(Mar. 24, 2016) A number of advocates across Virginia are calling for a federal investigation into the death of Jamycheal Mitchell – a mentally ill man who died of starvation in a Virginia jail last August while waiting for a hospital bed to open up in a mental health facility (“Advocates call for federal investigation of death of Va. Man jailed for stealing junk food,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mar. 23).
Like an increasing number of the mentally ill, Mitchell sat in the Hampton Roads regional jail in Portsmouth, Virginia for months as he waited for a bed to open up. While incarcerated, Mitchell dropped over 34 pounds in just three months. Then, on August 19, 2015, Mitchell’s severely emaciated body was found unresponsive on the floor of his cell. He had starved to death while in jail custody.
Why didn’t Mitchell get a bed after a judge ordered him to treatment? A recent report shows that an “overwhelmed” state employee placed the order in a desk drawer when she received the fax instead of adding Mitchell to the waiting list. The drawer contained a “significant number of (competency restoration orders that had not been entered,” according to the report.
In a statement, the NAACP of Portsmouth called Mitchell’s death “one of the biggest civil and human rights violations of our time.”
“The events surrounding the death of Jamycheal Mitchell in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail are beyond disturbing and inhumane in nature,” said James P. Boyd, president of the NAACP Portsmouth chapter. “We intend to seek an independent federal investigation to ensure accountability and improvements are executed.”
We applaud advocates for calling for a federal investigation into this tragic death. But Jamycheal isn’t the only person with severe mental illness who has died behind bars recently.
Natasha McKenna was arrested early last year on a charge of assaulting a police officer while suffering a psychotic break due to untreated severe mental illness. She was taken to the Fairfax County jail in Virginia and had been there a week before she was shocked four times with a Taser during an altercation with jail deputies. McKenna died four days later.
Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Keaton Farris, 25, was passed through four jails while awaiting a bed at the overburdened Washington state psychiatric hospital. Farris died of dehydration and malnutrition while behind bars last April.
An inmate with mental illness at the Santa Clara County Jail in California, 31-year-old Michael James Tyree died in late August at the hands of three correctional officers. According to reports, the three deputies entered Tyree's single-person cell and viciously beat him. The county medical examiner-coroner said Tyree died of internal bleeding from multiple blunt force injuries.
What these tragedies all boil down to is an overwhelming failure of our mental health system.
We need to shine the national spotlight on each of these deaths.
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