Mentally ill woman freezes to death hours after being released from NW Illinois jail.

[ColesCountyDem]

MORRISON (AP) — A woman was found dead of apparent hypothermia about 30 hours after being released from a northwestern Illinois jail while a snowstorm was moving through the area, authorities said.

The woman's body was found around 3 p.m. Tuesday in a wooded area a few blocks north of the Whiteside County Jail, Sheriff Kelly Wilhelmi told The Daily Gazette in Sterling (http://bit.ly/1rsaKbD ).

The sheriff did not release the woman's name, but Jamie Richards of Lyndon told the newspaper that the woman was his mother, 65-year-old Janet Sims of Rock Falls, who suffered from bipolar and schizoaffective disorders and had been in and out of hospitals and the jail for the past 18 months.

She was released Monday morning after serving 5 days of a 10-day sentence for contempt of court in a trespassing case....

More: http://thesouthern.com/ap/state/woman-s-body-found-near-whiteside-county-jail/article_0fb2a643-1eae-53c2-af8c-510ea41133ab.html

There's more than one way to die at the hands of the police.

[Kalidurga]

1. It's a good thing they are protecting and serving

otherwise something really bad could have happened. Why she might have trespassed again.

[ColesCountyDem]

2. Our sheriff called this article to my attention.

Our county sheriff is a long-time friend, and he called my attention to this article via Facebook a bit ago. He is absolutely appalled! In cold weather, his jailers are under standing orders to ask inmates bonding out whether they have some place warm to go and where that is, unless they have a friend or family member physically present to post their bond. If they don't, the shift commander calls a friend, family member or the ministerial alliance to find them a warm place to stay.

Of course, our sheriff isn't a callous *sshole.

[MrScorpio]

3. Bravo to your sheriff. nt

[Kalidurga]

4. Mentally ill people are treated very badly in this country

it's sickening. Too many are homeless. It's almost as if society says if you can't take care of yourself because of a mental condition you deserve to live on the streets. Now the police claim they didn't know of her mental state. I call BS I have been around many many mentally ill people, you can tell and it doesn't take any kind of degree.

[Enthusiast]

6. Saint Reagan set the standard.

[Scuba]

21. +1

[ColesCountyDem]

10. I agree with your calling BS.

In order to qualify for state funding for the county sheriff's department and for jail operations, deputies and correctional officers must both take state-approved training courses, both of which have basic mental health problem recognition and 'first aid' components.

I think that sheriff is full of sh*t.

[True Blue Door]

44. "To (Protect and) Serve Man."

[UglyGreed]

5. Yes the pills

works wonders and no need for supervision or a warm place for the those who suffer from mental illness. You fix broken systems, not destroy them and just allow others to fend for themselves.

[ColesCountyDem]

7. I also call BS on the sheriff saying they couldn't contact a mental-health provider.

Our jail routinely does so.

[IADEMO2004]

8. "The department does not provide rides for liability reasons."

"Wilhelmi said it is unclear if the woman called anyone for a ride, and the department does not provide rides for liability reasons."

Should review that soon I hope.

[ColesCountyDem]

9. I also found that puzzling.

LEO's here routinely give people rides, particularly if the weather is bad, if they're elderly, have a small child, etc. . They need to change liability insurance providers, because he problem is not as a result of any applicable Illinois law.

[JonLP24]

12. Our county jail system releases people and doesn't ask questions

Often times in the wee hours of the morning & it may seem ironic but the neighborhoods around those jails are not safe neighborhoods and think about this from the perspective of a woman who may not have any resources to find their way home who can live as far out in the many cities in Maricopa county.

I was lucky someone put $10 on my canteen so I could buy a bus ride home when I got out. (If you use medical they take the money and pretty much everyone gets sick initially when they enter the jail population).

[ColesCountyDem]

15. Scary!

While inadequate funding is an enormous part of the problem, callousness also plays a major role, as this lady's case demonstrates.

[JonLP24]

20. In our case it is certainly callousness

Especially since Sheriff Joe brags about how much money he is saving by serving a Peanut butter sandwich & orange for breakfast & green slop with some veggies for dinner.

[Downwinder]

22. Around here they take all your money when they book you

and give you a check when you are released.

[Downwinder]

19. They don't worry about liability when they haul someone in!

[Logical]

24. Pay for a fucking cab you idiots! The lawsuit you will soon be paying would buy a lot of cab rides!

[JonLP24]

11. Central Arizona Shelter Services in Phoenix

I heard claims that it is the largest homeless shelter/service in the US, if you include the campus & the number of people served daily I believe it to be true. It has its own post office among other things but it is the best there is that I'm aware of to connecting & servicing homeless veterans, other than homeless it appears to be lacking but they do a lot including serving well over a thousand daily meals.

If you go by the overflow shelters (a real shitty place to spend the night) after dinner is served and at 6 am, you'll see obviously mentally ill people sitting on the curbs and I can't help but think the system failed them.

[ColesCountyDem]

14. Illinois used to have one of the best government-run menatl health systems in the world-- used to!

While Ronald Reagan threw the dismantling of mental-health services into 'war drive', it began in Illinois under Gov. James 'Big Jim' Thompson (R). Gov. Thompson saw 'all that money' in the state budget being used to help people who essentially had no political 'clout', and decided that it could ( and should ) be used elsewhere in the state budget.

Prior to his election, Illinois had a first-rate, comprehensive and enlightened statewide mental-health system, one that was admired, studied and emulated by other states and Western nations. It provided both inpatient, outpatient, 'halfway house' and follow-up services to any and all who needed them. It was not until Gov. Thompson's tenure that substantial numbers of mentally-ill people began to be un- or under-treated.

[Vinca]

13. Many, many years ago when I was a cop (yes, it's true - 1st woman on the force),

we picked up a naked guy in a snow storm who thought he was a polar bear. He was taken to the hospital, not jail. Sadly, after the Reagan years and the elimination of mental health services, there is no place for the mentally ill but the street and, as demonstrated in this poor lady's case, they are not able to live through it.

[ColesCountyDem]

17. Same here.

Years ago, when dinosaurs roamed earth's cooling crust and I was a young sheriff's deputy, taking a mentally ill individual to jail as the exception, rather than the rule.

[Vinca]

25. LOL - you remember the dinosaurs, too!

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

26. We cant overstate the harm Ronald Reagan did to this country, he caused so much damage that

it is likely we will never recover.

When you drop the tax rate from 70% to 25% on the wealthy, of course you cant take care of the neediest among us.

Not only should we attempt to reverse the horrific harm caused by Reagan but we need to stop naming schools and bridges after him.

Disgusting...

[Vinca]

39. Absolutely - I couldn't agree more.

At the time of the mental health madness (pun intended) I was working as a psychiatric aide at a private facility in Vermont. Suddenly patients who had only known the institution as home for most of their lives were uprooted and either sent to state hospitals or discharged outright with no way to fend for themselves. It was heartbreaking. Now most of the state beds are also gone and the mentally ill are even more on their own. I'll never understand the adoration of Saint Reagan.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

40. Those who know this truth and sill love Reagan simply hate the mentally ill

[GeorgeGist]

41. Even though Reagan himself was mentally ill.

[True Blue Door]

43. And all his disciples.

[Derek V]

16. God Damn Us, Every One!

[Odin2005]

18. Shameful, what is wrong with us as a society?

[mountain grammy]

23. another example of a nation in decline..

criminalize the mentally ill and homeless.

[chervilant]

27. Plus a gazillion, Mountain Grammy!

The fear and hate surging among our stressed, financially burdened, overpopulated global citizenry promises much chaos and death in the coming decade.

[REP]

29. Homeless, bipolar, schizoaffective people are very hard to keep in contact with

She and her son lived in different towns. The jail did not call him when she was released, as they had done on previous occasions. It is the job of police and social services to see that citizens do not come to harm and receive help.

[AngryOldDem]

32. Thanks for the broad brush generalization of those who work in the social service professions.

Yeah -- that's why they're in this line of work. FOR THE PAY.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

35. Some one realy said that people in the social service profession is in it for the pay??

They did not know that they just make enough to get by, just like the rest of us try to do?

[AngryOldDem]

37. "They're in it for the pay" or "they get PAID"

Or some such bullshit. I was seeing red when I responded, so sorry I don't remember the exact verbiage.

Person is gone now. And for good reason.

[AngryOldDem]

31. You assume a lot here.

First off, let me say that I think just about everyone who posts here realizes that social services to the mentally ill have been practically nonexistent since Ronald Reagan decided, in his ever-so-fucked-up wisdom, that mainstreaming and closing institutions was the answer to the mental health crisis. It is a topic that is often discussed here.

Second, for many years I worked at a homeless shelter where a vast majority of our clientele had some sort of mental illness. Mostly, schizophrenia. And they had NO ONE in their lives who was willing to take care of them. No close family. No living relatives. No friends who were willing to come down and get them out of an even worse situation than from where they came.

Then, there were others, who CHOSE to have no contact with friends and relatives. It was their decision, and we had to respect that. People in these situations tend to drop off the face of the earth for weeks, months, and sometimes years at a time. I don't know if that was this particular woman's situation, but having seen it enough, I am not at all surprised that her son did not know what was happening.

My point is this: Sometimes PEOPLE HAVE NOBODY. Either by their own choice or someone else's, THEY ARE ALONE.

And finally, I really, really, really take offense at your seeming inference that such people are "dumped" on police and other organizations, much like human garbage. We did the best we could to provide compassionate care and help to those who came through our doors, most often by way of police cars. Everyone, regardless of their circumstance, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. If the cops didn't do it, we sure are fuck did, and I like to think that we made a difference in at least one person's life.

[ColesCountyDem]

34. I don't think it was unfair at all.

As for what I "fucking GET", had you bothered to read some of my other posts in this thread, you wouldn't have asked that silly question.

The bottom line is this: she was in THEIR custody, and they very likely KNEW that she was severely mentally ill when they decided to kick her loose into the polar temperatures we here in Illinois experienced, so that makes it THEIR fault.

P.S.-- Thank you, MIRT! You saved me the trouble of messaging you.

[AngryOldDem]

36. I'll second that -- THANKS, MIRT!

I'm with you, Coles -- my blood pressure was through the roof over this poster. There's a reason why I rarely engage with idiocy but this person really pressed ALL my buttons hard. I am very sensitive to stories like this one.

Cops in my city usually dropped off mentally ill and homeless people at our shelter door. They were good in that some did keep their eyes peeled for such people on the streets, and brought them to us when they came across them.

[ColesCountyDem]

38. Our local police and sheriff's office are also very good at dealing with the mentally ill.

We're peas in a pod, AOD, because that troll managed to push all of my buttons, too!

I'm a 'scanner hound', a habit that goes back to my law-enforcement days, and our police and deputies go out of their way to NOT arrest folks who are obviously ill. They may well put a '72-hour hold' on someone, but they normally call an ambulance, take the person to the E.R. and get a proper psychiatric referral for them.

[Wella]

42. Back in the 60s and 70s, there was a movement against institutions for the mentally ill

I wonder if those activists had known that jails would become the new "mental health facilities" would they have fought so hard to get rid of the original institutions caring for the mentally ill.

[rug]

45. Scumbags.