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| MARK BOWLES |
Truth Talk News
On Thursday night, June 26, 2014, wrongly convicted and persecuted and in the depths of despair, Veteran Mark Bowles slit his throat.
Thank God, he is still with us. But his story of judicial targeting and torment continues on.
In an in depth interview covering the details of Mark's attempted suicide, his mother, Diana Sprouse reveals that although Mark Bowles attemped suicide and needs admittance to a mental health facility, but none will take him due to his recent conviction by Judge Frank KundRAT's kangaroo court.
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| JUDGE FRANK KUNDRAT |
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| DIANA SPROUSE |
Diana Sprouse is now seeking an appellate attorney to help in the fight to clear Mark's name.
She can be reached at 763-241-8930 and 763-267-4099, or @ Annabeth Godschild on facebook.
Consider this: A mentally ill New York City inmate hanged himself from a shower pipe on his third try in three days. Orders to put him on 24-hour watch were apparently ignored, along with a screening form that said he was contemplating suicide.
Another inmate hanged himself with a bedsheet in a solitary-confinement cell after telling guards he was suicidal.
The last time he said so, one of them replied, "If you have the balls, go ahead and do it."
He did.
An inmate hanged himself from a metal bed that he stood on end despite a year-old jailhouse directive to weld all beds to the floor.
The directive was issued after another mentally ill man committed suicide in the same manner.
Is there a procedure these prison officials are supposed to follow? Of course. Anything less, is dereliction of duty. Or worse.
There are many blatant examples of bureaucractic as well as physical and psychological nightmares in the prison system. Although he was on suicide watch, Gregory Giannotta, 41 used a jail jumpsuit to hang himself from a bathroom pipe last year. The pipe Giannotta used to hangh himself was not supposed to be exposed.
To top it off, the psychiatrist's order wasn't entered into the computer system until hours after his death.
Giannotta needed his medication and follow-up care. He got absolutely nothing in jail. according to the city and state documents breakdowns occured between mental health staff and guards, sloppy paperwork, inadequate mental health treatment and improper distribution of medication were frequently noted by investigators as contributing factors in the deaths.
Nine of the suicides took place at Rikers Island, the city's huge jail complex in Astoria, Queens.
Suicide is the leading cause of death in jails nationally after heart disease and cancer. Although, New York City's rate of 17 suicides per 100,000 inmates is below the average for the national average of 41 per 100,000.
The documents suggest that most of the 11 suicides since 2009 could have easily been prevented, raising questions about the city's ability to deal with an ever increasing population of mentally ill inmates.
The mentally ill account for about 40 percent of the New York City prison population, up from 24 percent in 2007. One third of these inmates suffer from serious mental illnesses.
This continuing increase in mentally ill prisoners is mostly due to the many closing of mental institutions over the past few decades in favor of what has become over burdened, under funded community-based treatment. The mentally ill are invisible in Our society. But the results of thier plight is obvious to us all.
Two other mentally ill inmates, one who essentially baked to death in a 101-degree cell in February and another who sexually mutilated himself last fall have prompted oversight hearings and promises of reform.
The city Correction Department said in a statement that it "views every suicide in its custody as a tragedy that should have been prevented, and we are taking many steps to prevent these incidents going forward."
The city Health Department noted that suicide watches are conducted about 3,800 times a year in New York's jails, which hold defendants awaiting trial as well as those serving short sentences or awaiting transfer to prisons for longer terms.
According to the documents, the safeguards broke down spectacularly in the case of Horsone Moore, 36, who had struggled with depression since his 20s, according to his family.
Moore had served time on assault and weapons charges and was taken to Rikers last October for missing appointments with his parole officer.
He committed suicide in a shower on Oct. 14 after trying three times in quick succession. He was pepper-sprayed by guards after his first attempt, never saw a psychiatrist, never received medication and wasn't watched constantly despite two such orders and a screening form that warned he was a suicide risk.
Video footage of the last 15 hours of his life, detailed in an email by a city official, shows an agitated, handcuffed Moore fashion his shirt into a noose. He is stopped by guards while attempting to string himself up, but the cuffs are removed and he is left alone, where he then tore his underwear into strips and used them to hang himself.
After the May 2012 suicide of sexual misconduct suspect Jamal Polo, investigators found the 23-year-old wasn't properly evaluated. Polo hanged himself from a metal bedframe he stood upright in his cell, prompting the order to secure all beds to the floor. In September 2013, 26-year-old Gilbert Pagan killed himself the same way.
Quanell Offley, 31, who had been sentenced for robbery, hanged himself with a bedsheet last fall. Investigators found that he had repeatedly threatened suicide. Instead of taking the threats seriously, and Offley's was goaded on by guards, including one who dared him to do it.
These are but a few of the many hundreds -- thousands -- the 1.2 million cases of mentally ill inmates being treated in prisons when they should be in mental health facilities.
Instead of propping up the 20 plus year "COPS" propaganda campaign and now MSNBC's obsession with prison system themed programming.
Law enforcement, the judicial and private prisons and hospitals should be exposed in all it's ugliness instead of being slicked up with Hollywood Madison Avenue shine.
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