He should never have been jailed for $5.05. He needed to be placed with someone as his guardian and begun outpatient treatment. My first thought is he could have received fluphenazine hydrochloride at an emergency before being released to his guardian. The purpose would be to stabilize him and begin his outpatient supervision.
The entire handling of Jamycheal Mitchell is nothing short of racism.
September 30, 2015
Jamycheal Mitchell (click here) had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication before he walked into a 7-Eleven near his family's Portsmouth, Virginia, home in April and allegedly stole a Mountain Dew, Snickers bar and Zebra Cake totaling US$5.05.
After the 24-year-old's arrest, a judge ordered him to a state psychiatric hospital to get help. But like an increasing number of the mentally ill in the US, he sat in jail for months as he waited for a bed to open.
Other inmates said Mitchell paced naked in a cell often covered in his own filth. Family members said they were told he sometimes refused to eat or take medication, and jail records show he manically yelled. He grew gaunt and by August 19 he was dead, having shed at least 16kg.
A state medical examiner has yet to issue a cause of death and police are investigating Mitchell's case, but his family and civil rights and mental health advocates are outraged that he was allowed to waste away over a US$5 offence....
The entire handling of Jamycheal Mitchell is nothing short of racism.
Jamycheal Mitchell (click here) had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication before he walked into a 7-Eleven near his family's Portsmouth, Virginia, home in April and allegedly stole a Mountain Dew, Snickers bar and Zebra Cake totaling US$5.05.
After the 24-year-old's arrest, a judge ordered him to a state psychiatric hospital to get help. But like an increasing number of the mentally ill in the US, he sat in jail for months as he waited for a bed to open.
Other inmates said Mitchell paced naked in a cell often covered in his own filth. Family members said they were told he sometimes refused to eat or take medication, and jail records show he manically yelled. He grew gaunt and by August 19 he was dead, having shed at least 16kg.
A state medical examiner has yet to issue a cause of death and police are investigating Mitchell's case, but his family and civil rights and mental health advocates are outraged that he was allowed to waste away over a US$5 offence....
