I wasn't really sanguine about posting an image with this blog entry but I promised a fractal with each entry (as a bribe to get people to keep reading my deathless prose) so here is Bloodrose: hope you enjoy the image. I doubt you'll enjoy this blog entry.
Maybe I should stop reading the morning newspaper ‘cause I always seem to find something that gets my blood boiling: here’s today’s exercise
in the outrageous and absurd . . .
Way back in April 2006 two caregivers working at the Jossen Vocational Academy in Anaheim. beat two of their charges--both of them severely mentally disabled. The crimes might have gone unnoticed but for the fact that the two criminals (in a rare stroke of genius) decided to videotape the beating. (The abuse was reported by another co-worker but not fully investigated for several months but that’s another story entirely.) Still, both men were finally charged with assault and yesterday (February 16) local prosecutors filed additional charges of hate crimes and civil rights violations--making the (alleged) criminals subject to much longer prison sentences. (And hooray for that, says I!)
James Tedford, Attorney for accused perpetrator Michael Douglas Rama characterized the charges as “ridiculous”, since (get this folks!) his client “merely filmed the attacks! Let me repeat that again in bold and italics in case you didn’t get it on first reading: he merely filmed the attacks.
Who is the biggest creep here? (Honestly, I’m not sure.) The guy who tapes an attack on a truly defenseless individual and does nothing but laugh or the Attorney who characterizes is as no big deal. Maybe it’s just me but I think both of ‘em are pretty darned low individuals.
Patrick John Dizon Solis showed up in court clutching a rosary: hmm--I guess he was pleading to a higher power for mercy. Which brings up the obvious question--where was his mercy (not to mention sense of common decency) while he was having fun beating his victim?
Attorney Richard Leonard said Solis “regrets his actions.” (Well, duh!) Further quoting this worthy: “the video speaks for itself. He did a dumb thing and he’s sorry.” Guess what! I totally believe this. Solis really is sorry. Sorry he got caught, sorry he was dumb enough to videotape the incident and sorry he felt the need to share the evidence with his friends and co-workers.
If he were truly sorry Solis would have pled guilty and owned up to what he did. He’ll get less then nine years total if convicted on all charges. Of course there’s time credited for “good behavior” (or anything else the prison system can think of) and he might always plea bargain down to a couple of years. (I’d suggest the families of the victims file civil suits but these guys don’t have anything to take and I doubt they ever will.
So here’s a modest suggestion for some proper justice: lets take these two “gentlemen” (sarcasm on) into a secluded public bathroom, bind them hand and foot and maybe cuff them to a urinal so they can’t get away. Then let in a couple of Hells Angels armed with Brass Knuckles, chains and truncheons who could then beat them until they understood you don’t do that. They could even have the beating filmed so the defendants could watch the show any time they wanted. Now that’s justice!
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East of Jossen Vocational Academy is Baker House. Several weeks ago Kimiko Deltrice Hebert, a former employee of Baker House was found guilty of murder in the beating death of 10-year old Marissa, a person with developmental disabilities.
According to public records, Hebert had at least two prior incidents of client injury before her employer transferred her to Baker house. Hebert told the department's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that she knew she was being transferred to Baker House to keep her from harming a client in a home where she had been working.
If the The Press Enterprise, and public records are correct then Danielson, of Baker House, is potentially guilty of at least two incidents of failure to report abuse, a misdemeanor that if done deliberately can carry a fine of up to 5,000 and up to a year in prison.
He is also potentially guilty of negligence if he knowingly placed a dangerous staff person in a situation where injury was likely. Yet – I doubt that Danielson has been charged, and I doubt that the protocol for referrals to “special care group homes” has changed. It is easy to catch the perpetrator. Especially when, as in this case, they plead guilty. But – what of those that perpetrate and encourage a culture of “look the other way?”
California’s system for serving people with disabilities is unique in that it moves resources upward from hoi polloi to the affluent and educated.
People with disabilities have no clearly defined entitlements under California's Lanterman Act. Entitlements to services are determined by meetings that can best be described as a cooperative, and sometimes not so cooperative, ``settlement conference''. The end result is not a system prioritized on actual need, but rather prioritized on socioeconomics and a person's ability to advocate, negotiate, threaten, and push back. It is no coincidence that most failures happen to people with no family listed on a death certificate, or wards of the state that receive a county burial.
There are many success stories and the high-muck-a-mucks are quick to share. They are also quick to bury the stories of Marrissa, or a cell phone beatings. The system has worked very well for the upper demographics albeit at the expense of people with disabilities who do not speak english, cannot push back with knowledge of their rights, or those that cannot afford an attorney. The system has now grown large enough that a person, through the donations of the high-muck-a-mucks, can make a living as an “advocate”. It is not long before this person’s “advocacy” becomes a process of appeasing his or her benefactors rather than actually advocating for people with disabilities. Even a disfunctional system benefits some, and those some will fight to defend it.
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