(Oct. 21, 2013) Matthew Herrera could be a poster boy for the price of protecting the right to insanity.
Herrara, of Sacramento, California, has revolved in and out of locked psychiatric wards, jails and prisons for 13 years, since he was 13, Sacramento Bee reporter Dan Morain reports in “Mental health system a safety net in name only” (Oct. 21).
His latest outing ended when he was released from Sacramento County jail and dumped in downtown Sacramento at 1 o’clock in the morning. Mere hours later, Herrera “lay on a gurney at UC Davis Medical Center mumbling. He had been deemed a danger to himself and others, again.”
Herrera’s experience shows “that while many mentally ill people slip through gaps in the safety net, others are shoved,” Morain writes.
“They’re setting him up for failure,” his mother Karen Herrera told Morain. “It’s no different than letting a 3-year-old run out to the street. Adults should intervene. But they don’t until mentally ill people commit crimes. Even when they are in custody, authorities are solicitous of their rights.”
When Herrera arrived at the UC Davis Medical Center he was placed on anti-psychotic meds and the next day was “lucid enough to play cards with his mother.”
“There are different Matthews when the medication kicks in,” his mother said.
Herrera “is part of that small segment of mentally ill people who can’t care for themselves and become our responsibility,” Morain writes. “We don’t do well by them.”
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