everything in Alaska is corrupt. They also always claim there in no foul play expected immediately with every death and the uninformed of Alaska buy the story.

The DOC is using the same lies after all these years:

The Alaska Bureau of Investigation did not release basic information about the death until after a reporter called about it on Monday, five days after Kernak's body was found.
A department spokeswoman blamed the delay on an "archaic" computer system. 
A news release -- standard for most in-custody deaths -- was supposed to be posted Saturday, said Megan Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Alaska Bureau of Investigation.
"It looks like they tried to send it and it didn't go through," she said. "It's not like we were trying to hide anything. They actually tried to send it."


Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2014/04/14/3425394/inmate-found-dead-at-hiland-mountain.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy
They made a similar claim at Hiland Mountain when a public defender sent me emails they prevented me from getting. They claimed their system was not working right. No. This is very likely a lie. Who believes they did not notice such a computer problem for several days? Please always remember the FBI in Alaska is just as corrupt as the state agencies.

They also illegally read mail, especially if they think the inmate may be writing about the abuses in the prison. I had my emails held intentionally(inmates can only get them from lawyers) which had been sent by a public defender(only to tell me she was no longer my attorney) and then they made up lies to try and cover for what they did. I believe the plan was to throw them away until it was pointed out to them they had been sent. They had also at times prevented me from making phone calls.

 What happened between the time Mosley entered the jail on March 16, according to Department of Corrections records, and his death less than three weeks later is foggy.
Vernesia Gordon says she spoke to him daily until March 23.
"After that I never spoke with Davon again," she said. 


What happened that prevented her from talking to Davon on the phone for three weeks?

I am already receiving retaliation right now for exposing some other issues, what will come next?

Here are just three of my posts about my experience with the Department of Corrections in Alaska. The problems have been known about for many years. 

ITS A STRANGE STRANGE WORLD WE LIVE IN MASTER JACK

 

 My Letter to Sarah Palin (part 1)

 

My Experiences With The Alaska Department Of Probation: Part One

So distraught and horrified that nothing was done by the DOJ to make them do what they are supposed to at the DOC. I am just one person with health problems, limited resources and very limited energy that they made worse who spoke up, but nothing changed. The only thing that surprises me is that more people don't die in the prisons here. We know of these two cases because the families have come forward with the stories. Many who have mental illness or are incarcerated have no one to report their death to the news media, so I wonder if there are more unreported deaths. 

 

 

 



No comments: