Rejoice, everybody! The austere religious scholar has competition:
Jordan Neely, a beloved subway performer, grew up in a family of musicians who want him to be remembered as a "human being," a family lawyer said. https://t.co/mXJVudDMpF
Clarissa, the second tweet on the webpage that you linked to makes a correct but incomplete statement: “He was a career criminal.”
But the record should have added: “He was also a life-long severely psychotic (chronic schizophrenic) man who had been released over 40 times back onto the streets by state courts that in a more just world would have committed him to indefinite confinement in a state psychiatric hospital, where he would have been properly medicated, fed, and humanely sheltered where he couldn’t be a danger either to himself or others.”
Those were the rules fifty years ago when I was a staff psychiatrist at a long-closed huge state psychiatric hospital in Southern California. When the state mental health system collapsed there (and basically nationwide) in the mid-1970s, I kept my career going by joining the Air Force.
My ex-patents dumped onto the streets weren’t so lucky. The way this country deals with severely mentally ill people is a disgrace.
My parents worked at a halfway-house back when they were releasing these patients. They always talk about the one patient they were able to successfully transition into regular life– a woman who’d been maliciously locked up by her family, after marrying the wrong fellow. There was nothing wrong with her, the husband had been killed in WWII shortly after they’d married (she was never told!), and my parents were able to help her navigate the various military offices to find out what’d happened to her husband, claim her widow’s benefits, secure a place to live, learn how to pay bills and stuff.
That was a fantastic success story, and a pretty awful abuse of the system. But 100% of the other patients they worked with… would never be able to live independently and probably were better off at the state hospital. That part they talk about a lot less, because it’s super depressing.
He was a danger to others and to himself, the more’s the pity. However, many national media intentionally misrepresent him as a benefactor of humanity. How will Americans continue to look at the gaslight?
I’ve noticed that in contrast to this, there is very little media coverage of the hopes and dreams of the working people killed by violent mentally ill people on the NYC subways.
As for “he should have had a chance, ”This man could have availed himself of mental Health treatment for free as a low income person who would qualify for Medicaid in NY. Yes it’s tragic how his mother died, but it doesn’t excuse his behavior.
Clarissa's Blog 
“beloved subway performer”
See and raise:
Shooter and car killer in Texas are being identified as “white supremacists”
https://twitter.com/amuse/status/1655369672768856065
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The stakes get raised constantly. One can’t keep up.
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Clarissa, the second tweet on the webpage that you linked to makes a correct but incomplete statement: “He was a career criminal.”
But the record should have added: “He was also a life-long severely psychotic (chronic schizophrenic) man who had been released over 40 times back onto the streets by state courts that in a more just world would have committed him to indefinite confinement in a state psychiatric hospital, where he would have been properly medicated, fed, and humanely sheltered where he couldn’t be a danger either to himself or others.”
Those were the rules fifty years ago when I was a staff psychiatrist at a long-closed huge state psychiatric hospital in Southern California. When the state mental health system collapsed there (and basically nationwide) in the mid-1970s, I kept my career going by joining the Air Force.
My ex-patents dumped onto the streets weren’t so lucky. The way this country deals with severely mentally ill people is a disgrace.
LikeLiked by 3 people
It’s very sad and completely inhumane.
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My parents worked at a halfway-house back when they were releasing these patients. They always talk about the one patient they were able to successfully transition into regular life– a woman who’d been maliciously locked up by her family, after marrying the wrong fellow. There was nothing wrong with her, the husband had been killed in WWII shortly after they’d married (she was never told!), and my parents were able to help her navigate the various military offices to find out what’d happened to her husband, claim her widow’s benefits, secure a place to live, learn how to pay bills and stuff.
That was a fantastic success story, and a pretty awful abuse of the system. But 100% of the other patients they worked with… would never be able to live independently and probably were better off at the state hospital. That part they talk about a lot less, because it’s super depressing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
He was a danger to others and to himself, the more’s the pity. However, many national media intentionally misrepresent him as a benefactor of humanity. How will Americans continue to look at the gaslight?
LikeLike
I’ve noticed that in contrast to this, there is very little media coverage of the hopes and dreams of the working people killed by violent mentally ill people on the NYC subways.
As for “he should have had a chance, ”This man could have availed himself of mental Health treatment for free as a low income person who would qualify for Medicaid in NY. Yes it’s tragic how his mother died, but it doesn’t excuse his behavior.
LikeLiked by 1 person