The troubling case of Edward Henderson, the 40-year-old Cleveland Heights man with a history of mental illness whose encounter with four Cleveland police officers on New Year’s Day 2011 left him with a broken nose, a shattered eye socket, and a detached retina, inched forward in a Cuyahoga County courtroom last week. His lawyers had him plead guilty to felonious assault against a peace officer and failure to comply. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 11, but this saga is far from over.
Still to be adjudicated are the civil rights violations being brought against the four officers by the U.S. Department of Justice. And people who have seen the police helicopter video of the incident say the evidence is overwhelmingly damning. Of course Henderson’s guilty plea will be used by defense attorneys for the officers, but evading police and struggling with them can in no way justify how he was treated as he lay handcuffed on the ground.
As I’ve written before, at heart this case is about the monumental failure of our national mental health care delivery system… a system that is porous beyond belief. I know doctors who have difficulty navigating this system, even when one of their own family is involved with it.
Henderson’s lawyers made no attempt to get him out on bail; he’s been sitting in the County Jail since the incident in January. Their logic is simple: It’s the safest place for him.
With no mechanism, no rules in place, whereby to insure Henderson takes the prescribed medication for his bipolar disorder, he could, upon release, repeat the negative behavior that got the attention of police officers on New Year’s Day. Only thing is, the next time he might not live to get to court.
There are two warring camps in America in terms of mental health: One which argues we have about 40,000 untreated mentally ill individuals roaming our streets on any given day who pose a clear and present danger to themselves and others, and that we as a society have a right and duty to force treatment on them in the name of public safety; but there is another camp who believes just as fervently that mental illness isn’t against the law, and that a person has a right to eschew treatment (which this side believes consists of little more than strong and expensive medications being foisted on an unsuspecting and gullible public by psychiatrists in league with Big Pharma) until and unless they have broken the law. However, in many cases, by then it’s too late.
Families who have lived with a violent schizophrenic often tell harrowing tales, and Henderson’s case is no different. He had multiple run-ins with Cleveland Heights police officers, and in none of the cases was he in any way abused. Everyone around a mentally ill person who has violent tendencies (the vast majority of suffers are of no danger to themselves or anyone else) is always walking on eggshells. This will be the case with Henderson upon his release.
But the real tragedy is that our stubbornness (or parsimony) prevents us from addressing the problem of the dangerously mentally ill in America, and in this case the result is four police officers’ careers are now on the line.
Prosecutor’s Race Heats Up
With former City of Cleveland law director Bob Triozzi throwing his Stetson into the ring for the county prosecutor’s job, things are beginning to heat up. Given the power prosecutors possess in every bailiwick in the U.S. it’s a good bet more than the three candidates that have announced so far (Subodh Chandra and James McDonnell are already in the race) will enter the fray.
But how the power of that office is used should be of real concern to all of the citizens of the county. Too often in the past the office lost its way and forgot its mission: Rather than being a seeker of truth and justice, it adopted a “win at all costs” mentality where facts mean little and the only measure of success was the number of cases won… the tally of persons shipped off to prison down I-71.
For county residents the reform of this office should be as critically important as was the reform of the rest of county government… and in many instances, even more. Liberty, freedom and even lives often hang in the balance.
Tough questions have to be asked during the candidate debates, and I’ll start with this one: Will you, if elected, continue to use the uncorroborated testimony of jailhouse snitches?
Here’s how this dirty little scenario usually plays out: A person suspected of a crime is arrested, but there is no hard evidence in the case. Police and prosecutors have a “hunch” the person is guilty. So an informant is placed in the cell with the suspect, and, lo and behold! overnight the suspect “confesses” to someone they just met… and usually to a very serious crime. The real dirty part is the Grand Juries, skillfully manipulated by prosecutors, routinely swallow this horseshit hook, line and sinker. As this race moves forward I’ll have other questions for the candidates.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.