A multi-generational coalition of ex-psychiatric patients and allies ranging in age from 27 to 72 launched a campaign last month to hold the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health accountable for its mismanagement of COVID-19 response in publicly-funded psychiatric institutions and other settings. Mobilizing as Massachusetts Advocating for Change Together (Mass ACT), advocates say DMH is not being transparent about measures it is taking to mitigate the transmission of the novel coronavirus in its congregate facilities, a familiar refrain echoed across the U.S. since the start of the pandemic.

Naomi Pinson, a feminist community organizer who was twice institutionalized as a teen, has been widely credited with helping to seed Mass ACT. Pinson was alarmed when she read an April 16 letter to state officials penned by the Disability Law Center (DLC) and the Mental Health Legal Advisors’ Committee (MHLAC) regarding conditions within Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain.

“DLC and MHLAC have received information indicating that the health, safety, and rights of patients at LSH are at great risk,” the letter read. “Those reports include information regarding the rapid spread of COVID-19 infection through the Metro Boston Mental Health Units (MBMHUs) and indefinite suspension on access to fresh air and privileges for the patients in those units beginning two weeks ago.”

“Shattuck is a pit,” Pinson told Mad in America via email. “Its denizens are drawn from the poorest and most marginalized of all. They also have a large Department of Corrections unit, and a large number of forensics patients, mostly people of color, as I understand it.”

Pinson, 72, a resident of Framingham, told Mad in America that she got the idea for a caravan the day after she read the letter, when she witnessed an hundreds-strong car protest organized by the Roxbury-based Families for Justice as Healing. The group is holding a series of ongoing car protests to raise awareness about conditions within the MCI Framingham, a women’s prison and one of the correctional facilities being hardest hit by the virus in the state of Massachusetts.

Recalling her own experience as an institutionalized young person, Pinson was moved to organize in solidarity with those detained in her state’s psychiatric facilities. “When you’re in these places, you want people to know that you’re alive, to appreciate the situation you’re in. To say, ‘I’m rooting for you.’”

Pinson (R), circa 1961. Source: Naomi Pinson.

The very next day, Pinson reached out to members of her community and, referring to the Shattuck letter and the MCI Framingham protest, asked them for help in taking action. The message generated the spark that ultimately led to the formation of Mass ACT.

While the idea for the Shattuck car protest came from Pinson, one of the group’s elder members, the planning and logistics were aided by the group’s youngest organizer, Kayla Neumeyer. Neumeyer, 27, who also works with the youth-led Jewish direct action groups If Not Now and Never Again Action, had just helped to organize a series of car protests and had energy to lend, with practical advice to give.

I spoke with Neumeyer on the phone about the deep intersectional analysis that undergirds Mass ACT’s organizing. “It’s racist, classist, and ableist conditions that have led us to this point,” she emphasized. She added that she had heard something recently at a conference that struck her: “‘The people closest to the pain are the ones with the best solutions.’ That’s an ethos I hold in all my organizing work.”

On May 17, less than a month after Pinson first reached out to her fellow community members, 17 cars bearing signs reading slogans such as “Freedom Now” and “Free Our People” made three giant circuits around the Shattuck Hospital grounds. Some members of the group got out of their cars and continued the protest at a safe distance from one another outside the facility. Organizers shot footage of the action, which meets viewers with a continuous cacophony of horns blaring—alternately staccato, bellowing, and screeching out their rage and resistance.

“It’s Like Dracula’s House” to Us

When I asked Mass ACT organizers on a recent Zoom meeting why they chose Shattuck as the site of their car protest, they listed a multitude of reasons. Organizer Sera Davidow mentioned that the 255-bed teaching hospital was the site of the first resident death from COVID-19 on April 21.

Shattuck Hospital and Tewksbury State Hospital, the two largest state-run psychiatric facilities in Massachusetts, have both been heavily impacted by COVID-19. Nearly a month after a United States Army Reserve unit came to Tewksbury to assist with mitigation, thirteen residents have died, two of them on the hospital grounds, according to a May 19 Patch report.

Thomas Brown, one of the primary car protest organizers, likened Shattuck to “Dracula’s house” in the original movie version of the Bram Stoker novel, a comparison which drew laughter from his comrades on Zoom. “Shattuck Hospital is that kind of Gothic building for us. It’s a symbol in this state,” Brown said.

Protesters practice physically distant resistance outside Shattuck Hospital. Photo credit: Sean Donovan.
Mass ACT protesters speak to the press. L to R: Sera Davidow, Thomas Brown. Photo credit: Sean Donovan.
Car protest in progress. Photo credit: Sean Donovan.
The Mass ACT protest continues outside “The Shattuck.” Photo credit: Sean Donovan.

“It was already supposed to close because it’s run down and it’s not fit to have people in it,” said organizer Martha Barbone. The hospital, erected in 1966, is slated to be shut down and relocated in 2021, according to a government website.

“For me, it’s because it’s [located] in a community of color that is being hit very, very hard,” added Ruthie Poole, who has a shared history of activism with Pinson, having met her on a picket line. A slew of emerging data have indicated that the overwhelmingly disproportionate brunt of the virus has been borne by Black, Brown, immigrant, and undocumented communities, and Massachusetts is no exception. However, according to a report last month in The Boston Globe, the full scope of the impact remains unclear, as the state does not release racial and ethnic data.

Pinson, who created and directed a peer educator training program that ran biweekly at Shattuck for six years, said that one of her biggest worries about the May 17 action was that those living within the walls would be unaware of what was happening outside that day. On an organizers’ call following the protest, she asked the group, “Did the people inside know we were there? Why we were there?”

While the hospital had set up gendarmes in advance to try to limit the protesters’ access to the grounds, the message appears to have reached its intended recipients. “The patients were hearing us. They were yelling out at us. Someone else flashed a phone at us,” answered Poole.

“That was really, really great,” Poole said.

The protest, which was organized over the span of three days, attracted local media interest. Coverage included a moving photo essay in the Boston Herald as well a segment that aired on local TV news station Fox 25.

Hospital security keep an eye on Mass ACT protestors. Photo credit: Fox 25 News (Dedham, MA).
“We’re Not Asking for Too Much”

The car protest was just one aspect of a multipronged and ongoing awareness-raising and resistance campaign spearheaded by Mass ACT, which describes itself as a “human rights advocacy organization comprised of individuals who are receiving or who have received psychiatric services and their allies.”

“It’s not like we’re asking for too much,” said Mass ACT organizer Jason Wright, who recently interviewed Davidow and Brown about the campaign on his podcast, The Oddball Show. “We’re just asking for fair treatment in psychiatric hospitals during COVID-19.”

Organizers told of several drivers of their urgent efforts. One of the primary areas of concern revolved around the isolation and distancing policies that may be necessary for the public’s health but are particularly worrisome for individuals’ human rights. These measures include the cessation of all outside visitation, including lack of access to outside peer support workers and other non-hospital affiliated advocates who are in a position to monitor conditions.

A related issue further fueling the isolation is a lack of digital infrastructure, often exacerbated by the age and size of the buildings, which makes it difficult for residents to utilize video conferencing and other technologies that would allow them to interact with the outside world. Additionally, public health measures limit access to translation and interpretation services. “There are people who are in some of these facilities who don’t read or speak English, who have even less access to people in their lives who speak their own language, and have less access to information about COVID-19 that is accessible to them,” Davidow said.

Top, L to R: Jason Wright, Sera Davidow. Bottom: Thomas Brown. Screenshot from The Oddball Show.

The isolation measures land particularly hard on persons already historically vulnerable to abuse and neglect within the walls of aging and authoritarian institutions.

“When you have people held against their will, who have been marginalized often for much of their lives, held somewhere without the public being able to find out what’s going on—that’s a problem of its own,” Davidow told The Oddball Show. “There are lots of people in these hospitals who have a lot to say, but without support from the outside, the risk to them [in speaking out] is really, really high.”

The community’s concerns are further compounded by an absence of clear and forthcoming information from the state’s Department of Mental Health. Transparency is by no means the group’s only ask, Davidow told Wright, but it is the primary one. “If there’s no transparency, it’s impossible to figure out what to do, because nobody knows what’s happening.” She added, “We believe [state officials] have a responsibility to tell us what is happening, what measures they are taking to protect people. And instead, the little bit that we’re able to find out is that people are getting sick and they are dying.”

Brown is concerned about the long-term effects of what he describes as “the core features of traumatic experience:” hopelessness, helplessness, and terror. “People are being traumatized by a lack of ethical response and responsible protocols,” he said on The Oddball Show. “The people who are in the units right now, and in group homes and nursing homes, they’re going to come out of this with terror that’s going to last for a long time.”

Davidow related on The Oddball Show podcast that in her role as director of the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community she had requested information from the Department of Mental Health on COVID-19 transmission rates in a local long-term psychiatric unit on April 20.

“I got the answer on May 12,” Davidow said, adding that it took a Herculean effort, going all the way up the chain to the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, to obtain that information. She found out that a full ninety percent of those hospitalized in the facility she inquired about had tested positive for COVID-19. “It’s only by luck that none of them have died. It’s not because anyone has done anything right,” Davidow said.

Davidow is not alone in her frustration at the dearth of basic COVID case data made available to the public. Other advocates across the country have shared similar complaints. In response, earlier this month the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network launched a COVID-19 case tracker to aid those seeking to understand the true impact of the virus in congregate facilities.

As Mass ACT was in the process of coalescing as a group, Davidow had simultaneously been mobilizing, along with other local advocates, to pen a letter to Department of Mental Health and Department of Public Health officials, again demanding transparency on the COVID-19 response. The group met by conference call with state mental health officials earlier this month to discuss the letter, and found the response to be “vague” and lacking in substance.

For example, advocates asked what the state was doing to move discharge planning along more quickly for those who are able to shelter safely in the community. What they heard disturbed them. As Brown told The Oddball Show, the number of people currently being released from state hospitals is “about the same” as would be discharged without a pandemic.

“The Department of Mental Health is risk aversive to the point of phobia,” Pinson told Mad in America in an email. “In the face of the virus, Mass ACT is urging speedy discharge, but it’s much easier for DMH to just let people languish indefinitely.”

Pinson spent almost four years as a human rights officer at Tewksbury State Hospital. “I watched ‘risk committees’ and ‘discharge committees’ drag discharge out not just months, but at times, years,” she said. “Patients are only ‘invited’ to attend when being grilled, or at the point at which decisions had already been made for them.”

Mass ACT protesters outside of Shattuck. Photo credit: Sean Donovan.

Davidow pointed out that there have been efforts to get people out of jails and prisons on “compassionate release,” as per a state Supreme Judicial Court ruling last month on reducing incarceration due to the virus. As of last week, WBUR reported that 1000 people had been released from Massachusetts jails and prisons, a number advocates say is insufficient.

But she feels that people incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals and other congregate settings have been largely ignored.

On the podcast, Davidow referred to the obliviousness of cable television refrains about “staying home, together” and the like: “There’s all these communities that can’t do that, because they’re living without a home, or they’re in a psychiatric facility, or in a nursing care facility. They’re not having that choice. And the world isn’t seeing us any more than they did under more ‘normal’ conditions. In fact, I think even less are we being seen.”

Mass ACT insists that its demands are fair and reasonable, given the dire circumstances. “We are not asking that people be forced to be out on their own if they feel like they want to stay in a hospital. And we’re not saying, ‘Just open the doors and let everyone out, without any support.’” Davidow and others had requested that the state use emergency dollars to re-evaluate residents and provide them with housing, hotel vouchers, and other types of support that would allow them to avoid a risky congregate setting.

In a follow-up communication shared with Mad in America, Davidow cited a dizzying array of unresolved questions and concerns beyond discharge planning and vouchers, ranging from a lack of data on COVID infection rates, to little information on what forms of mental health treatment (if any) were being provided, to reports of residents being deprived of fresh air, to a lack of access to technology, to staffing levels, among other subjects. As of this writing, she has not received a response from the state.

The letter to DMH would form the basis for Mass ACT’s Change.org petition, addressed to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and state legislators. “We join with those held in immigration detention facilities and prisons in demanding equitable treatment and humane conditions,” the petition reads. “Mass ACT is demanding immediate action by the legislature and the Baker administration to address the conditions in these psychiatric settings that put residents’ lives at risk.”

While other petitions, such as one created by New Jersey state hospital workers last month, have demanded that lawmakers address conditions within psychiatric facilities during the pandemic, Mass ACT’s is one of only two known petitions to be authored and launched by former residents of such facilities. The Mass ACT petition amassed 250 signatures within its first 24 hours, and over 500 within the first week.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_nHWedJGrb/

Plaintiffs Wanted

In addition to the letter, petition, and car caravan protest, Mass ACT is actively working with advocates at the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, the Disability Law Center, and other state and local groups to locate potential plaintiffs to launch a class-action lawsuit against the state for its poor management of conditions inside its facilities. Such lawsuits have been launched in other states, including Connecticut and the District of Columbia.

The MHLAC created an online survey designed to gather data and information on what is occurring within these facilities. The survey reads, “Share the injustice you or someone you know has experienced so that we can go to the legislature, government agencies, and courts with powerful evidence of these harms. Or give us an example of a setting that shines so that we can convince governments that following prevention measures and creating a humane environment in psychiatric settings can be done.”

At a recent organizing meeting, the group brainstormed at length as to how to get the surveys to people inside who cannot access the Internet, or who may need assistance in filling out a survey. Their extensive calculations were all designed to figure out how to do so without getting anyone into trouble.

Both Davidow and Brown repeatedly emphasized on The Oddball Show that in order for real change to take place, those working and living within the walls of these facilities will have to assume some level of risk—no easy feat in the authoritarian and disempowering setting of the psychiatric hospital, where retaliation against staff and residents occurred with disturbing regularity even before the pandemic. Brown recalled a period of time when he tried to make change from within an agency he worked for: “Once I started being vocal, I knew I was risking my employment every single day. It’s a horrible feeling.”

“People need to take those risks to let people know [what’s happening]. If these advocacy law centers don’t have real stories from people, they can’t do anything. You can’t bring a lawsuit on hearsay,” he added.

“It’s beyond the abstract idea of human rights. It’s about life and death here,” Davidow told The Oddball Show. “If we’re not willing to take risks, what we are saying is we are willing to risk silence around the lives and deaths of people in our community who are locked away and have no power right now.”

Davidow added that legal advocates are also willing to take confidential reports, which may not result in a lawsuit, but could help to fill in some of the massive information gaps.

Calling All Whistleblowers

One of the discussions at the post-car protest Mass ACT organizers’ meeting centered on whether or how change can be made from inside oppressive systems, which speaks to the vital role of the whistle-blower within these settings. Some organizers came down unequivocally on the need to push for change from without. “When I worked inpatient, I hated everything they did,” said Barbone. “I had this idea, ‘I’m on the inside, I can [make] change from the inside.’ And that was wrong.” She added, “I’m not there anymore.”

Brown agreed with Barbone about the ultimate futility of systems change from within. “You’ve got to go so much farther than that.”

Others were more circumspect. “I don’t think it’s one or the other,” said Pinson. “I think you can work on both sides to create change,” to which she added, “Me, Marx, and Lenin think that,” provoking a round of laughter from the group.

Brown gently pushed back. “I tried it for 13 years. I’m somebody who works really hard at anything that I do, and I could barely make change. What I got until the very end, was people punishing me for the change that I was trying to bring.”

Poole, who now works in the setting Brown once did, assured him that his efforts had not been completely in vain. “You made changes, Thomas. You made good changes.”

Mass ACT protestor Jason Wright. Photo credit: Sean Donovan.

Davidow also came down on the side of pushing from within and without, while recognizing the limitations of the former. “I think it’s next to impossible to make the kind of long-term, big changes we’re trying to make from the inside. I think a lot of people get pretty tortured for trying. And I think we should still be trying. I don’t know what else to do. Otherwise, we’re just deserting [people].” Barbone concurred. “Everyone who’s stuck on the inside is stuck on the inside. So if some of us aren’t there, what do they have?”

Many of the group have significant experience as peer supporters, educators, and advocates. Despite the obstacles, they remain hopeful that their fellow peer workers on the inside can help aid in the resistance. Their focus moving forward will continue to be on encouraging hospital residents, workers, and others with insider knowledge to speak out on the state’s mismanagement of COVID response.

Pinson has an idea as to how to potentially make it easier for people to come forward in Massachusetts. “We need to rewrite the human rights handbook and strengthen whistleblower protections,” she said. Brown agreed, noting that existing policies protecting whistleblowers were not being followed, and that there were few agencies where people in peer roles felt safe to speak up. “I hope one of the functions of Mass ACT will be to help protect change agents,” he told Mad in America.

Pinson makes signs for the Shattuck car protest. Photo credit: Sera Davidow.

In Part 2 of Mad in America’s series on the mismanagement of COVID-19 response in U.S. psychiatric facilities, Lori Sevigny spoke about her experience on a 72-hour hold at a psychiatric ward in a large city hospital in the Northeast last month. Sevigny was the only person who was willing to be named in that piece, as others harbored understandable concerns about retaliation at work and privacy of loved ones.

As she promised one of the nurses on the unit where she was hospitalized, Sevigny threw herself immediately into activism, connecting with Pinson and helping to launch Mass ACT soon after her release. She designed the group’s logo, started its social media pages, released the Change.org petition, and became a primary organizer, along with Brown, of the Shattuck car protest.

Sevigny and I reconnected on May 19, and she talked about how generative it has been to work with Mass ACT, with its combined ethos of peer support and activism. When I asked her what she wanted people still on the inside to know, she said, “Just because things don’t happen overnight, we’re not going to stop. I can promise them that.”

Reflecting on her harrowing hospital stay last month, Sevigny said, “Sometimes in life we have to go through experiences to make things better for people who can’t speak up, for people who don’t have a voice. And in that, I feel a little bit honored that I was [in the hospital] that week. I just hope that I can help make things better.”

Brown, for his part, has had it with being in the business of being polite, he told Mad in America. Recalling his own personal and professional history, he said, “You’re always encouraged to be nice. Be sweet. Set a ‘feel-good’ tone. But you can’t talk about the horrors [of COVID] without being furious. Or at least a little edgy.”

Organizers at Mass ACT hope that their multi-pronged efforts to hold the state accountable will embolden their peers in other states to lead similar actions. “All we need is courage,” Brown said, “And to be an example. To show that it’s safe to lift our voices.”

Mass ACT is fixing their sights on Tewksbury next. On May 21, they will mobilize again, snaking around the grounds of the old state hospital with car horns blaring, signs displayed, sounding out loudly and insistently for justice in a terror-filled time.

***

MIA Reports are supported, in part, by a grant from the Open Society Foundations

36 COMMENTS

  1. “Organizer Sera Davidow mentioned that the 255-bed teaching hospital was the site of the first resident death from COVID-19 on April 21.”

    amazing that it’s referred to as a “teaching hospital”.
    Human oppression and experiments is what they teach.

    Thank you Leah, you always write such great blogs. Thanks for your ongoing devotion to this very important issue, as it affects ALL of society.

    Report comment

    • It’s funny (loosely)… Until I read what Leah wrote, I hadn’t even absorbed that it was considered a “teaching hospital.” It’s a bizarre place in every possible way, including that it’s this awful gigantic building surrounded by a golf course, playground, and all sorts of other stuff and most people walking by and around it don’t even seem to know what it is. Actually, even a guard in a booth that led up to the hospital seemed unclear what the building contained when asked by one of our group.

      -Sera

      Report comment

      • Yes it is funny…I wish people would generally be more curious about what happens in “buildings”. I think if they saw, actually witnessed the minute by minute play, many more would realize that what they are taught, is only one story.
        It should make the general public very suspicious if they only hear the stories of those in the business.
        If the adverse effects, the real play by play was televised, well, we would have a different set of rules.

        Report comment

      • Sera:

        I am posting this onto your comment since you worked on this.

        Last night, I was scouting around to see if there was any cross reporting of COVID- 19 and The Response Act proposed by Senator John Cornyn, covered by Leah in another article.

        In other words, not The Families First Coronavius Response Act for COVID -19, but the one promulgating the use of LAIs. I held my nose & went onto TACs site and found this.

        https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the-system/features-and-news/4254-2020

        I pulled out two bullet points that disturbed me. Especially the second one, which I put in caps.

        “Treatment Advocacy Center

        Behavioral Healthcare Recommendations During COVID

        • For some individuals with severe mental illness, The COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate symptoms such as paranoia or persecutory delusions about government control. The symptoms of severe mental illness may also impact some individuals’ ability to act appropriately in the current climate – for example, auditory hallucinations that lead some to avoid communicating by telephone, or disorganized thoughts that prevent some from following public directives on personal hygiene or social distancing.

        • PROVIDE GUIDANCE ON INTERPRETING STATE CIVIL COMMITMENT LAWS TO RECOGNIZE THE RISK OF CONTRACTING OR SPREADING THE CORONAVIRUS AS A FORM OF “DANGER TO SELF OR OTHERS” AND A BROADER INTERPRETATION OF “GRAVELY DISABLED” THAT CONSIDERS COVID -19.”

        This chilled me to the core. Both of them.

        I have read all three of Leah’s articles now, and I know that the second bullet statement from the TAC website is referring to whether or not to force commit someone in light of the pandemic, the danger it would put the prisoner in, er, I mean “patient,”

        but it could also be interpreted as locking people up who are “too intellectually impaired” to know how to wash their hands, wear masks, or to dare contemplate the wild notion of government malfeasance or corruption in any way. On the topic of the coronavirus, or another other.

        Conspiracy Theory.

        (And I’m sure you already know this, but “conspiracy theory” is a pejorative phrase coined by the intelligence communities–or at least to give it a pejorative spin—in order to disregard arguments they do not like & close the conversation. A conversation, which is not allowed by pscyh survivors.)

        I think bullet statement number 2 was left purposely vague for rounding people up in future outbreaks. As someone with a diagnosis would be “a danger to self and others,” due to not taking common sense precautions against the virus. Or not being able to decide for themselves what common sense precautions even are. In other words, the ‘A’ word. I’m not using it here.

        (btw: if you burn high quality organic tea tree oil in a diffuser this has anti-viral & immune supporting properties!!! Again, if you already knew that, COOL!)
        ~P.
        How did the second protest march go? I think it said it was scheduled on May 21st. She of the postscipt, postscript, and then some, addendum…

        Report comment

        • “• PROVIDE GUIDANCE ON INTERPRETING STATE CIVIL COMMITMENT LAWS TO RECOGNIZE THE RISK OF CONTRACTING OR SPREADING THE CORONAVIRUS AS A FORM OF “DANGER TO SELF OR OTHERS” AND A BROADER INTERPRETATION OF “GRAVELY DISABLED” THAT CONSIDERS COVID -19.”

          Does that sentence even make grammatical/syntactic sense? Sounds like gobbledygook to me.

          Report comment

          • I guess it seems like a sneaky way to suggest that somehow Covid19 and “harm to self and others” are connected. I guess as I read it again, the implication is that people with “serious mental illnesses” could be incarcerated because they are judged as too stupid or incompetent to take proper protective measure against Covid19. Which is, of course, is ridiculous, because COVID19 isn’t necessarily dangerous to everyone, and because the fact of someone “having a mental illness” is probably completely unrelated to their ability to protect themselves in the first place. Hey, people with “OCD” characteristics or who are afraid to go out of their homes would actually be at an advantage! But naturally, they can’t just come out and say what they mean, they have to raise fears by vague generalizations. That guy is a dangerous person! He is a “danger to others” with his whacky ideas!

            Report comment

          • It’s meant to Steve.

            If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls*&t.

            Now imagine your being carted away for forced treatment trying to argue about the meaning of that statement?

            Like this letter I have from the Chief Psychiatrist about how the grounds used to detain me were reasonable because he wrote down things that sound reasonable so he had reasonable grounds. And he only need suspect on grounds he considers reasonable not on reasonable grounds that the person requires an assessment by a psychiatrist and not that they require being an involuntary patient because then there would be standards to meet and thats not reasonable. We want to lock up anyone we want to, and will do so because the Chief Psychiatrist is not doing his duty to protect the public by ignoring the law.

            Works every time. No one prepared to point out the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. I feel sorry for the good people who took the time to write and pass these laws with the best of intentions, only to have these people in authority ignore the intent and use it to manipulate preferred outcomes. Dig there own grave in the end I guess.

            Report comment

        • How about this?:

          disorganized thoughts that prevent some from following public directives on personal hygiene or social distancing.

          In other words those who reject the bullshit insistence on masks are “mentally ill” and need to be contained in order to maintain the appropriate level of hysteria.

          Report comment

          • So I guess I am a “danger to self and others” if I choose not to wear a mask while hiking, even when all data suggests that casual outdoor contact between individuals is essentially never going to result in transmission?

            Report comment

          • I have a disease and I wore a mask to the ER during flu season a few years ago and was berated by triage for wearing a mask.
            They tried so hard to break me, so hard to make it look as if I was irrational.

            If you wear one, you are MI, if not, you are MI.
            This is about passing people off to psych.
            They don’t have magic bullets for diseases and in their hysteria, like to have psych deal with people.
            It is their hysteria.

            All they ever did is accomplish resolve.

            Report comment

          • Have you met our Minister for Health Oldhead?

            “In other words those who reject the bullshit ………. are “mentally ill” and need to be contained”.

            Making a complaint that he doesn’t like means that the person making the complaint is ‘delusional’ and in need of assistance from mental health services. His dog whistle slandering of anyone who has a valid complaint (and documented proof) adding to the already dangerously corrupt system he is enabling.

            Shame someone hasn’t given him the skills to do what might even give the appearance of an independent investigation, rather than use his position to silence any critics via the medicalisation of complainants. I’m sure some of his ‘colleagues’ would speak up, but it can be difficult from a locked ward with one of his ‘referrals’ that can be achieved easily in a State that is enabling arbitrary detentions and human rights abuses disguised as ‘medicine’.

            Report comment

          • @oldhead and Steve:

            I have a confession. Over the years, I have been known to scroll down in the comments section to see what you both had to say on a controversial subject. This, for the sake of time-management, as I have had to keep up with what is going on in cyberspace and other platforms.

            And there are other great minds on here too, but I remember you two both very clearly, and oldhead, we worked together. . . I always found you to be tough (and by that I mean you have high standards–you take no verbal prisoners on the Anti-Psychiatry debate because we are all pressed for time to release OUR prisoners),

            but you are also fair, and kind….

            In the world of “conspiracy theory,” and I am now going to substitute the phrase alternative media, conjecture is oftentimes the only avenue to debate a controversial topic. The journalists I gravitate towards have transcended the Left/Right paradigm and will alert their subscribers when they are presenting facts/versus conjecture.

            Someone has to die to get us the facts.

            At best, they may be rotting in prison like Julian Assange or Chelsea Manning (Chelsea was thrown back in jail as she refused to testify against Julian Assange in a Grand Jury), and Ed Snowden is in exile in Russia.

            I keep my childhood friend current on what is going on & sometimes he will be skeptical of some claim or another, maybe expecting me to be defensive, but no (!), instead I say, “skepticism is healthy.” In the metaphysical community, we use the word “discernment.” I think that’s a better word, but let’s not get into that now.

            And then I broke it down for him because I have been doing this for a VERY long time while I try and outrun my detractors, who trail after me with a cocktail of neurotoxins . . .

            The breakdown. Or how to approach a controversial alt. media topic:
            (and the two of you know this already, but I think you will enjoy my breakdown & may be able to add some insights to this list. I was absolutely impressed with your arguments that Donald Trump should not be diagnosed because NO ONE should be diagnosed, and if you like him, or if you don’t like him, then VOTE for him. Or DON’T)

            Go into any claim with the dialectic: it’s either true/or it isn’t true.

            SEPARATE ANY STRONG LIKE OR DISLIKE FROM THE SOURCE OF THE CLAIM, OR ANY STRONG LIKE OR DISLIKE FROM ANYONE THEY ARE QUOTING OR REFERENCING.

            If the claim is true (or partially true), then when further claims can you make from it?

            If the claim is untrue, then what further claims can you make from THAT?

            From there you can cast two sets of interpolations and extrapolations branching out in either direction.

            For fun, you can even take it further. If it’s not true/or if it’s partially true…who has to gain from lying or telling a partial truth???

            (at this point I will add that the Intelligence Communities, or Alphabet Agencies will and DO insert psyops or false leads into the meta-narrative in order to obfuscate, discredit, or mislead both the journalist & the story)

            If it IS true (I am talking about whistleblower disclosures in ALL fields, including research done by journalists on MIA), how will the Deep State fight back, and on which front/s?
            (Yes, I use the term Deep State as much as I am MORE than comfortable with the term Anti-Psychiatry)

            AND HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT. IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE, BECAUSE OF A PSYOPS OR AN ERROR IN CRITICAL THINKING, YOU HAVE TO ADMIT IT & GO BACK TO THE POINT OF ERROR AND START FROM THAT POINT ANEW. THAT’S THE HARDEST. IT’S EMBARRASING AT BEST, AND,

            LIKE ME, AND A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE ON THIS SITE WHO ARE BEING FOLLOWED WITH A COCKTAIL OF NEUROTOXINS…well…

            It can be a lot worse than embarrassing…

            This is fun (for me, NERD!), but WHO HAS TIME???? Well, that is just the point isn’t it? And why one commenter on here alerted everyone else that Donald Trump is just a distraction. Exactly. And Trump is not the only distraction, because if you mention him even in the context of a distraction, the conversation immediately goes to TRUMP…

            and away from the conversation…a straw man argument? A fallacy of relevance?

            Help me out Steve!!!!

            Cheers,
            and hope you are both doing well.
            ~P.

            Report comment

        • Ooof, I’m just seeing this now, but yeah, that’s scary.

          It makes me think – unfortunately – of the guidance our own state is providing to hospitals on whether or not to *release* them from psych facilities to save them from danger of catching COVID through presence in a congregate living facility. They’re basically asking these facilities to consider whether or not someone is good about wearing a mask and doing 6-feet distancing… standards that NO ONE out in the world is actually being measured by as a reason to have their freedom taken away (well, unless they start following TAC apparently).

          -S

          Report comment

  2. Thanks & congrats to Sera, Leah and all involved.

    I haven’t read all the demands and analysis in depth. But sometimes in a true crisis such as this we have to take the most highly developed theory and talking points we have at our disposal and run with them. If I lived in Mass. I’d be there, in some form.

    I do think it’s still important in the immediate sense NOT to distinguish between psychiatric inmates and “correctional system” inmates in your press statements and publicity, which can easily serve to reinforce an illusory distinction in the public mind between “bad” people and “crazy” people, with the commensurate judgements attached to both.

    But go for it — best of luck. Abolish Psychiatry!

    Report comment

  3. “The hospital, erected in 1966, is slated to be shut down and relocated in 2021, according to a government website.”

    They built a new 120 cell prison in one of our remote communities because of the delapidated state of the old ‘colonial’ prison used to house many of our indigenous population in the North of the State. They opened the new prison and the decided they weren’t going to close the old one. They can now imprison double what they were of a population that makes up 2% of the overall population, but 30% of the prison population. Post offices (to hand out welfare checks) Pubs (for the distribution of alcohol and the problems associated with that) and police stations and prisons. Looks to me like we set them up for a fall.

    I must say it’s nice to hear about places that talk about ‘advocates’ rather than the type of conspiratorial conduct of the Mental Health Law Centre here who take money from the government to assist in the concealment of human rights abuses. They throw their clients under a bus once they become informed of any criminal conduct engaged in by the State. They are actively engaged in human rights abuses with by their ommission and commission of offences. Not that the DState would ever bring action against the people assisting them with the concealment of torture maiming and killing.

    And whistleblower protections? You talk about strengthening them? Wow, we’d like to have some. My medical records were used as a weapon against me by distributing fraudulent and misleading legal narrative and slandering me as a ‘patient’ because I had a valid complaint about being tortured and kidnapped. “we’ll fuking destroy you” the open comment from the person who investigated my complaint knowing was correct in pointing out that her failure to report the matters was a criminal offence (and unfortunately I was right, but when the State is enabling criminal conduct to conceal their use of torture there’s a conflict of interest). Refoulment is much cheaper and maintains reputation, and the community with no protections can be silenced with threats from police. In fact, once the lawyers knew that the documented proof of the torture and kidnapping was available, rather than pursue the matter, they refused to accept documents (duty to report a problem) and police were despatched to retrieve the documents I had before the hospital sent out the fraudulent set. They should have been more thorough though, I guess the assumption was that (a) i didn’t have the documents, and (b) dead men tell no tales. Fail on both counts. yep, thats the State government I worked for lol

    I find myself wondering about the courage of your ‘advocates’ in the face of such ‘treatment’. Gotta love the land of the free in that regard. Doesn’t your States threaten your legal representatives if you speak the truth when they don’t want to hear it? Dont they release false and slanderous medical records to lawyers rather than the documents requested under FOI? They do in my State, and even with the proof no one has the courage to speak up. The things you can get away with once you have disarmed the public is amazing. Zero resistance, and no problems with any protections afforded by a rule of law.

    Even the Chief Psychiatrist has rewritten the Mental Health Act to remove the legal protection of “suspect on reasonable grounds” and enable arbitrary detentions by his colleagues (despite it being his duty under the Act to protect the community, negligence being the weapon). And the Mental Health Law Centre writes that these arbitrary detentions are “the spirit of the Act”. Advocates afraid to tell the Emperor he has no clothes? No reason required, just snatch them from the street with the assistance of police, slap a label on them with a ‘verbal’ and use a ‘chemical restraint’ to mimic a mental illness for anyone who may provide any assistance (ie make them sick and then claim to be treating that sickness with the very chemical causing the sickness). Oh how I envy you your democracy.

    In my country people take an oath to cover their exploitation of the trust placed in them. Take a look at what was done to me and you realise these people have no intention of standing by the agreement they made with citizens when they signed the Convention against the use of Torture. The Mental Health Act is being used as a loophole, and the Attorney General can’t even point me to the people to whom I should make complaint regarding my torture (and it is clear that these documents contain the proof of the use of a known torture method). Thats because they never allow anyone to make such a complaint, they unintentionally negatively outcome them. Good news is what I’m saying can be checked. And given my State has enabled torture, the witnesses who have been silenced by police can be tortured till they speak the truth right? Oh, that makes us as bad as the State grrrrr

    Report comment

    • I mean I get it. People who are engaged in distributing fraudulent documents, snatching citizens from their home, forcing drugs down their throats, belting their heads with electricity, and all sorts of methods to ensure complainace aren’t really going to worry about someone complaining about them using torture right? Not like they are going to have a jab of conscience all of a sudden. Just keep doubling down until the victim commits suicide and then use that as a justification for more funding. I get more admiration for these people every time I begin to undertand how they are doing this. I may even consider converting to their religion at some point. I can live with the label hypocrite after what i’ve been slandered with lol.

      At least the ‘treatment’ for the illness of hypocrisy is better than the drugs for these other slanders. I could become like the slovenly Community Nurse and drink myself into a stupour every night to kill the pain I would feel for committing acts of fraud daily and lying to police to obtain their assistance in kidnapping and torture? My colleagues who are concealing my ‘character flaws’ could even join me for drinks, and we could laugh about our ‘exploits’, though needing to keep the matters just between us. These things can appear to be a little distasteful to the uninitiated.
      Make sure the police find the knife you plant. It could create all sorts of problems for the Operations Manager with her cover ups if police ever shoot one of your ‘set ups’ Mr Community Nurse. It also means that the “reasonable grounds” required by police to refer are met by “found person asleep as a result of drugging. Suspect a mental illness as a result of snoring. referred to mental Health nurse for assessment”. Imagine how silly they would look if citizens had a right to access the courts for such jkidnappings and torture? Luckily they simply obstruct justice and their corruption spreads like cancer.

      What if someone actually had a camera running that they didn’t know about? I guess that would explain the rather paranoid conduct of the police who are involved in obstructing and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Don’t speak to the victim, don’t even touch the documents, and get his family and other citizens to commit the offences and simply neglect your duty. Fairly simple really, but also criminal if anyone ever finds out. Wife spikes him, they torture and then don’t act on the offence of intoxication by deception. Can’t have police getting documents back, take out Violence Restraining Order, have police detain while wife gets documents back, and then cancel VRO. Bad news, they know. Good news, these guys have promising futures as career criminals. Especially with other public officers concealing their crimes for them. A Clinical Director of a hospital sending fraudulent documents to lawyers and calling it “editing”. Theres you confirmation of psychiatry being fraud, its like a golf shot that have been ‘grooved’ lol He’s a ‘natural’.

      It really is fascinating to watch police trying to stay one step off the crimes. Having people they threaten commit the offences and then denying any involvement. I realise you people would consider me insane, but ask my daughter about the Police Sgt who stated “we don’t have a copy of the criminal code in this station”, and then refused to accept documented proof of serious criminal offences whie doctor sorted his problem out in the Emergency Dept. Or is this ‘illness’ you slander me with running in my family? Glad God is watching while they do it, because the people charged with protecting us from this conduct are also involved, and are pretending not to see.

      Report comment

  4. Thank you Leah for the great reporting. Wow! – Sera, Naomi Pinson, Kathy Flaherty/CT Legal Rights, MHLAC and everyone else involved – what incredible work you are all doing!
    Thank you all for your humanity and generosity of spirit to stand up for those who have been stripped of their power.

    “In addition to the letter, petition, and car caravan protest, Mass ACT is actively working with advocates at the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, the Disability Law Center, and other state and local groups to locate potential plaintiffs to launch a class-action lawsuit against the state for its poor management of conditions inside its facilities”.

    Yes, if potential plaintiffs are found and a class-action lawsuit launched that would certainly shake things up. Sending best wishes and good vibes for the caravan protest on May 31! (I would love to join you but I’m in Canada)

    Report comment

  5. I like the title.
    I think “our people” means everyone. It applies to Those who in the future might see themselves in the clutches of psychiatry. That “ill psychiatry”.
    And “those in the future”, could very well be those who are under the spell of the current paradigm.
    I’ve always known that I have to be cognizant of what ideals I hold, since those ideals might affect someone negatively. I weigh the benefits to a system, how they affect, or might affect me or mine in the future.
    I have seen NOTHING in psychiatry that works for the good of most.

    psychiatrists who unwittingly go into the chaotic field, believing the nonsense, but realizing it’s much more than they bargained for.
    So they say “well, psychiatry is not perfect”, which somehow is supposed to rationalize the more than crazy chaotic paradigm.

    Let’s face it. When we are young, we enter vocations with all our prejudices, our beliefs, our passions, or simply because we know we have to work at something.
    But there is no way in hades that one grows as a person and does not experience a shift, at least most do.
    A shift in our beliefs, further analyses and interest in our beliefs.
    What is a shame is that psychiatrists experience these shifts, yet most will never admit and instead opt for “psychiatry is not perfect”. That is the most feeble and weak thing to carry a system.

    If psychiatry freed people, they would be free themselves.

    I continue to say, they have made themselves prisoners also, and force their weak colleagues to be prisoner.

    To have to stand outside and ask psychiatry to free people is such a horrible testament to what psychiatry is guilty of.
    The WHO is also guilty. They all are. Regular medical doctors could easily help, IF they wanted to.
    In the end, people only care about their jobs.
    Psychiatry forced everyone to be one or another type of prisoner, even themselves.

    The most ironic thing is, many psychiatrists are not religious. Neither am I.

    Report comment

  6. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/toronto-police-chief-warns-of-opportunists-misinformation-after-womans-fall-from-highrise/ar-BB14M9Wq

    I see people commenting that this is a black issue. It’s disappointing that people just don’t seem to understand the terror of this victim.
    We know how cops position themselves. We wonder why someone became epileptic? Why was psych dealing with “epilepsy”. Why was the police? Was the epilepsy caused by psych drugs?
    She would have felt terrified, like an animal in distress.

    How brave police are to either bring it to this point, or not backing off in distress situations.
    I think Sera would have been much more helpful

    Report comment

    • The comments followed similar remarks Friday from Toronto’s police union …….”sensationalize this tragic event with blatant disregard for evidence or fact.”

      I note they are calling for witnesses to contact them. In my instance that would raise red flags. Anyone with facts and evidence not suited to the preferred narrative would be threatened, have the proof retrieved, and be referred to mental health services for treatment should they speak the truth. And reporters or lawyers would shut their mouths and do as they’re told. Otherwise they would be considered domestic terrorists.

      Wow, imagine if that were the police in my State, I would laugh till next week. Disregard for evidence or fact? I went to the trouble of obtaining my own medical records which show I was ‘spiked’ with benzos, had a Community Nurse call police and lie to them and say he required assistance with his “patient” so he could subject me to an interrogation whilst under the influence of the spiking, and at the point of a weapon. Do you think the police are interested in the “facts” or the “evidence”?

      I’ve been told by one police Sergent who wouldn’t even pick the documents up that he doesn’t have a copy of the criminal code in his station therefore “spiking’ someone with benzos (ie intoxication by deception s. 305A) is NOT a criminal offence. I have been told by another officer who stated that I shouldn’t have these documents that he would arrest me for having the proof that I was ‘spiked’ with benzos. I have letters from a Detective and a Police Superintendent who give the appearance that they do not have a basic understanding of the law (I believe this is called ‘baiting’ a victim, frustrate till they act then shoot to kill). And all this supported by our Politicians who HAVE examined the proof and have been provided with the facts relating to the fraudulent documents distributed by the hospital to the Mental Health Law Centre. Think they care about hospitals distributing fruadulent documents to conceal kidnapping and torture? Think again. They hand it back to police for cover ups, and stay silent with the claim they know what they are doing whilst organised criminals are enabled.

      So I hear what the Canadian Police are saying about disregarding the facts and evidence, and know that in my State, that is the preferred method of manipulating outcomes by our Police. Thuis they can enable the continued operation of organised criminals in our hospital system and keep throwing the victims of these criminals back to them via mental health referrals on the “reasonable grounds” that the person was asleep as a result of being spiked, or that someone went to the trouble of planting items on them to create the appearance of lawfulness when kidnapping citizens.

      Police in my State have a complete disregard for any facts and evidence that doesn’t suit their false narratives. I feel sure that many don’t believe me, and the few whom have bothered to look have had their families threatened. Ask the psychologist who went through my ‘trauma’ with me, and explained to police that it was not a “hallucination” to claim you have been spiked with benzos when you have the documented proof of that occurring. It does however mean police want to know who else has the documents when they thought they had retrieved them for the hospital before the fraudulent set were sent out to my legal representatives (in order to pervert the course of justice as we like to call it in the criminal code police can’t find). And they are lawfully allowed to threaten the said psychologist to gather that information for them during what he calls ‘therapy’. Fact, though once again I’m sure no one will bother checking due to it not being a preferred truth.

      When police are openly tampering with evidence and facts like this to conceal criminal conduct for organised criminals in our hopsitals, nothing, and I mean NOTHING they claim can be accepted as fact. And personally I’d be checking exactly HOW MUCH assistance they have provided for these criminals, because I wasn’t the first person they ‘fuking destroyed’ with their fraud and slander. And Iv’e no doubt not the last judging by the respones to me still having the proof of these serious criminal offences. Still, why would anyone dare speak up regading police criminal conduct and corruption? Especially when lawyers are quite prepared to use their positions of trust to assist them conceal their conduct. Human rights lawyers at the Mental Health Law Centre actively engaged in the concealment of known torutre methods? Fact.

      And how many others before they were exposed? Obviouly lots, hence the need to continue concealing the truth in preference for the false narrative and obstruction of justice by police.

      I propose we no longer call them police after seeing what is occurring in the news. They should rightly be called the 1% Security Company which is an accurate reflection of what they actually do in our communities. “facts and evidence” matter nought where I live, when you can be arrested for having the proof of crimes. Anyone care to hear the recording? It’s kind of bizarre when the police are acting in a manner one would call ‘paranoid’ and treating you as if there is something wrong with your mental health. I’ve no doubt I was ‘flagged’ to not have my complaint regarding the torture and kidnapping taken. Though having police make statments like “it might be best I don;t know about that” regarding attempts to kill are a little concerning. Though they were after all just doing their job (or more correctly neglecting to do their job to manipulate outcomes).

      Doctor rings police and says “don’t take the evidence/proof” and attempts to sort their problem out in the E.D. It’s all there if anyone ever cares to look. But for now they will threaten your family if you do so, tread carefully. And the silence form our politicians? Disgraceful when they know that cover ups are being done regarding torture and kidnappings by ‘health professionals’. Though I’m sure they have ‘insurance’ when fraudlent documents can be distrbuted by State representatives to conceal their criminal conduct. Imagine how flimsy the protections they claim with our Euthanasia Act are given that FACT. I get it that people may not want to believe me, but it would seem important to at least check what i’m saying. Oh that’s right, they did and found I was speaking the truth, and then doubled down to ensure that no one lese checks and finds out about their negligence in the first instance. So the threat to fuking destroy me for speaking the truth still stands I can only assume? Good people?

      One claim may be that the police are leaving it to other authorites to resolve. Who, the same authorities who have distributed fraudulent documents and then attempted to murder the victim? Then what actually IS the job of police? To assist these authorities in that process? Based on the “facts” and “evidence” I have the answer is YES. State sanctioned killings to conceal torture and kidnappings. Though the beaches and weather here are nice.

      Report comment

      • “Unfounded allegations that police officers pushed a woman to her death from a balcony, in the absence of evidence or fact, perpetuate a false narrative that the police are the enemy,” the Toronto Police Association said.

        And if, like me, someone were to come forward with “evidence” or “fact” that this was what was done? I can tell you exactly what would occur in my State, in fact I already have told you what occurs in my State. Fraud, slander, intimidation and threats etc……

        Your best bet is to get out while you can with the evidence and seek protection from a government that has a rule of law. Rather than one which is openly abusing human and civil rights, and denying access to legal representation to ensure that false narratives are maintained. Once police ARE the criminals all is lost.

        So based on “evidence” or “fact” police retrieve (or more correctly have a citizen retrieve) evidence in a hands off kind of way, and the ensure it is not considered in the investigation, then they can rightly claim that what is being perpetuated is a false narrative. (knowing that the “evidence” or “facts” has been retrieved and witnesses silenced, one can assert that police are not the enemy, despite police being the enemy of truth. Though being able to pervert the course of justice is a distinct advantage against the public enemy)

        Man I wish someone would objectively examine the proof I have. You have no idea what it is like to not only know you have been tortured and kidnapped, but that the ‘authorities’ are actively engaged in crimes to conceal those facts. Destroyed my family, home, career, mental state, ….everything. And then even with the proof, they prefer the fraud (false narrative) because …. ‘mental health’. Duh, you torture and kidnap someone ad expect it to NOT have an effect on someone? Who actually is the Nut here?

        This is in no way a comment on police in Canada by the way. I’ve got high hopes that the sort of vile corrupt conduct I can bear witnness to does not occur in other places. I suspect it does, because the people who did this to me seem to get moved around, rather than dealt with effectively. But it hasn’t stopped me from dreaming there’s a place that doesn’t allow citizens to be tortured and then killed for complaining. And as I have stated elsewhere after seeing a Canadian citizen being cared for by his government in one of our ‘hospitals’ I assume they might actually be concerned about their own people. Unlike my State which allows them to be ‘unintentionally negatively outcomed’ to maintain false narratives.

        Surely the mental health of these criminals requires treatment before moving them elsewhere to harm others? Did it work with the child raping priests? Then why on earth would it work with organised criminals in the health sector? Though doing so would be an admission that wrong was done, and we can’t do that no matter how many people are harmed.

        Report comment

          • “Bottom line is, everyone uses psychiatry. Psychiatry is really our government”

            I think of it more like The Joker in the Dark Knight. All the organised criminals had a problem, and they turned to someone they really didn’t understand to solve it.

            Some men “can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned with, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

            The assumption being that if you just keep pushing, then eventually the community with give in. Once the size of the stick required to beat them into submission is figured out, we can put psychiatry back into the box.

            Though recent developments seem to have shown the community will keep pushing back, and so a bigger stick will be required. They will be allowed to ‘run’ for a while, community leaders will be identified and their mental illness treated. The burning vehicles all part of the theatre, and done as a means of providing the elite media something to report on other than the ‘facts’ and the ‘evidence’.

            The surveillance mechanisms will ensure that the status quo continues, and we will continue to see the police demonstrate the power they weild as a result of the fear of the 1%.

            ““Unfounded allegations that police officers pushed a woman to her death from a balcony, in the absence of evidence or fact, perpetuate a false narrative that the police are the enemy,” the Toronto Police Association said.”

            Seriouslt consider what is being said in that statement. Unfounded allegations as a result of them being in a position where they are actively encouraged to tamper with the facts and evidence? I can bear witness before God that in my instance these people have delibertaely attempted to retrieve the “evidence” and the “facts” to ensure that a false narrative was perpetuated, and that organised criminals continued to operate in our hospitals harming people. So who, besides me, is an “enemy”? Those who would commit serious criminal offences against the administration of Justice? Not according to our ‘authorities’ or the people who make the false claim that they are “protecting the community”. They continue to conceal the truth with falsehoods. Their denial that the spot on the skin is cancer providing ample opportunity for the problem to spread.
            Though I must admit there is a certain fascination for me watching good cells becoming cancerous. And putting psychiatry under the microscope, one can watch the process, though the progression of the disease seems to be difficult to slow. The ‘chemo’ offered by big pharma which held so much promise ends up being just another false hope.

            “perpetuate a false narrative that the police are the enemy,” I quote this again and then ask the reader to look at the video of Mr Floyd and tell me, no these people are your friends. And only a “domestic terrorist” would dare fight back against their friends.

            Report comment

          • “The chief said police received three 911 calls for an assault, with at least two of the calls saying a knife was involved.

            Weapons-related calls take the highest priority, Saunders said, adding front-line officers respond to them first.

            “There’s no way I would put a nurse in the middle of a knife fight,” Saunders said.”

            Like a checklist really. If you want to jump the line, plant a knife on your loved one. Any problems and someone gets shot, it’s okay the investigation is at ‘arms length’. My wife paid $200 for that information, you can get it for free.

            Problem, how do we plant the knife on someone when they’re awake? Make them asleep with benzos in their drink you prepare for them.

            Seriously makes me sick reading that article knowing what is being done to conceal the truth in these situations. Criminal conspiracies and cover ups, with no effective investigation other than a watchdog that ensures the evidence has been appropriately tampered with by police. You should see the action when that cover up is exposed though, the amount of people who need to be silenced and threatened to continue with the cover up.

            Credit where credit is due, despite the truth being exposed, the police in my instance have managed to continue concealing their use of torture, and assistance in my kidnapping. Thats some power to be able to shut down that many people, though with the ability to distribute fraudulent documents where ‘assisted dying’ is involved, the community has every right to be concerned.

            Trust them? Might be best you don’t look at the proof I have, because the last thing anyone would do is trust frauds and slanderers. I mean I get it, police torturing people and then dropping them off to be delierately harmed at a hospital to be able to call the cover up medicine is pretty disgusting. But it’s a tough job, and I don’t see those pinko namby pambies at the UN out dealing with these nut jobs on a daily basis. Not like theres a lot of people being harmed by it? We have the data to prove it, and if we don’t give us a week to make some up.

            I’d love a look at the ‘inside’ of how police are running these cover ups for the State. There are some things that are patently obvious to me now about their ‘flagging’ system. Useful information, and like all corrupt conduct will no doubt turn full circle. Imagine the uses you could put these new mental health professionals who have been placed in every station for? The Station politics just got a whole lot more interesting.

            Report comment

  7. Great to see this protest happening. Kudos to all who participated. Shattuck is a disgusting place and should have been closed years ago. Like nursing homes psychiatric units have been hit hard with COVID-19. We had many from a local psychiatric unit on my medical/surgical unit until the unit reopened as a COVID-19 positive unit with safety precautions. The issue here is that Massachusetts state is responsible for providing a safe environment for these patients and should have moved them right away to a safer location.

    There has been a lot of issues with finding placements during this pandemic though. Shelters are now full due to needing to have fewer residents. Cities and town officials need to step up and provide more safe places for people to go.

    Report comment

  8. DEFUND “MENTAL HEALTH”!!!

    Might as well introduce the concept here. If people are seriously discussing “defunding”/eliminating the police we need to be consistent and, since the psychiatric system is an institution of law enforcement/social control, demand that psychiatry be defunded as part of this.

    Instead I’m hearing “community activists” demanding to defund the (official) police while screaming for “more money for ‘mental health'” in the same breath. We need to educate the wannabe left to the fact that they are one and the same.

    Report comment

LEAVE A REPLY