SallyOnce again, with all of the
recent violent publicity and activity being
reported, involving mental illness —
the murders in Nevada City, the
semi truck in Sacramento, the shooting of a patient
at Kaiser Permanente here in
San Fernando Valley, this doctor in Boston.
TREATMENT ADVOCACY CENTER |
NAMI-TAC has a system of
tracking all acts of violence
from the mentally ill. They even picked up an
assault that happened at Lamp, less than 60 days ago;
this was also reported in
the L.A. Times.
We have to get out in front of the media,
by being proactive in
denouncing these acts and adding balance in educating the public
that the mentally ill are not more violent
than the rest of the population.
In the weeks to come,
there will be more publicity, especially up North,
When the shootings took place,
the people that came to
defend our position were
Rusty Selix, and the guy named Sullivan, Mental Health
Director of Sacramento.
This of course was a responsible and welcomed response.
However there has been and
continues to be a deafening silence from you,
and the other leadership. I
find this a poor tactic,and a counter-productive activity.
Helen Thomson was
quoted again in the Sacramento Bee
calling for forced treatment and [citing] the need
for commitment laws.
I understand we don’t want to play into their hands,
but
we do have a responsibility to speak out. If the leadership
is unwilling to
do this, who will?
Gerald Minsk
L.A.
|
