THE PUBLIC DEFENDER WHO LIED TO GET ME TO TAKE A PLEA IS NOW THE MAGISTRATE IN KOTZEBUE

Nome District Court

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the men closed round his throat, just as the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice. From The Trial by Franz Kafka.

When I got back from wrongful imprisonment while my property was stolen or put out in the rain and my cat starved and tortured by the man who I believe committed the crime I was very distraught and angry. Of course, who would not be after all of that knowing those who should have stopped it orchestrated it, public defenders, judges, and the department of law. There is no way the DOL did not know Robin Hume was a con man and the state troopers had investigated and said there was no evidence I did the crime before Judge Esch issued the warrant. They would never let facts stand in their way. If one is wrongfully arrested and the public defender agency shows up and begins a process to right the wrong belief in our system of justice is still possible, but they do not do this. The lack of competence or even caring about my case while retaliating against me for my demands of a defense, due process and a trial fueled all of this. They protect each other no matter which side they are on or no matter what they themselves have done wrong, even if it is something that would get the rest of us imprisoned. The DA in this case pulled all of the strings and his anger at what he perceived as my lack of cooperation caused him to retaliate against me. The public defender agency was glad to assist him. Truthiness and injustice are ingrained in our legal systems.
 
The public defender agency in Kotzebue at that time were representing me even though I lived in Nome because my besotted public defender in Nome had finally gone to rehab after I told the judge and Director Quinlan Steiner over many months she had a problem and was met with abuse. They go to any lengths to protect each other even if they have harmed clients. The Kotzebue office when notified of a hearing about the false accusation did not notify me about it nor did they go to the hearing themselves. Anyone would have realized this meant there was a communication problem, but Judge Esch issued the warrant for my arrest anyway. The attorney who was supposed to be representing me who was Brooke Browning at the time, now Brooke Browning Alowa claims she was out of town. She was the manager of the office; apparently, there was no procedure in place for notifying clients of hearings either in Kotzebue or Nome because I had several I was not told about. When I informed Judge Esch fairly early on this was happening he just scowled and said, “You’re here now.“ By not fixing this problem they can use it to have people on conditions or others arrested easily and put in prison, it is one of their tools. In Nome it is mostly used against the Native people. They have a small prison in Nome and are desperate for jobs there. When I lived in Nome I knew to keep checking for hearings because they would be scheduled without my being informed. One does not have to guess why they did not tell me about the hearings since not attending could result in being imprisoned. It is clear this was their ultimate goal. I knew what they were up to so I checked diligently, but eventually when I had no reason to think there would be a hearing and was not in Nome I stopped and that is when they finally entrapped me.
 
When I was wrongfully imprisoned the public defender agency did not send anyone to see me and I in fact contacted many of them and many officials in the state of Alaska to ask that they file for a writ of habeas corpus, get my cat to safety, send someone to talk to me, help me get medical care and have the state troopers inform Robin Hume not to steal my property or even go in my room. Now that I was imprisoned I could not agitate for due process and they just ignored me. They did nothing other than make statements like they did not understand themselves how I could have been arrested without being charged with the crime as otherwise there was no proof I violated conditions of release. They made statements like, “I have never seen this happen before“. My response was, generally questions about why they were not doing anything about it then. Then nothing would happen, it was almost as if they had been told to do nothing, hint, hint, nod, nod, wink, wink.

UPDATE: The medications referred to in the next paragraph were Trazadone and Gabapentin, for the pain of ME/cfs and the depression which is associated with being a DES daughter. I was taking both meds when I arrived in Nome. The doctors were so ill educated I had trouble getting prescriptions there. I had to wait for a locum tenens (travel doctor) to get the Gabapentin and they spread rumors in Nome that the reason I was taking Trazadone was it is addicting, absolutely not true. Trazadone is as old as the hills, it is an antidepressant. I was in acute PTSD with lack of counseling and constant trauma. The trauma has continued for years and continues. The prison medical staff was even more ill informed than the doctors in Nome and hatefully abusive along with the nurses, social workers and a psychologist.  I believe they abruptly stopped the meds to torture me and I observed really cruel things done to other women by them. It was Dr. Zimbardo's prison experiment gone Dr. Mingele wild. I weaned myself off them after again taking them after the release from wrongful imprisonment and have not taken them since some time in 2008. I am adding this due to the smear campaign and gangstalking being done by some very disturbed people who use anything they can in an attempt to discredit me, obviously to attempt to silence the truth.

There was a hearing on the phone from the mental health unit in Hiland Mountain. I had been held in isolation, poor conditions, abuse and had my psychiatric medication abruptly stopped causing confusion. They also put me on a starvation diet which caused me to loose eight pounds in one week. They do this as punishment to manipulate the inmate into cooperating so they will be allowed out of the cell to eat with the other inmates. I was distraught, confused and was not sure exactly why I was incarcerated having no legal representative or access to the information about the case. Judge Esch cut me off from speaking after I made the statement that I was totally innocent of the accusation from Nome. I had been moved around to four different jails and prisons until I got to Hiland Mountain being told with each move I was going to Nome for a hearing. This never happened. Moving people around in the prisons system is a tactic often used to keep people from communicating with the outside to get assistance.

I kept calling Brooke Browning from the prisons and leaving messages. Finally at Hiland Mountain I found out she was no longer assigned to my case. Inmates are allowed to receive emails from their attorneys and she had sent me some stating she was not my attorney that I got about a week late due to the corrupt actions of the corrections officers. Why those I had managed to get on the phone at the public defender agency did not tell me this and inform me that this case was at the public defender agency in Nome I do not know. Most likely Brooke Browning knew I was going to be extremely pissed and very upset, so she avoided a phone conversation, I am sure she had been warned by others. She never apologized to me and at one point left a message on my voice mail that said she was, “tired of hearing about your frickin cat“. I am sure that while I was pleading with them to save my cat and property many of them were simply talking about how I was speaking delusions. In the end it was an investigator in Nome who finally got some evidence that Steve Hume had lied when not any of them believed me. He left the public defender agency in Nome and when he did he brought most of their ethics with him. I am grateful he was there to take my calls when none of the people who should have would. Everything I had told them was true yet they had not investigated. They assumed I lied because that is what the prosecutor told them to believe. In Nome and other villages in Alaska, the prosecutor, public defenders, and judge all hang out together.

Brooke Browning was put on my case after the alcoholic attorney fell out to manipulate me. She is one of those kinds of people who tells you how wonderful she is, lies about almost everything, tells you she is going to do all these wonderful things for you and then stabs you in the back, and then when confronted about her actions feigns the sweet and innocent victim (lawyering 101). She is quite the social butterfly and networker as she is a climber. Her mission was to manipulate me into taking a plea by convincing me she had my best interests. She promised me what she called a “nice package” for the judge with expert witnesses. She told me I would most likely get probation with SIS (charge comes off at end of sentence). Three days before the sentencing hearing after trying to make contact with her or Quinlan Steiner for weeks I was informed I would not have any expert witnesses and that I would be my own expert witness, the first of two episodes of this crazy manipulative tactic. I was very upset and wrote a very lengthy allocution which I was allowed to read in lieu of no defense. I had no defense, DA Earthman stood in that court room and lied and no public defender ever objected even once. Brooke Browning even tried to convince me at one point that Earthman was very concerned about me. I asked her if the word stupid was written on my forehead. Michele Murphy in the past was so enamored of Earthman I thought she must be sleeping with him. I did not understand this is how their system works, they are all enamored of each other. They manipulate and cover for each other.

There is no defense unless you have money and power, the rest of us get pre-ordained sentences that both the prosecution and defense work toward. Being poor to them is equal to being guilty and you are lied about and demonized by both sides because evidence does not matter. Judges in Alaska are generally appointed based on being right wing Christians (and in the case of Parnell, male gonads) and they believe that the poor are all responsible themselves for being poor and all assistance of any kind by the government should be stopped. When I complained about my besotted public defender begging Judge Esch to allow me another one he said indignantly, “Indigent defendants” do not choose their attorneys. Slanting the court to the right and placing right wing staff in the Department of Law helps them deny access to due process for the poor who can’t afford a decent lawyer. What is going on with the Public Defender Agency that they are behind these people? It is low funding, incompetence, and selection of personnel who supervise.

When they pulled all of this about the sentencing hearing I asked to withdraw the plea for a trial and was told that it was not possible. Which I now know was a lie. I was on the state of Alaska’s injustice railroad and there would be no getting off that train.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The below email from Brooke Browning was sent the Monday before a hearing to be held on a Wednesday. I had inadvertently found out about it and was of course very alarmed after having been imprisoned for this same screw up already. This time Brooke Browning could not claim to be out of town. This indicates the procedures for notifying clients were still not in place in Kotzebue. Keep in mind all that has already gone on as stated above. I was very angry that she continued to pull the same crap. The strategy for not telling me about the hearing until a couple days before was to keep me from asking questions, making demands that they put a plan in place, calling higher ups in Alaska government and obtaining expert witnesses. I never spoke with her about strategy, she would not allow it, all the while dramatically proclaiming she was diligently working on my case. NSHC had at first claimed the fantastic amount of $75,000 in restitution, then decreased it to $25,000, and now had settled on around $10, 000 for something that was not missing that had an actual value of at most a few hundred dollars. I did the research, asked the public defender agency to verify it and they did not claiming I would be called as my own expert witness in court. They did not call me to present this information, it was all part of the manipulation scheme. The judge knew what he was going to do anyway, evidence was suppressed so there would be no grounds for an appeal later. BTW, in Alaska public defender clients are not allowed to choose what to appeal, since the problem is generally incompetence of public defenders and lack of due process that means the system is rigged. They are not going to file an appeal implicating incompetence or manipulation in the public defender agency. Also, appeals are only based on evidence already presented in court, nothing new can be presented. This is why they suppressed evidence and kept me from doing it myself. I tried to go pro se several times and Judge Esch refused. This was for drugs I did not remember taking when I was very disturbed (probably psychotic), suicidal from complex PTSD and never actually left the hospital with them.

Celia,
Your restitution hearing is set for Wednesday in Nome at 11:30 AM. We got notice Friday afternoon. I saw it today. The Nome Court house # is 443-5216.
I am tired of your abusive, accusatory messages. If you want to discuss the case in a productive manner, please call or email. The only point of the restitution hearing is that I am trying to save you from getting stuck with paying a sum of money I do not believe you owe. If you do not want to pursue the hearing, and wish to pay the full amount NSHC is trying to get from you, be my guest-- just let me know and I’ll work on other cases instead.
My secretary will not put up with swearing or abusive language. If you speak to her like that again, she will hang up on you.


Brooke Browning

They did not work on cases in a productive manner, this is one of the things I was angry about. This is what she does she says she is working towards doing the right thing, but she is doing the opposite. She was removed from this hearing and in the end no defense at all was presented as per usual. After all that happened I had a right to be angry.

Email sent to friend:

New development: Last Thursday, the 13th(not Friday like Brooke Browning says) Judge Esch scheduled a restitution hearing about my original case. Apparently the hospital is making a big stink about it. I believe it is based on the fact that it is close to the end of the statute of limitations for me to file a lawsuit against them. He scheduled it without even consulting the attorney. The attorney for that case is in Kotzebue. I called the one in Nome for the new case to clarify the date of the next hearing for that one. She told me about this one. I of course called the Kotzebue office very upset. Brooke claims the court told them Friday. It was Thursday. This is the second damn time they screwed up and the third time Nome screwed up. I just forwarded it to my representative's office and thought I would send it to you. This is not incompetence this is malice.

The hearing about the false charge that I had been wrongfully imprisoned over was the only reason I found out about the restitution hearing being scheduled. It was well known at the public defender agency exactly what was going on. I had already been told by Brooke Browning that Judge Esch had made the claim that there was a rule the defendant did not need to be present at a restitution hearing. He planned for me not to be present. In other words he wanted to railroad me. Was she helping him with his plan by not informing me of the hearing while feigning she was on my side?

I don’t remember what swear words I used, most likely something like, what the f*** is wrong with you people or this is bullshit. These would be my typical reactions when angry. In fact when Judge Murphy in Nome would not allow me to get my property and cat to safety before going back to jail after I told her I was innocent I told her that was bullshit and it was. Judge Esch gave Norton Sound Health Corporation all they asked for and I was not allowed to present evidence. Yep, Brooke Browning and the public defender agency had really worked on my case…not. I was lied to by a second attorney just before the hearing and once again told I would be my own expert witness. Once again I was not called on to present the evidence. To fight in court you need to have facts, research, and logic. None of this happened, ever. They just said crap like, “Your honor, the evidence against my client is circumstantial at best”, but no evidence was presented.


Email responses to officials in Alaska, including Quinlan Steiner:

SO, EXCUSE ME IF I MIGHT SWEAR. I HAVE EARNED THE
RIGHT . OBVIOUSLY KIRSTEN BEY IS NOT GOING TO
EFFECTIVELY REPRESENT ME. OBVIOUSLY BROOK BROWNING HAS
NOT. OBVIOUSLY YOU HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO MY COMPLAINTS
ABOUT IT. THIS IS NOT JUST INCOMPETENCE THIS IS
OBVIOUSLY BEING DONE ON PURPOSE BY NOT JUST YOU, BUT
JUDGE ESCH AND DA EARTHMAN. AND IT HAS BEEN DONE WITH
MALICE. BROOKE BROWNING CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL.
--------------
I am so distraught that I am sick. Brooke Browning's response is based on one short conversation I had with a secretary this morning. I guess the government agencies in this state can be abusive to people, but no one has the right to speak up. These people all deserve to loose their jobs.
--------------
The office in Kotzebue did not notify me of the
hearing about the stolen money at which information
could have been presented disputing this lie nor did
they show up for it. This resulted in my loosing
nearly everything I own and having the rest put out in
the rain and my cat starved. She has been very ill,
especially over the last few days, she now looks
better. It also resulted in my being homeless. This is
after all the screw ups and having a chemically
impaired abusive Public defender for over a year. This
is after a case which should have taken only a few
months took a year and a half. This is after I was
already financially devastated from that. This is
after I was promised expert witnesses for my
sentencing hearing and told I would probably just get
SIS probation. This is after 3 days before my
sentencing hearing I was told there would not be any
expert witnesses, how cowardly you all are. This is
after I was falsely arrested and imprisoned for 26
days, had my medication withheld, and was
psychologically tortured. This is after I called and
called every public defender agency office I could get
a number for and it includes calling Quinlan Steiner's
office and leaving at least 2 messages begging
everyone to help get my cat to the humane society and
stop him from stealing my things. This is after an
investigator has not come to speak to me here in light
of my telling everyone some of the witnesses may leave
town. So far no one has explained to me how I can even
be charged. I know myself this charge is ridiculous and
unconstitutional. Why does Kirsten Bey sound like she
is on the other side. She should be outraged and so
should you. I spoke to Kirsten Bey specifically about
my cat and things. She called Mr. Hume and he told her
lies. I told her he was lying and she refused to do
anything else. It was the public defender agency's
fault I was in there in the first place. You all
should have done something, but I guess you were all
too focused on going on your lovely vacations to care
that your incompetence and corruption was destroying
someone's life. I guess you have done this so many
times you just do not care anymore. And now, Judge
Esch sets a hearing on the 13th for the 20th for a
restitution hearing. Should there even be a restitution
hearing in a case set for appeal? I accidentally found
out about it today when I called Kirsten Bey which was
a waste of time as usual she is unresponsive. How the
hell am I suppose to get a ticket to get there at this
late date? There is a witness she would have needed to
find. No one has discussed strategies with me.
---------------
DA Earthman was using lies and had not prepared the case, in fact it was pitiful. Lies were used at the sentencing hearing as well. He had the public defender agency in Nome call me to try and figure out if I was coming back to Alaska when I went to the lower 48. They told me he said he would not prepare the case if I was not coming back. WTF! They either did not want me to come back as they had no evidence or they wanted me to stay out so they could arrest me and give me further charges. DA Earthman was supposedly using the public defender agency as a go between for these communications from Kirsten Bey who also told me the public defender agency could not find my file. Was I supposed to believe they were going to make the case disappear? I have no way of knowimg just who originated the idea to contact me with this BS, but suspect both agencies did it in concert. When I was first arrested people in Nome told me they all work together and know the outcome of every case, working together to make it happen. Fighting for them to give you a defense is like punching a wall, you get hurt and nothing comes of it.

Asking for a trial resulted in threats from the judge and public defender, always. The judge would tell me how many years I could get if I went to trial and the public defender would say things like, “You never know what a jury will do.“ or “But, you admit you are an addict.” To which I would respond that lots of people are addicted to substances and don’t know it, I am simply not in denial about it and believe in talking about it to educate and help others, that does not mean I have done what they say in any way. In fact this would be a typical and usual tactic of serial bullies to take a piece of information about a person and use it to demonize them in the eyes of others. You see how legal logic works? If I love to eat red apples and one is missing, they assume I am the one who ate it when almost everyone likes red apples. The reason for assuming it was me who ate the red apple would not be based in fact nor logic it would be based on their political relationship to the accusers. In this case the accusers are some very sick serial bullies who had been poisoning the community against one person after another for many years.
 
In nursing a person known to be in recovery is very valuable as there are impaired nurses and patients. Those who are ignorant about addiction use this to look down on others and to try and make themselves feel superior. My issues occurred because of health problems just like with others. In Alaska this very destructive attitude runs rampant and has been used to demonize natives and homeless people. Nursing and medicine are very tightly intertwined with the false information the drug companies have passed off about addiction to keep their high profit pain killers bringing in money. People who take no initiative to educate themselves in these professions are puppets of the drug industry lies.

Right about this time Brooke Browning declared she was leaving the public defender agency to go into private practice in Nome (which did not last long). I told her one of them was the crazy lawyer who I called for legal advise before all of this happened and he went nuts on the phone and he laughed loudly and hilariously when my name was called in court. Was she fired from the public defender agency or asked to resign? Was screwing me over some kind of quid pro quo for services rendered? Quinlan Steiner told me she was the one who decided to lie to me to get me to take a plea, “It was all Brooke Browning.“ However I was also lied to by other public defenders which shows this was SOP. Stephen Hale was then appointed to be my attorney out of Kotzebue. I was told he had recently lost an election for prosecutor in Texas, but my research tells me there was much more to that story. He also pulled the, you’ll be your own expert witness crap on me and then never called on me so I could present the information. This tells me it did not just come from Brook Browning, it was from the top of the public defender agency.

The bullshit continued. I frequently called Quinlan Steiner through all of this and he did not return phone calls. I was told to only call the deputy director of the criminal division, but he rarely returned calls either. I had to then contact the commission to get them to compel him or Steiner to call me which made Steiner angry. Eventually he got them to refuse to make the calls.


Email about pretrial for false charge:

Yes, I had my pretrial hearing this morning. I have not been contacted by my PD as I was told I would be by the deputy director. I had no idea what we were doing. I called the Nome office thinking he would be there. He is out of Kotzebue [Stephen Hale]. They had not seen him. I told the one who believed Robin Hume over me [Kirsten Bey] that I would go pro se before I would have her represent me. She showed up at the hearing. I could not believe it. The magistrate just continued it until the restitution hearing tomorrow at 2:30. I went into a tirade about the PDA not being able to get their act together and wanting to be pro se. I am suppose to call the Nome office between 12 and 1 to see if they can sort out what they are doing. Good God. How much more can they screw up? He needs to prepare something for this restitution hearing, how could I trust that he is doing this?

Judge Esch refused to allow me to go pro se. I may not have been an attorney, but I could have at least defended myself.

Stephen Hale was not preparing my case, of course I have no idea what information they gave him or what lies they may have told him. The only preparation he made was to lie to me and then tell me I would be my own expert witness. He also sat while DA Earthman spoke obvious lies and demonized me while not objecting. There was no need to prepare, they had all decided on the outcome before the hearing. This is why Judge Esch did not want me there. He knew what he was going to do. Evidence had no bearing on the case. The evidence went against the outcome they all wanted. It was all corrupt political maneuvers.

On July 9, 2010 Paul A. Roetman was appointed to Kotzebue Superior Court by Governor Parnell. Without even checking we know this means he is a right wing Christian and meets another of the Parnell criteria for being a judge, being male. Each Superior Court Judge gets to select the magistrate(s) for the court.

AS 22.15.170. Selection of District Judges and Magistrates.



(c) The presiding judge of the superior court in each judicial district shall appoint the magistrates for the district court for the judicial district. Each magistrate serves at the pleasure of the presiding judge of the superior court in the judicial district for which appointed.


(d) Vacancies for magistrates shall be filled in the same manner as appointments.

Here is one of the reasons the Alaska justice system is so screwed up, Brooke Browning Alowa is now the magistrate in Kotzebue. She applied when there was an opening for judge and then withdrew. What she has done in my case was most likely a quid pro quo to get points to further her career. What she did in my case should have gotten her disbarred, but in Alaska the judicial system is corrupt, they make deals, watch each other’s backs, and leave a wake of destruction in their paths. Just like I have said so many times before, those with an agenda other than the work at hand screw everything up and foster corruption.

So, now the kind of person who should not even be practicing law is a magistrate. How does this happen? Well we know under Sarah Palin and now Sean Parnell that judges are appointed according to a primary requirement, they must be a right wing radical Christians. Right wing radical Christians do not operate in the realm of information, facts, evidence, or logic. Their goal is to reshape the law for theocratic or Republican party agenda purposes (controlled by corporate money) and continue to support the two tier system of law. Harsh sentences are handed out for the poor and non-whites while those with money/power are given light sentences or perhaps not even charged at all. We have had this very well demonstrated for us because the Palin family seems to have a propensity for illegal actions.

Recently we have had an example of the kind of person they chose to be a magistrate and judge, Joe Miller. Joe Miller is a man who it has been demonstrated has no character or ethics. Yet, in Alaska he sat for short periods making judgments on others. He displays the typical, everything is for me, let’s eliminate all those “socialist programs” for the poor attitude of the radical right. He hates those “socialist programs” unless they benefit him or he can figure out a way to commit fraud to access the resources for himself. In Alaska where the population is low and there is a lack of certain types of institutions of education there is a shortage of certain types of professionals. There are certain kinds of people who come to Alaska because they know they will be thrown out on their asses in the lower 48 and they attempt to work their way into a position of power over others to further their twisted agenda and because the truth is they feel less-than because they could not make it somewhere else. They will do anything to get ahead, they have no conscience, are egocentric, they arrogantly feel they are superior, they will say anything to garner support and they consistently search for ways to circumvent the rules to fit their agenda. They are easily manipulated and have been sought out and put in place by those who do not care about the people of this state or country, only themselves. They fear the will of the people and are trying to squelch it.

MY LETTER TO SARAH PALIN, WORKPLACE BULLYING (part 4)

Included in the fifty page letter I wrote to Sarah Palin was information about workplace bullying and how it had affected me. When I sent it to her the spring of 2008 I did not know anything about her. I assumed she was a competent person as she had been elected governor. I had no idea she did not respond to the problems of the people of Alaska or her personal life was such a twisted mess. I expected her to respond and be concerned about what was going on with workplace bullying in Alaska and the other problems. Instead her staff told me the department of law told them not to talk to me or help me with anything. I have come to realize that Sarah Palin is a workplace bully herself, there will be future discussion of that subject.

I became suicidal and was arrested for implementing a plan to kill myself by taking drugs from the narcotic lock up at Norton Sound Hospital in Nome Alaska on 11/12/05. I had been systematically psychologically tortured by two serial bullies who were nurses in mid-management and their minions. They were assisted by their lesser bullies who were mostly nurses, but in the end a small number of doctors were involved. I lasted for 20 months, most of their victims only lasted a few months before they left town. I was confused about what was happening. I planned to leave twice and one of the serial bullies talked me into staying because “we love you” and they wanted me to stay. Afterwards she would torture me and treat me like she did not want me there. Their main targets before me were bullied until they left. They behaved and looked like they were going to have a nervous breakdown.  Several people at one time are bullied, but there is usually a main target which a lot of energy is focused on. When the current main target leaves, the serial bullies usually take two days to two weeks to start on another main target. I could not figure out what was going on it is so strange. Complaining about the unsafe nursing care, the horrible treatment of the native patients, a doctor who prescribed large amounts of narcotics, having intoxicants dumped in the ER inappropriately, their practice of having medivac missions with non-flight trained and uncertified nurses and other issues exacerbated their psychological attacks, but did not stop me from continuing to voice my opinions.  

When a victim of workplace bullying has PTSD and then has to deal with a corrupt legal system it makes them sicker. I had to live in Nome where I often saw the perpetrators when I went to the store, was harassed by the police, got death threats on my phone, had no income, had health problems(many caused by the PTSD) and had to go to the hospital where the workplace bullying originally took place for health care and got nothing but abuse(medical bullying), and then when I moved away the corrupt assistant DA Earthman and Judge Esch had me wrongfully arrested. I was tortured in the prison system and my medication (antidepressant and seizure medication) was withheld from me even though I brought it and they did not have to pay for it. That made me very ill for a long time. The wrongful incarceration caused my cat’s death and the loss and destruction of my possessions. When layer after layer of trauma occurs it makes PTSD extraordinarily bad. It is only now that I can look at what happened and not completely loose it. When I wrote the letter to Sarah Palin I got so ill afterwards it looked like I may have multiple sclerosis. Since then the symptoms have improved a great deal. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder causes physical symptoms and can even be life threatening.

My goal is to make the public aware of this psychological torture in our workplaces which can facilitate change and help individuals find help if they are under attack from one or more workplace bullies. Workplace bullying is a huge problem in the US, but it is worse  in Alaska because a lot of these bullies were gotten rid of by former employers and they kept moving on until they came to Alaska. They end up in places where employees with certain skills are hard to get. Then they work their way into management and get control of companies. Not very many people even know about workplace bullying. In many other countries it is illegal and there are programs in place to assist victims. Education programs have been implemented by other countries to help people recognize it and get help. In France they have boards to report it to as it harms society. It causes a loss of money to the corporations where it goes on, loss of careers, loss of productive workers, a drain on social security and the health care system, illness in victims, and negative affects harm those who watch it happen(they don’t know what to do and are afraid they will be next). It has been described by some as the main cause of the nursing shortage and by others as one of the main causes. Other countries are working on the problem, but here in the US it remains a huge problem. Fifteen states have had legislature written against it, but nothing has passed.

In Alaska it is very bad in the bush just as it is in the bush in Australia. The difference is in Australia they wanted to know why so many of those nurses were suicidal and did something about it. There are  lots of signs in Alaska, an employee at a hospital shot two specific people, his supervisors. A nurse sued a doctor who got her fired because she reported him for not putting on scrubs and scrubbing into the OR. She was the one who was right, but lost the case. In the hospital where I was targeted one person after another was harmed by the serial bullies and their clique over many years and it still goes on. Staff in behavioral health knew about it, yet nothing was done to stop it. It is considered an occupational health hazard, yet when a nurse looses it from being psychologically tortured there is no counseling, just arrest and more torture. If you are in a judicially backwards state like Alaska you may even be prevented from having a defense in court.
The people who do this are very sick people who usually are not good at their jobs. The people they target are the ones who have a lot of good qualities. They are jealous and resentful and go after the best because they make them look bad. Below is the information in my Letter to Sarah Palin about the inclident which I also faxed  to several senators and got no response from any of them. I hope it will help someone identify why their life at work is a living hell and give them a place to start searching for an answer.


The Workplace Bullying Institute's Definition of the Phenomenon Of Workplace Bullying:

Workplace Bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators(the bullies) that takes one or more of the following forms:

verbal abuse
offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating or intimidating
work interference -- sabotage -- which prevents work from getting done.
Workplace Bullying: (a) is driven by perpetrators' need to control the targeted individual(s) , (b) is initiated by bullies who choose targets, timing, place and methods, ©) escalates to involve others who side with the bully, either voluntarily through coercion, and it (d) undermines legitimate business interests when bullies' personal agendas take precedence over work itself.

(This is the very short form)
Bullying, general workplace harassment, is more prevalent than its more famous and illegal special varieties--sexual harassment and racial discrimination. The largest scientific study conducted in the U.S. found that 37% U.S. workers have directly experienced destructive bullying. That is approximately 54 million Americans! And additional 12% of the workforce witnessed it. Half of the workers are intimately familiar with bullying. The other half (45%) claim to not have either seen, heard or experienced it themselves.
Bullying transcends gender. Women comprise the majority of targets and women bullies especially target other women. The vast majority of bullies (73%) are bosses.
Bullies bully because they can; they do so with impunity. Bullies are rarely psychopathic, but are always narcissistic and Machiavellian.
Bullying is mostly legal. Employers can ignore it with little risk. However, it is four times more prevalent than illegal status-based (or grounds-based) discrimination. In North America, only two Canadian provinces have addressed bullying -- Quebec and Saskatchewan. In the U.S., a movement is growing to introduce and pass state legislation.
Workplace Bullying is more similar to the Holocaust and Domestic Violence than to schoolyard, childhood bullying.

Bullying Compromises Targets' Health and Safety. It's a Public Health Hazard

The reason for the movement itself is because of bullying's impact on human workers!
WBI research illustrates that individuals are targeted primarily because they pose a perceived threat to the bully. Characteristics of the typical Target (WBI 2000 study):
 (1) independent, refuses to act subserviently,
(2) is more technically skilled than the bully,
(3) is better liked, has emotional intelligence and social skills, and
(4) has the honesty and ethics of a whistleblower.
Targets are non-confrontive. They do not respond to aggression with aggression. (They are thus morally superior.) But the price paid for apparent submissiveness is that the bully can act with impunity (as long as the employer also does nothing).
According to the 2007 WBI-Zogby Survey, 45% of targeted individuals suffer stress-related health problems.
Stress-Related Physical Health Complications
- Cardiovascular problems: hypertension to strokes, heart attacks
- Adverse Neurological changes: neurotransmitter disruption, hippocampus shrinkage
- Immunological impairment: more frequent infections of greater severity

- Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Psychological-Emotional Injuries
- Debilitating Anxiety, Panic Attacks (>80%)
- Clinical Depression: new to person or exacerbated condition previously controlled (39%)
- Post-traumatic Stress (PTSD) from deliberate human-inflicted abuse (30% of targeted women; 21% of men)
Economic Devastation
- Lost ability to be left alone to do the once-"loved job"
- Forced to transfer from loved job, often a punitive transfer (13%)
- Constructively discharged without reasonable cause (24%)
(from the website of the Workplace Bullying Institute, www.bullyinginstitute.org)
( From the website about the research Dr. Leymann did over about twenty years about workplace bullying and it’s resulting PTSD.)
Our present hypothesis is that PTSD develops more severely if the traumatic situations last a long time and are followed by rights violations such as those conflicted by the judicial system or within the health care community, continue over a long period.
If we compare the difficulty of diagnosing our patients with that of, for example, individuals who have run-over and killed suicidal persons on train (Malt, Leymann et al., 1993) or subway tracks (Theorell, Leymann, Jodko, Konarski, & Norbeck, 1994), we see pronounced differences. In general, people seem to be able to intuitively imagine how it must feel to try to brake a train that weighs hundreds of tons and how it feels, despite these desperate efforts, to finally run over the person who has laid on the tracks in order to die. Nevertheless, the driveŕs PTSD reaction is - statistically speaking - very much milder than that of our patients. Also, a considerably smaller proportion of train engineers suffer a PTSD reaction or share severe PTSD diagnose. Indeed the number is very small in comparison with that which prevails for patients such as ours, who almost all were diagnosed as having severe PTSD. This comparison might illustrate what the latter group of patients must have gone through in terms of psychological pain, anxiety, degradation, helplessness - that led to such extensive PTSD injuries. The reactions of our patients can, on the other hand, be compared with those accounted for in a Norwegian study concerning raped women (Dahl, 1989). http://www.leymann.se/english/frame.html)
Thus, our patients, like raped women, find themselves under a continuing threat. As long as the perpetrator is free, the woman can be attacked again. As long as the mobbed individual does not receive effective support, he or she can be torn to pieces again at any time.
Thus, these individuals find themselves in a prolonged stress- and in a prolonged trauma-creating situation. Instead of a short, acute (and normal!) PTSD reaction that can subside after several days or weeks, theirs is constantly renewed: new traumata and new sources of anxiety arise in a constant stream during which time the individual experiences rights violations that further undermine his or her self-confidence and psychological health. The unwieldy social situation for these individuals consists not only of severe psychological trauma but of an extremely prolonged stress condition that seriously threatens the individual's socio-economic existence. Torn out of their social network, the majority of mobbing victims face the threat of early retirement, with permanent psychological damage. (This section is from Dr. Leymann’s website. He has unfortunately passed away.)
Our present hypothesis is that PTSD develops more severely if the traumatic situations last a long time and are followed by rights violations such as those conflicted by the judicial system or within the health care community, continue over a long period.

(www.leymann.se/english/frame.html)

“The Nurses in Hostile Work Environment’s 2003 Report” that bullying is very prevalent in hospitals and workplaces across the United States (US) to the extent that 70% of victims leave their job, 33% of these victims leave for health reasons and 37% because of manipulated performance appraisals. After much study Cooper and Swanson concluded that workplace bullying is a significant, under-reported, and under-recognized occupational safety and health problem. This section will now discuss the origins of workplace bullying.


Stress-Related Illnesses
Victims of bullying may show symptoms of nausea, headache, weight loss, insomnia, anxiety, depression, alcoholism, irritability, loss of libido, self doubt, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) (Canadian Initiative on Workplace Violence Website, 2007; Gilmour & Hamlin, 2005; Hoel, Faragher & Cooper, 2004; Jackson, Clare, & Mannix, 2002; Knight, 2004). A study done on healthcare professionals in the UK (Hoel et al.) concluded that one in five people being bullied at work exhibit symptoms of PTSS, such as hyper-arousal, feelings of constant anxiety, over-vigilance, avoidance of traumatizing events, and flashbacks. Other research on nurses in the UK (Patten, 2005) has shown that between one-third and one-half of stress-related-sickness absenteeism results from workplace bullying. Patten found that this stress often results in nurses giving up or having fractured careers with serious implications both personal (loss of financial security) and organizational (loss of a valuable employee).
Suicide
Even more serious than stress-related illnesses is stress-related suicide. Hastie (2007) described one young Australian midwife who had entered nursing in 1995 with enthusiasm, passion, and commitment. This midwife had experienced hostility, criticism, and intimidation in her practice, which eventually lead her to taking her life by asphyxiation. Although this event occurred over ten years ago in Australia, Canada is presently reporting one out of seven adult suicides results from workplace bullying (Workplace Bullying Institute, 2003).

http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/%20TableofContents/vol132008/No3Sept08/ArticlePreviousTopic/NursetoNurseBullying.aspx

http://www.bullyonline.org/

My Letter to Sarah Palin (Part 2)

Part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, Part 6.

I know my post was too long. I know the story upsets people. I wanted people to know what really goes on in the prison system here. I hope it might help Sherry get the help she needs. This is the first page of the letter with my threat to expose the story. I became ill right after I wrote this and did not send it to very many places. I also have financial constraints being on disability. PTSD does cause permanent brain changes and I will never be the same, but I am doing much better now. The only response I ever got about any of it was from Rep Seaton's aid. That includes the ACLU who have actually been quite nasty to me. Clearly I have no skills as a poet and I know it. Hey, that rhymed.

ALASKA IS AN INSANE CRAZY WORLD WITH NO JUSTICE
This document is about workplace bullying, legal bullying, medical bullying, political bullying and bullying in the department of corrections. This has destroyed my life. I may have managed to recover from the workplace bullying if I had been allowed treatment. Now I never will recover from all the harmful events which followed. The State of Alaska has intentionally and with malice harmed me grievously. I have mailed copies to the ombudsman, Representative Seton and staff, the clemency board, Senator Wieleckowski,Senator French and the ACLU. If I have no response from you one week after you receive this I will start a mailing campaign to the news media and political organizations. Will you then have me wrongfully imprisoned again?
This is the rough copy. I have had problems getting it done due to my health. I am prompted to just go ahead and send this due to the denial of my second appeal being forthcoming and your endorsement of Commissioner Schmidt being so detestable to me.
Celia Harrison


Where was my America?


Where was my America?
Where were my civil rights?
Where was my America
when I was accused of crimes
I did not commit?
Where was my America
when I was wrongfully arrested?
Where was my America
when they let the real perpetrators
of the crime starve my beloved cat?
Where was my America
when the real perpetrator of the crime
robbed me of my possessions?
Where was the Constitution
when I was wrongfully imprisoned and tortured?
Where was the great American justice system
when the DA in Nome used his position of power
in pure retaliation to harm me?
Where was my America
when Judge Esch signed the warrant
against no evidence?
Where was my America
when I had a besotted public defender and
noone listened or cared, not judge, nor
legislator, nor her supervisor?
Where are you America?
The department of law told the governor’s
office they may not even talk to me.
My America is dying and I am in
deep mourning for her.
By Celia Harrison

My Letter to Sarah Palin (part 1)

Part 2, Part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6. 

A letter was written by myself in response to my pain, shock and anger about some things I had been through in Alaska to Sarah Palin in spring of 2008. I was sure the governor of any state would want to intervene. Keep in mind I have PTSD and just writing about it was making me sicker by triggering the memories. I knew it had to be written no matter what. PTSD is not a mental illness, it is a psychological injury. I have been told by several mental health professionals and it is documented in the literature that when one trauma after another occurs in layers it is very harmful. I will publish this letter in it's raw form. I did not do much editing at the time as it was too painful to reread it. I did not wait to send it to her because at the time she had just endorsed Joe Schmidt after the COs union gave him the no confidence vote. I was livid. I now have much better perspective on why all of this happened. It is even funny now to me to be sending the likes of Sarah Palin such a letter, but at the time I thought she was a real governor. How could anyone even imagine such a psychopath running a state. I also now realize many of these events were calculated to harm me. This is just part of a letter which is fifty pages long(plus 20 pages of documentation) and I realize it is very disturbing both for what happened and for the emotional pain I was in. Do not worry. I am a very strong person with a giant sized sense of justice. I am still standing. My concern today is for the people in the prisons in this state. The discussion about Sherry Johnston's incarceration in light of her medical issues has prompted me to post this part of the letter today. It does not matter if she should or should not be on narcotics. What matters is the department of corrections abruptly stops every one's medication. They do as they please without regard for the welfare of the inmates. They will see her as someone who deserves to suffer. I had previously been charged with a crime and was on conditions of release when I was wrongfully charged and imprisoned for violating the conditions. The whole thing was fictitious from the man who lied about it, to ADA Earthman charging me with it, and to Judge Esch who issued a warrant against no evidence. I was living in Homer when this happened. Upon being threatened by the perpetrators with being accused of a crime I did not do I laughed at them and told them to go ahead. I thought I lived in America where evidence was needed for someone to be charged with a crime. It turns out I was not in America, I was in a third world country. The state troopers investigated and said there was no evidence I did what the sociopaths said I did. Then the sociopaths told ADA Earthman who had "issues" with me and he orchestrated the whole thing, with some help from the public defender agency. The PDs were told a hearing was scheduled. I was never informed of it and they did not go either, so I was imprisoned. In Homer I was taken before a judge who I told the truth about what was going on and asked to have time to get my cat and belongings somewhere safe. She said, "Absolutely not" in a nasty tone. This prompted me to say, "That's Bullshit", which it was and still is. She was angry, but certainly would never allow truth and justice to creep into her courtroom. That was at least the third time they had not told me about a hearing. Whatever your beliefs are pray for Sherry. I have tried to get the ADN to print my story, but they have used multiple excuses not to. What it comes down to is they are ignoring the horrible plight of inmates in this state just as they have ignored what was going on with the homeless for so long.

Excerpt from a letter I wrote to Palin in spring of 2008(It is part two, but I think I will post this first to try and help Sherry and the other inmates who need medical treatment):

WRONGFULLY IMPRISONED/POLITICAL PRISONER BY MY OWN GOVERNMENT

"You Americans believe you must do something to get arrested." Muhatma Ghandi

At the Homer jail I screamed in terror at being arrested for something I did not do out of Nome where people are framed and go to jail for crimes they did not do all the time and then are rearrested for bogus violations of conditions of release or probation violations. I was afraid for my cat and my things. I called several different public defender agency offices. You would think that the attorney in the office that screwed up the hearing would be contacting me. You would think the director of the agency would send someone to talk to me, but he did not. I called Kenai, Nome, Juneau, Anchorage, the governor's office, the human rights commission, Quinlan Steiner and Gary Soberay. No one came to see me, ever. All I got was told no one could do anything. I know now it really means no one will do anything. It was clear no one gave a damn. Homer jail was appropriate and follows the DOC policies and is what I consider the only safe jail I was in and the only one which did not violate my civil rights. They gave me my medication. The guy who transported me to the next jail smoked in the car with me in it. I was stunned by that in this day and age.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE AND NEGLECT
I was told I was going to Nome for a hearing. I was taken to Wildwood Prison in Kenai. There they decided to keep me in one of the drunk tank cells as I was very distraught. When they asked if I was suicidal I told them, "not really." The thing was I told the person evaluating me that I am autistic and may have trouble being preyed upon in a group situation. So, she left me in the cell over their holiday weekend. I had also screamed in terror the night before in Homer. They put me in a horrible outfit in a freezing cold cell. I had a mat like the kind one uses to do exercises on to sleep on the cement floor with. The door to the outside was right next to my cell door. There were bugs crawling everywhere, mostly spiders and sometimes they bit me. The corrections officers thought it was funny when I complained about them and laughed. They would not allow me to take a shower or brush my teeth. They opened the food slot on my door and yelled, "you are a scumbag," "you are a criminal" and more. They were psychologically torturing me as they are extremely immature and unprofessional corrections officers. They checked on line to see if I had a security clearance in Washington state as I told them I had worked in prisons there. One said, "Well she might be telling the truth". I did not work for the DOC, I first volunteered with them for three years and then worked for short periods of time through agencies as I already had a clearance. The nurse would not give me my medication the way I told her I needed to take it. Then after that she withheld it just to be cruel. I told her I would throw up if I took them at the same time. She informed me I had to take them both or not at all. I took them together as I knew I would at least absorb part of it before I threw up. When I did throw up she said I made myself throw up. Why I would do this, I do not know. (I was not taking narcotics, I was on a high dose of an antidepressant called Trazadone and a seizure medication called Gabapentin for nerve pain, both common and safe)The telephones in this place went hardly anywhere. I could not call my friends or the animal shelter to get my cat help and none of them would help me. I have never seen a group of people enjoy the suffering of others like these people do.
One night an intoxicated woman was in the cell next to me. Now, the reason for a drunk tank is people die of alcohol poisoning and alcohol withdrawal. Instead of doing their job and watching everyone the corrections officers psychologically tortured me. They were goofing off as usual. This woman stopped breathing. They started running around like the keystone cops and yelling, "She isn’t breathing" over and over. I yelled for them to let me out as I am a critical care nurse. Instead they covered my window, but I could still see out the sides. When the nurse came she just started yelling, "breathe, breathe" over and over. Eventually paramedics came and intubated her and bagged her and removed her on a cart. I do not know if she lived or died, or even perhaps had brain damage from anoxia. Now with all of this I did something I never thought myself capable of. I kicked the door. Yes, sometimes even with both legs. I came to realize that most of the behavioral problems in prisons are created by the system and the sociopaths in the ranks of the corrections department. I can still hardly believe I did it. I was so distraught I might have done anything. I was so desperate to get help, especially for my cat. No public defender came to this jail either. While I was at Wildwood, I wrote up a grievance which I never got a response to. It made them angry and when I requested another one, they refused it. This is a violation of my rights as an inmate.
After three days a state trooper came to transport me as I was "going to Nome for a hearing." She made the immature idiots let me shower and brush my teeth. They gave toothpaste as hard as a rock to brush my teeth with. The state trooper told me to just brush my teeth and she would give me a piece of gum. She was a very professional officer and let myself and the other inmate know we were in capable hands. I was greatly relieved to be away from Wildwood. They put me on a plane to Anchorage. I was handcuffed and in prison clothing. I was out in public where anyone could see me and totally innocent of the charge. That afternoon I was in a holding cell with a bunch of intoxicants and prostitutes. I was not afraid of a one of them, they are mostly people who have lost their way and could use some kind of help. I lay on a mat for hours. I was a bit relieved as I was not being psychologically tortured by anyone. I was thinking, good I can get to Nome and clear this up and at least I can contact my friends and get bailed out. Huh! You know, because I was on my way to "Nome for a hearing", she said sarcastically. Then I was told I was leaving. I was chained to some other women and put in a van. I thought I was going to the airport. When I found out, I was going to yet another prison in Eagle River I said, "I am supposed to be going to Nome for a hearing, what is going on?" The correction’s officer said he did not know anything about it. Interestingly enough.

AM I AT ABU GHRAIB?

No, they have decent health care there.

At Hiland Mountain Correctional Center I was taken to an orientation unit. We were told we were to learn the rules and procedures by reading a folder. There was only one for about 20 women. The correction’s officer on that day was Jackson. She is infamous for being cruel and nasty. She is also mentally ill. There is a desk in the main area outside the four dormitories in that building. I kept asking these women questions. I needed to talk to my attorney, get a call to the animal shelter in Homer, be seen by a medical practitioner, get my medication, and get a call to the state troopers to tell them I was being held in a prison instead of going to Nome and they should make sure Robin Hume did not steal my things. Why I thought they would finally do their job I did not know. I was screamed at by this Jackson and told I was not allowed to ask questions and I may only read the folder. I told her they did not let me have my glasses and my only option was to ask questions as I could not see the words well enough to read the folder. At one point she came out of her office and screamed at the women at the desk to get me my glasses because I was driving her crazy. She is nuts. I did not get my glasses that day. No one could knock on the door jam to her office. She would flip out. The door would be all the way open and she would go nuts if an inmate did not knock on the door itself. The night I got there I told her I was innocent of the crime I was incarcerated for. This made her angry. In a nasty tone she asked me if I was innocent of the charge I took the plea deal for. When I said no, she looked surprised. I then explained that it was not even a crime in most states, it was treated as a mental heath issue. I then told her that was all I had done, all the other charges associated with that one were false. I witnessed her harassing another inmate. This inmate finally lost it and begged to be put in the hole which they obliged.
I was so distraught. For one thing I had no idea what the hell was going on at this point. I had not spoken with nor seen a public defender. One would think that the public defender agency who had screwed up the original hearing which would most likely have kept me from being incarcerated and charged would at least come and talk to me. Mind you I had contacted at this point, Quinlan Steiner’s office, Gary Soberay’s office, the Kotzebue office, the Kenai office, the anchorage office, the Nome office and others I do not remember. I remember counting and I called a total of nine of them. I was simply ignored. I begged for help, especially for my cat. I knew people go to prison all the time out of Nome for crimes they have not committed. Nome is like a small town in Mississippi in the 1950s. They set people up, people disappear, they destroy reputations of those who go against them, they trump up evidence and there is no justice or truth in the court. All one has to do is read the court section and see all the people sent to prison on absurd violations every week to figure that out(almost all native).
Some of the inmates helped me with information. I was never afraid of the inmates. It is the corrections officers and other staff who are the ones to fear. Inmates are in danger on many levels. There is unbelievable disregard for basic safety and medical needs. Then there is the psychological torture and game playing. I believe there must be physical abuse, but I did not observe any, except a woman who was chained to the floor in the mental health unit with a bizarre board in front of her cell. The inmates generally cooperate with each other to try and make things more comfortable. The exceptions are the ones who are coming off drugs and bouncing off the walls. There are forms to be filled out for anything one needs to do. I filled out these "copouts" to request to see a doctor. I requested my medication. I requested my glasses, notepad and pen.
When an inmate is first processed there is a stop to see a nurse. I told him about my diagnoses and medications. I had brought them with me. I assumed they would give them to me. That night when they called for people to go to the medication line I went. When it was my turn I found out I would not get them and was told I had to see a health care provider and they needed my medical records. I told them I could not wait until they got my medical records and asked why they could not just call the doctor and get him to fax them some information. I also suggested they contact the pharmacy or doctor who wrote the prescription. I now know the answer to that question. The answer is they did not want to give me my medication and they would extend no effort in establishing my medical history. I also came to find out they keep telling inmates they have to see a health care provider to get their medications, but they never allow anyone to see one without a big fight and then they just say they will not prescribe them. They further explained to me that they did not give out "street drugs." I explained that my medication was prescribed by a physician licensed by the state of Alaska and it came from a licensed pharmacy. Their definition of "street drugs" is anything which does not come out of their stock. Why? This is because there is no profit for them if the medications come from someone other than their contractor. It may even mean payola. At this time I still had hope that I would eventually get the medicine I needed, but I never did, ever. Even now I still suffer the results of that setback in my health. I have been ill since then and for the last three months pretty much bed ridden. I lay in bed curled in a ball from excruciating pain and dizziness. I told them if they did not want to pay for the medications I would.
Just because I am put in the prison does not mean my need for medical care ends. As soon as I was incarcerated, I was seen as a liar, scumbag and idiot. There is no system with which to call for help. If I was dying, they would not have intervened. They clearly even enjoyed my suffering. In fact I was told and observed others being told by a corrections officer that if we were dying he might consider calling someone for help. Here is the problem with that he is not a doctor, physician’s assistant, nurse practitioner, nor nurse.
The room I was to sleep in had two beds. They were simply cot size with thin pads over them. Very painful for someone with joint or musculoskeletal problems(my skin even hurts). If you are lucky there is a pillow. For those with breathing problems it is a problem. We did get sheets. I had the window and it overlooked a very beautiful garden. This was the only positive thing I had to focus on. I was a master gardener for years in Washington State and I enjoy plants and gardening immensely. I cried as quietly as I could and prayed and prayed and prayed. I prayed for my poor baby to be safe and have food and water. I prayed the state troopers would have enough ethics to tell Robin Hume he could not steal my things or go in my room. I prayed they would figure out the mistake and let me go. I prayed a public defender would come the next day and explain what was going on. I was very confused about it all. I was traumatized by what had happened at Wildwood. I had PTSD from what happened in Nome. I went to Homer to heal from it. What went on there made it worse. Then I was wrongfully arrested and tortured at Wildwood. I was lied to all along the way about going to Nome. By the next day without my medication I was having a nervous breakdown and as my friend said, "Who the hell wouldn’t have even without the meds being withheld?" The inmates just told me what to do and lead me around. I could hear them whispering to other inmates, "She has been like this since she got here and they are not doing anything about it," or "She is supposed to be on some kind of medicine and they won’t give it to her." After lunch that first day we went into the gym. I climbed up to the top bleacher and just sat there and cried and prayed to myself. I knew that it was possible I might have a seizure from the abrupt withdrawal of the medications and I was afraid as I knew the medical staff must be as substandard as the rest of them. A woman came and told me she was from the mental health unit. She said they were going to help me. I told her I did not believe her. I did not know how right I was.
They put me in some kind of suicide outfit even though I told them I was not suicidal. In fact I told them I did not meet the DSM IV criteria for suicide on several occasions. This suit is like a dress which is held together with Velcro at the shoulders and back. It is very uncomfortable and stiff. It is misery for someone with tactile issues and painful skin. Then they gave me a blue quilted blanket. The bunk was just metal at this point. There was the little combination toilet and sink. I could at least rinse my hands. There was no soap or towel. The inside door had a little window. There was a camera, but my observations later let me know they do not monitor the cells just like the other prison. The cell did have a window to the outside. There was a fence blocking me from being able to see much. I spent hours looking out of it. There was one tree. I found that tree so beautiful and I felt connected to it. There was some grass. Some of the inmates from the mental health unit in a wing at a 90' angle to my wing would see how upset I was and get in the windows and frantically wave to me until I saw them. They were trying to cheer me up. On a rare occasion a bird would land in the tree which also made me feel better. I was in misery as I had no medication for my usual symptoms, but the withdrawal from the medication caused agony. The rebound pain from the interstitial cystitis and trigeminal neuralgia was something I try not to think about even now or I loose it. There was also the fibromyalgia. I have acute dog like hearing with sensitivity to noises. The medications also help this and the noise in that place was maddening for me. I cried for about 10 days straight often curled up in a ball.
I have some gastrointestinal problems which frequently result in diarrhea. There was no toilet paper in the cell. I had to beg for it and I was belittled when I did this. I asked them if they thought I was going to braid it together and hang myself with it. They told me they did not observe me having diarrhea. What observing were they talking about? The psychologist and psychiatrist were only there a short time every day and they did not observe me, they just came by to make nasty comments. The psychiatrist, Dr Lothian told me that diarrhea is not a part of autism. As it is common knowledge that it is, this is further evidence of her lack of knowledge(There has been some research published since I wrote this which says GI problems are not related to autism, but others dispute it).
The food for a person in the hole in the mental health unit is awful. The protein is lunch meat with nitrates in it. I cannot eat such things, it makes my trigeminal neuralgia worse. You get the same for all three meals. I lost 8 pounds in three days. There was no safety reason to deprive me of decent food. It was to punish me. The regular utensils can be replaced with plastic if someone is believed to be suicidal. I was not suicidal and they knew it. I was told this and a lot of the other things they did were to "break" me. It took a couple of days to even get a toothbrush. When I finally got one it cut up my gums. I never got dental floss the whole time I was incarcerated. My gums swelled up and I have periodontal disease now. I have pain in my jaws and no dental or medical insurance. I have a couple teeth that have snapped at the gum line since then. Toothbrushes and floss cost almost nothing. I could have ordered one if I could have had access to the manual that explains the ordering process and my glasses to read the damn thing with.
A couple days after I was put in that cell the psychologist presented in front of my door and told me I had no mental illness. I of course told him they had done no testing nor even interviewing and they could know nothing about me at this point. He then proceeded to tell me that the only thing wrong with me was that I was "arrogant and nasty’. Really now? After the torture I had been put through and all of my rights that had been violated this is what he says to me. This kind of crap went on from not just him, but the doctor. She told me I did not need my medication. They told me I had not been taking it. This is total fiction and they had no evidence to that effect. I of course said that I found it odd that the jail psychiatrist would be a better judge of my medical needs that the professors at universities and a medical director at a large psychiatric hospital who originally prescribed them. I thought of her as Dr. Mengele. Dr. Lothian needs to lose her medical license. I asked for grievance forms and they refused to give me one on several occasions. The ones I filled out I never got a response to(They disappear them).
It is hard to describe the grief I felt. I knew full well Robin Hume would go through my things and steal whatever he wanted and I was sure he would ruin the rest. I also knew he would starve my cat and probably be cruel to her. Whenever I could get to the phones, I called the public defender agency to no avail. I tried to call my friends, but the phones would not go to anyone. I found out later the phones only go to certain places. The staff knew this, but made out like I just did not know what I was doing. One nurse when I told her my cat would be starved in a nasty tone said, "Well isn’t that just too bad." Later I heard her tell another woman she had called to find out if her little dog was OK and it was. They were being cruel to me, this is clear. Now whether they decided on their own or someone told them to do it I do not know. I imagine it is a combination of the two, perhaps a symbiotic relationship of evil(I could not have imagined how evil even then).
On the thirteenth of August I was called out to get on the phone. The hearing in Nome was going on without my being there, why? Before the hearing I told my attorney I wanted a time to be able to speak. She assured me I had a right to. I asked her why I had not been allowed to go to Nome for the hearing as I had been told over and over. I further told her I had not waived my right to appear. She had no answers. I cried and asked her why no one from the public defender agency had come to see me. I told her of some of the abuses and that they would not give me my medicine. During the hearing I was arraigned and judge Esch would not allow me to speak. I tried to and then he cut me off. I was so upset that when the judge asked for my plea I could not speak. I remember that all I was ever able to get out was, "I am completely innocent of the charge".
I did not get a shower for days. When I needed something, I tapped on the door as there was no other way to communicate. They would ignore me. Then I knocked on the door and they ignored me. Then I pounded on the door and was ignored. After this I pounded with two fists and was ignored. Then I did the same unimaginable thing, I started kicking the door as hard as I could. They continued to not respond to anything I needed. they were just angry. They threatened to chain me to the floor. The woman in the cell across from me was very verbal. She was a black woman and it was clear one of the nurses on day shift who I could only describe as being mean and superior did not like black people. She would ignore this woman’s every request and she went even longer than myself without a shower. When she saw I got a shower and she did not she began to ask why the white people got to take showers and the blacks did not. I was wondering this myself before she asked about it. She was very loud and asked to talk to this nurse named Linda’s supervisor. I will never forget how she stated over and over in a sing-songy poetic way, "Linda, Linda, Linda, let me talk to your supervisor Linda because you know the little people they just can’t get anything done." This was because they used excuses for the neglect and cruelty as they were just following rules and procedures and if they did it any other way they would get in trouble from their supervisor. She also kicked the door and they did chain her to the floor. They also had this large piece of wood that completely covered a door. They put it over her door every day, usually when Linda was on. They left her for as long as sixteen hours behind this door. They ignored her every request. This includes the day she told them she was supposed to go to court and they refused to even check and she missed her hearing.
Linda at one point had told me I could not come out to shower because they did not know if I was dangerous or not. I said, "I have never hurt anyone in my life." I finally got a towel this way. I was after that able to wash myself using my water cup to rinse over the toilet. It was very degrading. This is not what I would call humane treatment of the mentally ill nor any kind of rehabilitation in any shape or form. I was in this cell accept to shower for a week. I never in my life thought I could feel so much pain and anguish. I never thought I would be treated so cruelly by such a corrupt government. I felt like I was a political prisoner and thought of the red stars the political prisoners wore in the Nazi prison camps. I felt I should be wearing one. When I was moved to another cell, they gave me red scrubs to wear, which I felt were appropriate for me in an ironic way. But if you think about it, here is the mentally ill population forced to wear red to signify that they have a disability. It is as if they are saying here are the freaks. There was a new inmate who said she did not want to wear a"crazy person’s clothes." This is a blatant act of discrimination. Of course they will use some ridiculous excuse that it is for security purposes.
I had constantly been itching for about ten days in this unit. I complained about it several times. They refused to do anything. I could not sleep and I scratched myself until I bled. The only thing they offered me was lard. They called it "prison lotion’. I had to smear lard all over myself or I could not stand the itching. It is disgusting and degrading to force someone to smear themselves with lard. Later I heard an inmate tell one of them she is allergic to wool. This is when I found out the blankets are made of wool of which I am very allergic. If I had not been so distraught and my brain had not been in lock down from the withholding of my meds I probably could have figured it out sooner. Then I of course said that I was also allergic and that explains the awful itching. They knew the blankets were wool and they knew I was scratching until I bled, just as they knew the phones would not go most places in Alaska. I was given one synthetic blanket. I put one of the wool blankets under my sleeping pad to act as a pillow. I could not get a pillow. Others would come in after me and have a pillow issued to them. One day I made the statement that I felt I should be able to get the same comforts as the other "poor wretches" locked there in "mental health hell." I finally got one two days before I left. That Linda nurse saw I was using the wool blanket under my pad and took it. She did it to be mean, but used the excuse that if I was allergic I should not have wool in my cell. I explained to her the allergy was not air born.
One day I was placed in the cell the farthest away from the desk. I believe one reason was I complained about one of the night shift nurses disappearing into the break room for most of her shift. If an inmate had a problem no one could get her attention, like they would respond even if there was a problem. It was a dangerous situation. I believe she was sleeping. The woman placed in the cell with me was very psychotic. When I asked her if she was on medication she told me, no. She said the judge had ordered her to go to API a month ago and they had not sent her. She went to court a day or so later and said the judge was mad that they had not sent her. She was still there when I left that unit. She was violent. It was fueled by a delusion that some woman had stolen her vagina which smelled good and given her one which smelled bad. I kept trying to explain to her that it smelled bad due to the staff not letting us take showers often enough and because she was stuffing her vagina full of toilet paper. I tried to show her how to wash herself sitting on the toilet and rinsing with her water cup. Her thinking was too disordered to allow her to understand me. She would punch and kick at the air screaming and yelling as loud as she could. I called one nurse and told her it was dangerous and I thought my safety was jeopardized. She simply yelled at me for bothering her. This inmate was stuffing all the toilet paper she could get up her vagina, one piece after another. This put her in danger of toxic shock syndrome. It was also the source of a foul odor which is not a good sign. She also would grind up Tylenol in the window sill and snort it. I kept trying to get the staff to let me talk to them and one of them told me, "I am not your maid." I wanted to tell her the inmate was stuffing toilet paper and eating toothpaste and more. It is information competent staff would have wanted. Her comment is one of the most disgusting and rancid of any I got from the staff at Hiland Mountain. This inmate went nuts most of the night. In the morning she began screaming and yelling and beating the wall and the door. The regular staff just ignored it. I believe they wanted her to harm me. It was clearly done without any regard for my welfare, nor the welfare of this poor mentally deranged girl. Yes, she was very young. She clearly needed an antipsychotic and was allowed to live in torment simply because the state of Alaska did not want to pay for her to be in a psychiatric hospital or take medicine. The corrections officer who was on that day came to make rounds. When she heard this woman screaming and beating the door she immediately came to our cell. It sounded as if there was a fight going on. When the CO looked in, she saw me lying on my bunk and the other inmate at the door screaming, yelling, kicking and punching she realized this woman was dangerous and immediately removed her and put her in a cell by herself. This particular CO is a large woman who may be Alaskan native, but looks Samoan was extremely professional and had the ability to talk to mentally ill people who are acting out to get them to calm down. She is an example of the kind of people you want working in corrections. There was also a male officer and a very short female officer at Wildwood who were professional and did not torture me. One of the day staff, I think she was a social worker looked in the cell and I said, "That went on all night, how would you like to be locked in a cell in this kind of situation?" I got no response. I asked for a grievance form that night and gave it to the CO that was on. I never got a response from it other than being told I was a "trouble maker." I believe this form and others were all destroyed.
One day I was told to go to a group. As I was walking to it, I was then told to go to the desk and talk with a woman. I needed some papers and went to my cell to get them. I was screamed at by the group facilitator because I was not in the group. I then said I was told to go to the desk area also, and told them someone needed to make a decision. This woman at the desk told me she was a parole officer which made no sense to me as I was not on parole. She yelled at me and told me she does not play games and I looked right into her eyes and said, "Neither do I." She backed down and said nothing. I believe she saw my sincerity. When I asked what, this was about she said I was to have a hearing to decide if I should be put in administrative segregation. I asked her what it was. She said it is away from the general population and isolated. Of course I said this is what I have been living in anyway. I then asked her what this was about and she said I had been labeled a "trouble maker." I said, "you mean because I practice my right to file grievances and voice a complaint when my civil rights are violated?" She said I was supposed to have a representative who had not shown up. She pressed me to go ahead and have the hearing as I was fully capable of speaking for myself and voicing my opinions. I told her the story of what had happened, being wrongfully imprisoned, my medicine withheld, the abuses, my things were being stolen and most important of all my precious cat was being starved by the monster who actually committed the crime. She had tears in her eyes which she tried to hide from me. Later other inmates said what they do is try to get someone labeled as dangerous to get them locked in the hole. This was purely retaliatory and not based on reality. The parole officer gave me a level one rating which is the least dangerous category of prisoner. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think anyone could ever do any of these abuses to me or any other soul in a prison in this country. How could they think anyone would believe I was dangerous? The parole officer recommended I be put in open population so I could have more access to phones and get help to get out. My danger was in the fact that I spoke up and told the truth. Oh, I was angry and practiced my first amendment rights, but I was not dangerous unless one feared the truth.
It was two days before I left the mental health unit. I finally told them I loved being locked in a cell. I described it as being peaceful and told them I couldn’t wait to go back whenever I had to leave. Within two hours I was called to prepare to leave. They had become very predictable. I had used reverse psychology on them. How perverse they are. But. I was never to go to open population.
Next I went to the orientation unit again. It is very regimented. They divide the buildings into a dormitory type setting. The unit consists of a main room, bath room area and several rooms. The bedrooms are tiny. They are just big enough for two children sized bunks. The room I was in was stifling hot and my room mate and I could not sleep. The heat actually made me sick. I was ill from coming off the medication and sweated profusely just from that. When I asked to get the handle to open the window, I was given two different ones which did not fit the window. When I told them they did not work they told me it was an old building. I told them I use to work in prisons which made this one look like new construction and when something did not work it was fixed, especially if it had an ill effect on health. Later I found out there was a handle that worked with the window. They were simply withholding it.
Not only did I sweat constantly I also had an odd odor. It was from my medicine being stopped abruptly and not being allowed to shower for days on end. No amount of showering or soap would help. I had no deodorant. I had some money with me, but had not ordered anything. Everything I read said someone had to put money on my books in order for me to buy something so I thought I had no money. Also, I was not allowed to access my bank account to bail myself out. This lead me to believe I had no way to buy anything. Some of the inmates complained about it and the corrections officers would ask me if I took a shower. Of course these inmates had seen me in the shower and knew I had. It was very embarrassing, but I could do nothing about it. I at least needed a decent toothbrush and floss, but could not get either. My gums swelled up and started to bleed. I have a couple of teeth which broke off shortly after I left there. Dental hygiene is a basic right. The state of Alaska caused huge dental problems for me and I have no money to pay to fix my teeth. I work on my gums constantly now. I do the best I can.
I have mentioned Officer Jackson already. I was fortunate because she was only on one or two days and then for the rest of my internment I did not have to see her. Officer Pass thinks of himself as a "nice guy" and he says so. I do not agree. The inmates think he is nice simply because he is not Officer Jackson. That parole officer told me she was recommending I go to open population so I could have better phone access and use the law library so I could figure out how to get out on bail. I would sign up to go to the law library which they made us do the night before. Several times just as it was time to go to the law library he would get angry about something and call a spontaneous meeting of the inmates. About the second time it happened I complained to him that he was violating my rights. He then threatened me that he would keep me in orientation "eighty three days". I wrote one of those copouts they use for inmates to communicate to his superior officer. This enraged him. He told me he was going to tell his superior I was a liar. He also had some trouble understanding one of the words I used and was yelling at me about his misinterpretation. He made me rewrite it two times. It was quite bizarre. In no way shape or form should these kinds of people be working with a vulnerable population of people.
When I did get to go to the law library, I got the only help with any of the things I needed to do. The woman who works there is an inmate and very knowledgeable. She helped me problem solve. She showed me how to fill out the forms for power of attorney. Understand I was so distraught I could not even function. I am very thankful she was there. It is a violation of the rights of the inmates for the staff to decide they cannot go(to the law library) due to one person’s misbehavior. In a prison someone is always misbehaving.
In this unit most of the inmates were coming off drugs and alcohol. They were bouncing off the walls and had poor judgement. Some of them did things to cause problems. It is to be expected in this situation. It was nearly impossible to sleep at night. They hung in the doorways and chatted and giggled all night. One of the symptoms of drug withdrawal is difficulty sleeping. Why they do not monitor the units closer at night I do not understand. When one complains about the noise and behavior issues they all give the same response, "This is prison." They say this as if no one has a responsibility to control it nor does an inmate have a right to not be tortured by it. But, if someone fills out a grievance form which is well within their rights they retaliate against them. I have health problems which make sleeping well a necessity.
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.
When I got to this unit, I continued to write copouts for medical care. Before I left the mental health unit I was told by the psychiatrist, that they were recommending that I be seen by the medical people. Nothing happened. When I finally saw someone, she was very nasty to me and after her exam she told me I was not going to get my medications. She really did not give me an explanation as to why. The only medication I could get from them was acetaminophen which I did take as I was in pain. Some of the inmates told me they do not recognize Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a real illness. That is 1980s medicine or are they using some other authority other than the American Medical Association for their diagnoses? If anyone would like to check, the CDC has issued a statement that it is a real disease and a very severe one. I was in so much pain I could not even think.
When a person who is an addict is imprisoned it is a prime opportunity. They are a captive audience. Where is the treatment for addiction? There was one program which the inmates who were to be incarcerated for at least a year could apply to. It is six months long. Of course the longer the treatment the better. Some people require one to two years of treatment. Those who are in the prison for shorter periods of time should at least be given the opportunity for treatment of their addiction. The whole time I was there only one Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was offered. I jumped for the chance to go. At this point I had been clean for a year and about eight months. I did this on my own by going to AA and doing some other spiritual things. I could do this even in Nome where AA is pitiful and there is no treatment because I had a strong recovery before this short relapse and I know what to do. I was shocked that there was no help for the ones in early recovery. Most of them started using and drinking in adolescence. This makes it so much more difficult for them to stop. Alcohol and drugs stop people from maturing. Essentially whatever emotional developmental stage they are in when they start abusing chemical is where they stay. They are still adolescents emotionally and they may have personality disorders. Often chemicals are used to self medicate mental illnesses. So, what kind of rehabilitation is this? It is not going to change anyone. It is not going to benefit society. What goes on there only serves to make people sicker and increase profits.
Corrections is a $55,000,000,000 (yes $55 billion) industry. The companies that sell products to the prisons have lobbies. They did not come up with the idea of three strikes and you are out, but they lobbied to get the laws passed. They lobby for harsher sentences for minimal crimes. The unions for the corrections officers do the same thing. They want to increase business for job security. This country’s legislators have been used as pawns by them. Which of Alaska’s legislators were paid off? The prisons are all being privatized. It is a money making venture. The bottom line keeps them from giving health care. It keeps them from giving the inmates the most important programs which are needed such as chemical dependency treatment and education. Education would give them hope and maybe a chance to succeed when they are released. An inmate who is incarcerated for two years could come out with an AA degree. I worked in a women’s prison in Washington. The inmates had companies which were not a part of the DOC. They filled all of the positions. The least they could make was minimum wage. They had to pay for part of their upkeep. They were allowed TVs in their cells which they had to pay for. It was a privilege to be earned. They could go to college and even use their degree to get a better job in the company. They could come out of prison with education and very valuable work experience. There were programs for addiction. This is rehabilitation. What goes on in Alaska’s prisons creates people who are hopeless and helpless. The way people are treated causes PTSD. The inmates generally come out worse than when they go in. The prison system in Alaska is a revolving door. It is designed to create more business for the DOC. The judicial system is set up to facilitate this process.