I am not happy to be writing this diary. These days should be for healthcare. Period.
But in feeling the momentum swell on this ridiculous distraction over our President WISELY calling the actions of the Cambridge police STUPID after they arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, I wanted to point out just how dangerous these situations can be - for the person who is in his own home and when the police don't know when to say when.
In Scranton, a woman was arrested a few years back for cursing at her overflowing toilet. Yea. Arrested. Cuffed, booked and humiliated. She got $19 grand from the city for that one.
But just a few months ago,Brenda Williams, a 52-year-old mother and Air Force Veteran suffering from schizophrenia, was shot to death by police who were called to Williams' home by her mother for a welfare check. She was naked and disorderly - in her own home.
She wasn't arrested. She was shot to death.
A google search of Dawn Herb Scranton turns up 1,290,000 results. Never heard of her? She's the Scranton woman who walked away with $19,000 to settle damages and attorneys’ fees claims after being charged with disorderly conduct for cursing at her overflowing toilet. Herb, a single mother of four children, faced 90 days in jail and a $300 fine. Yea, for cursing at an overflowing toilet in her own home.
In the Commonwealth vs Herb case the Scranton woman was made famous in the ever-popularPoop Report, after her neighbor, an off-duty police officer passed Herb's home and heard her, through an open window, cursing at her overflowing toilet.
According to the Poop Report, the off-duty Scranton patrolman alleged Herb was creating a public disturbance, yelling and cursing and - believe it or not - using the F word. The patrolman said her voice could be heard throughout the neighborhood. He says he told her to shut up and she yelled back, "F--- you."
"Ms. Herb's version differs from that of the police. She said her neighbor told her to ‘Shut the f--- up,' and her response was, ‘Mind your own business.'" the Poop Report says.
As reliable as the Poop Report may be in this particular case, let's turn it over to the ACLU which came to Herb's defense.
On December 13, 2007, Judge Terrence V. Gallagher found Herb not guilty, ruling that although her language "may be considered by some to be offensive, vulgar and imprudent . . . such representations are protected speech pursuant to the First Amendment."
"This case is a successful example of our battle to enforce citizens’ First Amendment rights—that includes speech that may be offensive to some, including government officials, but which is absolutely protected by the First Amendment. It is important that police remember that they cannot arrest citizens for speaking freely, even if the speech contains profanity that offends them," said Barry Dyller, the attorney who represented her against the criminal charges.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and Dyller then threatened a lawsuit for violation of Herb’s First Amendment right to free speech. To avoid suit, the city agreed to the $19,000 settlement.
"If we don’t have the freedom to use a few choice words inside our own homes, then we really don’t have much freedom at all. I hope Scranton police have learned a lesson," said Valerie Burch, ACLU of Pennsylvania staff attorney.
Yea, they learned a lesson alright.
In this editorial, culminating after months of stories about Brenda Williams, a 52-year-old Air Force Veteran who was shot multiple times by Scranton Police last spring, we see a more serious lack of judgement by police. Four uniformed officers entered her home uninvited during a welfare check on Williams, and just a few days ago we learned why they shot her to death - they didn't want to risk another $19,000 settlement.
Brenda Williams might be alive today if a West Scranton woman hadn't been criminally charged for cursing at an overflowing toilet two years ago, according to an internal Scranton Police Department report released Friday.
The report - which presents the findings of training officer Sgt. Pat Gerrity's internal investigation into the killing of Ms. Williams by city police on May 28 - was released by Mayor Chris Doherty over the objection of Public Safety Director Ray Hayes, who initially tried to keep it under wraps.
After reading the three-page report, it's easy to see why Mr. Hayes didn't want it made public. Instead of a thorough, detailed account of what happened the night Ms. Williams died, the report is a bullet-pointed laundry list of excuses, suppositions and at least one glaring omission that will not be overlooked by the Williams family's attorney as he considers a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
After responding to 17 calls to police over the last 11 years, the shooting put an end to Williams' life and those annoying calls. If you look at the diagram provided by the PA State Police, Williams' was surrounded by police in her apartment, and if you know anything about paranoid schizophrenia, that is the last thing you want to do if you want to diffuse a situation. Cornered, the mentally ill person feels compelled by her paranoia to defend herself. As far as Brenda Williams was likely concerned, these officers were intruders in her home; she didn't call them to come there.
Williams was reportedly wielding a kitchen knife when she was shot after four officers responded to her apartment for what Chief (David) Elliott has described as a mental health check .
The call came from Ms. Williams' mother's home, just down the street from where Ms. Williams lived, and police obtained information from people there before going to check on Ms. Williams. Chief Elliott said the officers were told Ms. Williams was "acting disorderly" before they went to her apartment.
The internal report echoed the findings of the PA State Police and the Lackawanna County District Attorney's opinion that the four Scranton police officers who responded to Williams' home were justified in killing the woman who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had been off her medication and out of control for days. Williams was shot multiple times in the living room of her apartment after a prolonged encounter with police in her home, and after being allowed access to the kitchen where she was able to obtain a knife and threatened the officers.
I don't know why the officers surrounded her in her home, increased her paranoia and her state of agitation and allowed her into the kitchen where, well, there were obviously going to be knives.
Oh, that's right, we know why, it's in the internal report compiled by Scranton Sgt. Pat Gerrity. Now we know why information about this shooting has seeped out like molasses in January, and now this final report just capped months of lame justifications and lack of information.
The report claims that the officers did not restrain Ms. Williams in part out of consideration for a past police confrontation with a resident that cost city taxpayers nearly $20,000.
"Officers did not restrain or arrest Williams for yelling, cursing and screaming in her apartment because of the result of the Dawn Herb incident, in which it was decided that restraint or punishment of such behavior is a violation of the defendant's rights," Sgt. Gerrity wrote.
You're going to have to excuse the sarcasm here:
Oh, Sgt. Gerrity, so SHOOTING HER TO DEATH ISN'T A VIOLATION OF HER RIGHTS?
Oh, but wait, there's more. The police WERE going to cite her for disorderly conduct. In fact, they were in the process of citing the naked, mentally ill woman who did not invite the police to her home and whose paranoia was probably off the charts as she stood surrounded by police in her own home. Chris Kelly of the Scranton Times-Tribune writes:
It was unclear Friday whether the Police Department has a "Dawn Herb policy" for handling volatile situations, but it's hard to imagine how an angry but otherwise sane woman swearing at a toilet compares to a mentally ill woman in a dangerously manic state who greets the police at the door stark naked.
Aside from this obvious incongruity, there is also an inherent contradiction in suggesting any similarity between the Herb case and Ms. Williams' situation. The police said they were writing Ms. Williams a citation for disorderly conduct and preparing to leave when the shooting happened. If it was wrong to cite Ms. Herb for yelling and swearing in her home, how can it be right to cite Ms. Williams for doing the same in hers?
Williams didn't call the police that night. They responded on a welfare check. When they found Williams, her condition only got worse because the police entered her home and surrounded her in the living room. But after spending time with her, the police decided she wasn't a danger to herself or others, and therefore did not send her to the hospital involuntarily for a psych evaluation.
The ambulance crew on scene decided that the woman didn't need a hospital and except for one officer, everyone thought Williams was just fine, except for her nakedness and cursing of course. For that she was getting a citation.
So everyone's standing around evaluating a naked Williams who is off her meds, out of control and paranoid. But no one stops her from going into the kitchen. No officer accompanied her, they just stood there doing who knows what. Does the department have a policy for any of these procedures or lack of procedures? We won't know by reading the "internal report," that's for sure.
So when Williams lunged at them with the knife, well, they shot her multiple times. Sgt. Gerrity said if they had tasers, they would have tasered her, but they didn't have tasers. Wow. Some great detective work there. As the Scranton Times columnist put it,
"They did not have bean-bag guns, either."
Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for police officers, but in Scranton, these are two outrageous examples of - at worst - an extreme abuse of power or - at best - extremely poor judgement. I feel like that's what happened in Cambridge. Unless we keep our law enforcement officers in check by exposing and condemning these cases, we risk losing our law and order completely.
President Barack Obama condemned the actions of the Cambridge police, and rightly so. Whether it is a black man in his own home, a mentally-ill woman who needs help and not to be shot to death or a neighbor cursing at a flooding toilet, the police should not have the means to use their power against us.
Oh, and as luck would have it, the Scranton Police Department started issuing tasers (stun guns that immobilize the person who is hit with the taser) ON THE DAY AFTER THE SHOOTING. How nice that they had them handy and ready to be distributed as the department made the case that the shooting was justified
"The department purchased 35 of the weapons, and so far, 26 officers have been trained in their use, Chief Elliot said. The department is seeking grant money to buy 40 more."
Luckily for Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and wanna-be-plumber Dawn Herb, there is a system of justice that has exhonerated them, and exposed the abuse of power - or poor judgement - by police. Brenda Williams didn't have that chance.
UPDATE: Our President, it seems, is way wiser than the Scranton PD and knows how to difuse a situation:
Obama invites officer and Gates for a beer
UPDATE #2: This story would have likely run on page 6 of the newspaper, but today it is featured up front, because there is so much focus on how mentally ill people are treated now that Brenda Williams is dead: Expert urges broad social management of the mentally ill
Dr. Gaines said each level of authority - whether police officers, clinicians or judges - knows its own piece of the system well enough, but the key is to find "a common language so they don't talk past each other."
Conference attendees included several members of the task force Mayor Chris Doherty created after Ms. Williams' death to examine circumstances and policies that led to the shooting, including co-chairmen Public Safety Director Ray Hayes and attorney Deborah Belknap.
Sgt. Patrick Gerrity, who conducted the city's internal investigation, participated as well.
It was helpful, Mr. Hayes said, to see how others are dealing with the same issues.