"$3m settlement reached in Bridgewater hospital death" by Michael Rezendes | Globe Staff March 26, 2014
The parents of a 23-year-old mental health patient who died at Bridgewater State Hospital five years ago will receive $3 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit alleging that prison guards were responsible for their son’s death, according to Benjamin R. Novotny, an attorney for the parents.
You know who is going to have to pay for state murder and malfeasance right, Massachusetts taxpayers?
The settlement, disclosed Tuesday, follows a February Boston Globe report detailing the death of Joshua K. Messier as he lay strapped to a bed while seven prison guards stood by. A subsequent investigation by Governor Deval Patrick’s administration led him to place three of the guards on paid administrative leave and formally reprimand two top correction officials while asking for the resignation of a third.
Related: Cleaning Up the Messier
The $ettlement is $weeping it under the rug!
“While nothing can bring back Joshua Messier to his family, we believe this will be a fair resolution to a sad case,” said Attorney General Martha Coakley, who represented the Department of Correction and eight of the nine guards who were defendants in the case.
State officials are so sickening!
She just lost a vote she never had for governor.
The $3 million will be paid by the state and the insurer for MHM Correctional Services, the Virginia-based company that provides medical and mental health care to inmates and patients at Bridgewater.
WTF is a VIRGINIA-BASED COMPANY doing providing PRISON SERVICES in MASSACHUSETTS?
The state’s share was not disclosed, but Novotny said it “will greatly exceed” a $100,000 cap that usually applies to judgments against the state due to the actions of state workers.
Maybe the STATE WORKER SHITS should be MADE TO PAY!
Why must TAXPAYERS PAY for something THEY and I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH?
Maybe the STATE SHITS would be a LITTLE MORE RE$PON$IBLE, 'eh?
Kevin Messier, Joshua’s father, said he was pleased.
“It is heartening to see the attorney general’s office exhibit leadership coupled with compassion in recognizing this wrong and bringing some measure of accountability for these troubling actions,” he said in a prepared statement.
Lisa Brown, Joshua Messier’s mother, said she would comment at a later date.
Messier, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was killed after an altercation with a correction officer as guards secured him spread-eagled in four-point restraints on a small bed. In a scene captured on prison video, two of the guards pressed down hard on Messier’s back while he was seated on the bed with his hands cuffed behind him, folding his chest toward his knees, a maneuver sometimes called “suitcasing.” The action is forbidden by regulations because of the risk of suffocation.
Bridgewater State Hospital is a medium-security prison that provides mental health services to convicted criminals and mental health patients who have been charged with crimes.
Aren't you forgetting something, Globe?
Related:
"If beds are full, addicts are instead sent to correctional facilities, even though they have not been charged with a crime."
Are Globe reporters on drugs because the omissions smack of pot-smoking!
Novotny, an attorney with the firm Lubin & Meyer, said Coakley was the driving force behind the settlement. After Patrick disciplined the guards and department supervisors earlier this month, eight of the nine guards retained their own attorneys. The increasing legal complexity of the case, Novotny said, threatened to delay resolution of the parents’ lawsuit, which was filed two years ago.
What is complex about murder?
Only when the STATE is involved, right?
“The attorney general stepped in and said, ‘Rather than delay justice for the family, let’s take a run at getting it settled now,’ ” Novotny said Tuesday. “It would have been two years or more before we could get a trial with new counsel coming in.”
She wanted it out of the way because it is really bad publicity for this stinking state!
******************
The settlement is not expected to affect Patrick’s continuing investigation or the possibility that Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz will consider reopening a criminal investigation into Messier’s death.
It must be nice to be a state worker and be absolved of crimes committed with impunity.
Coakley has suggested that Cruz could reexamine the case in a statement to the Globe last week....
Could?
In a two-page statement to the Globe last year, Cruz’s office said, “In [State medical examiner Mindy J. Hull]'s opinion, it was the conduct of Joshua Messier in fighting and maintaining the struggle against the guards that caused his extremely agitated state, and ultimately his death.”
Yeah, it was his own fault he's dead even if he was under state care.
Yeah, BLAME the VICTIM!
What a GREAT STATE we have UP HERE!
“The death of Joshua Messier was a horrible tragedy. No settlement can fill that void,” Patrick said in a statement released Tuesday evening. “Meanwhile, there are lessons here to be learned about how better to treat people with mental illness in DOC care.”
He's disgusting!
Lessons to be learned?
The murder of a kid a learning opportunity?
Thank God he is leaving soon!
--more--"
Also see:
Bridgewater Beat Down Kills Mental Patient
The Massachusetts Model: Mental Health Care
That ought to shine a light on his legacy.
So will this:
"Mass. granted permanent custody of Justina Pelletier; Pelletier’s parents rebuked over handling of case, abusive manner with officials" by Patricia Wen | Globe Staff March 25, 2014
A long-running child custody case took a dramatic turn Tuesday, when a Massachusetts juvenile court judge awarded permanent custody of teenager Justina Pelletier to the state Department of Children and Families.
I'm shocked, and it just proves the courts are no place to look for justice.
The ruling by Judge Joseph Johnston means the 15-year-old will probably stay in state custody until her 18th birthday unless her parents can prove they are fit to care for their child.
The judge’s four-page decision, which was provided to the Globe, was remarkable for its detail and forcefulness. Johnston faulted Connecticut’s child protection agency for its failure to get involved in a case involving a child from its state, and faulted Pelletier’s parents for their verbally abusive manner and haphazard decision-making that he says has sabotaged plans to move their daughter closer to home.
Did he mention the deplorable state of our own?
He couldn't understand their reasonable outrage and frustration, huh?
What an asshole judge!
Johnston wrote that the parents called Boston Children’s Hospital personnel Nazis “and claimed the hospital was punishing and killing Justina. Efforts by hospital clinicians to work with the parents were futile and never went anywhere.”
Calling them Nazis is actually being too kind.
More recently, he wrote, “there has not been any progress by the parents. Rather, the parents . . . continue to engage in very concerning conduct that does not give this court any confidence they will comply with conditions of custody.” He noted that because of allegations that Justina’s father, Lou Pelletier, threatened a state social worker assigned to the case, the worker had to be reassigned.
Only allegations? Nothing proven in a court? Judge basing a decision on that?
In his ruling, Johnston, for the first time publicly, stated his belief that Pelletier suffers from “a persistent and severe Somatic Symptom Disorder,” a psychiatric diagnosis that doctors at Children’s reached in early 2013 when the girl was brought there because she had difficulty walking and eating.
Is the f***ing judge a doctor?
He "believes?!!??"
That is what he is basing a judgement on?
BELIEF?!!?
The parents objected to that diagnosis, leading to accusations of medical child abuse and setting off a monthslong battle over her care.
The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian Defense Coalition, who has become the parents’ spokesman, said Tuesday that Lou and Linda Pelletier are “outraged” by the decision.
You know, I don't know them but SO AM I!!!!!! This and the other kid are what inspired me to put up this post.
“There is no reason Justina should not be returned immediately back to the parents,” he said. Mahoney said the parents, who live in West Hartford, Conn., believe that their daughter is being “treated as a pawn and piece of property.”
The parents’ lawyer, Philip Moran, wrote in an e-mail to the Globe that the parents are too emotional to describe what their next steps will be, but may have more to say Wednesday.
I will be providing an update tomorrow since I'm sure the Globe will report on their statement.
“The decision is obviously devastating to the parents and according to them to Justina herself,” Moran wrote.
While the Department of Children and Families has had temporary custody of Justina since February 2013, the judge’s decision to award permanent custody gives the agency more confidence to make placement decisions with less fear of a quick change in custody.
Oh, I'm glad the DCF has less anxiety!
Even the reporting is self-internalized government shit!
Though offering no timetable, agency spokeswoman Mary-Leah Assad issued a statement saying its goal continues to be “finding a solution that would allow her to return to Connecticut.” Pelletier is living at a residential facility in Framingham, Wayside Youth and Family Support Network.
“The department is exploring all options that will allow Justina to return to her home state where she has the support of her friends, family, school and community,” Assad wrote.
Yeah, right, that is why things have gone so smoothly.
The judge’s ruling reinforces his earlier decision that the state child protection agency met its burden, during closed-door juvenile court hearings late last year, of proving the Pelletiers were unfit to handle their child’s complex needs and should not be restored custody of their child.
The legal burden now largely shifts to the parents to prove, with new evidence, that they are fit caregivers and deserve a new chance to regain custody.
Yes, it is GUILTY until PROVEN INNOCENT in AmeriKa now!
****************
Lou Pelletier has taken part in numerous national media interviews to condemn the Department of Children and Families and the judge and call for the return of his daughter.
Oh, that is why the judge was so pissed and let his personal feelings get in the way of this decision.
Since the start of the year, several conservative Christian organizations have gotten involved in defending the parents, seeing the case as an example of government interference in the sanctity of parental rights, and have instigated massive phone and letter-writing campaigns to the judge and other state officials.
Yeah, that couldn't have helped the parents up here.
And just look at the subtle bias and slander coming forth there. Those bad conservatives "instigated" phone and letter campaigns.
Of course, if asshole Obummer or dipshit Deval were to do such things that's just good grass roots politics while the FBI calls them "informants."
Johnston wrote that the parents had repeatedly “impeded progress” in resolving the case.
How?
“Instead of engaging in quality visits with Justina, the parents use profanity directed at MA DCF personnel in Justina’s presence,” he said. “There is absolutely no meaningful dialogue by the parents to work towards reunification.”
With all due respect (not, doesn't deserve it), what does that have to do with anything?
****************
Tuesday’s decision came in response to a motion, presented by the girl’s court-appointed lawyer and the lawyers for her parents, which called for the parents to be awarded “conditional custody” of their daughter.
I suppose they should have known better.
The Department of Children and Families took emergency custody of the teen on Valentine’s Day 2013 after a diagnostic dispute arose between some doctors at Tufts Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital over the causes of her medical problems, including difficulty eating and walking.
Tufts doctors had been treating Pelletier for mitochondrial disease, a group of rare genetic disorders affecting cellular energy production, but physicians at Children’s concluded that her symptoms were largely psychiatric in origin. Her parents rejected the new diagnosis, and when they tried to move the girl back to Tufts, the Children’s team notified the state that it suspected the parents of medical child abuse.
Meanwhile, the DCF can't find kids.
Pelletier remained at Children’s for almost a year, most of the time in a locked psychiatric ward.
(Blog editor can only imagine the young girl's despondency during that time. At least she wasn't killed like the Messier kid. Parents should consider themselves lucky)
Johnston wrote that the girl was ready to leave the hospital in June 2013 but could not be discharged because Massachusetts child-protection officials’ efforts to find a suitable placement “were significantly hampered by the parents.”
It was not until late January that she was moved to the Framingham facility.
Mahoney, the parents’ spokesman, said they are troubled that their daughter has yet to be seen by physicians at Tufts. Department of Children and Families officials said Pelletier’s visits at Tufts will take place soon, now that the parents “reached an agreement” with Tufts over a number of issues.
Oh, no, no, no! Don't EVER GO to TUFTS for medical treatment!
They are OBVIOUSLY INCOMPETENT and not part of Boston's prestigious medical institutions.
Whatever you do, NEVER EVER TAKE yourself, friends, or relatives to Tufts. They are nothing but a HACK OUTFIT according to my state and regional flagshit media.
They MISDIAGNOSE THINGS!
--more--"
You know, based on the picture there they look like loving parents! I mean, the girl is holding their hands!
Related: Judge delays Justina Pelletier ruling until Tuesday
“We want [the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families] to be out of our lives,”
said Lou Pelletier, speaking publicly for the first time since a gag
order was lifted in the case. “I don’t care whether it’s Connecticut,
Massachusetts. . . . Make them go away. They’ve done nothing but harm.”
Officials at DCF have stressed that a state judge, not the agency, made
the custody decision after court hearings. “Our goal has always been to
work with Justina and her parents,” Alec Loftus, a DCF spokesman, said Thursday."
They won't be anytime soon, and I'm sure that will just make him more pissed.
This f***ing state! Handing kids back to parents when they should not and keeping parents from the child when they should be with them.
I'm going to save the bloody cover-up of another state murder for a later post (strange how that report makes no mention of Todashev's knee surgery and crutches that limited his mobility, but....), and hope you will clean up after yourself after the public relations promotion passing itself off as front-page news!
And you wonder why I'm full up on the Globe?
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Pelletiers must have remained silent because I saw nothing in print.
