Bonnie,
That's a terrible story. My feeling is that the root of the problem has to
do with the fact that our society criminalizes addiction rather than seeing
it as a medical problem and treating it. People who are given drugs under
medical supervision, don't have to engage in criminal behavior. In Portugal,
where they have a different approach from our's, they don't have the same
kinds of issues. There's an excellent book about this which I've read, but
of course, I can't remember the name offhand. I understand that it's very
complicated. I was married to someone who had a severe drinking problem.
Addiction is an illness, one that is terrible to live with, if you're
impacted by it.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bonnie L.
Sherrell
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2017 3:40 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Utah nurse arrested for defending patient's
rights
My first teaching contract was with the White River School District,
teaching in the Rainier Institution and School for the Retarded in Buckley,
Washington. One of our teaching assistants was a former police officer who
had lost a good deal of his hearing by refusing to wear ear protection while
on the firing line doing shooting practice. He admits he was too macho to
live at the time. Marv admitted that he was glad he lost so much hearing to
the point he had to leave the force, as he'd begun to realize that constant
exposure to the worst of human behavior was driving him to become abusive
and so cynical he wouldn't listen to explanations as to what had really
happened. He suspected that if he'd not been forced to leave when he did,
eventually he'd probably end up being arrested himself for beating up
prisoners who would prove to be innocent of any crime.
A few years after I moved to my present home, I rented my barn to a guy who
had been close friends for years with Jack, whom Tony and I had known for
close to fifteen years. Even though he'd not seen this Dave for over twenty
years, Jack was certain that Dave would be an okay tenant. After a year of
tenancy, Dave and his live-in girlfriend got back into methamphetamines and
began reverting to typical druggy behavior, which included stealing
everything that wasn't nailed down and a few things that literally had been.
By the time they began openly stealing to me, every complaint made against
them was responded to with, "We're sorry, but our hands are tied." I
couldn't get anyone to help retrieve stolen property or to help force them
off my property, even when they'd not paid rent for months and had been
caught in possession of stolen cars and goods and selling drugs from the
barn. I had to go through the whole eviction process, which involved having
to hire a lawyer as the judge in my county who handled eviction cases would
not allow private citizens to represent themselves in his courtroom. Not
until they were finally gone did I learn that they'd been recruited as
police informants and thus were being protected by the very officers and
institutions intended to protect the general public from them, and although
most of the officers in the region wanted them put away for good they were
threatened when they arrested them until they accepted they couldn't do
anything to protect anyone from almost anything the pair did. I don't know
what agency was protecting them, but even when they proved no help at all in
weeding out other drug offenders or car thieves, IF they got arrested they'd
be released usually before the arresting officer finished the paperwork
necessary to process them into jail. I could have lost everything I owned
because of these yahoos, and I was powerless to do anything about it except
to go to court to have them evicted, even when they'd begun threatening me
with physical harm and were constantly turning off the water to the house
(the controls for the well and water were there in the barn where they could
easily manipulate them while I couldn't as easily turn the water back on)
during the hottest summer we ever had. This summer may have been the driest
summer on record, but the year these two were constantly denying me water
was the hottest I ever remember, with the heat being at record levels
starting in May.
It's hell when good police officers are forced to allow people they are
dying to see go to prison for well documented crimes to continue on with
their criminal careers and decent people are forced to endure exploitation
and threats until some legal sham is enacted forcing the criminals to
begone. Officers who responded to my complaints and those of my neighbors
finally told me they could do nothing until I managed to get them evicted
(and the judge would not allow me to list their criminal activities among
the reasons for the eviction--he'd only accept the fact they'd not paid rent
for five months as THE reason) and legally off my property. But even then
they were not allowed to do anything to stop them from ranging around two
counties squatting on property and continuing to steal except finally to
evict them from said counties as vagrants. Oh, yeah--force them off the
Peninsula to become similar problems elsewhere in the state.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very
wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!
