She was treated by the psychiatric staffs of at least two city hospitals, and caseworkers visited her family home in Queens to provide further help. She was also arrested at least three times, according to the police, twice after violent confrontations....That's the NYT. In The Daily News, we learn that what she was screaming was "You fucked my mother."
There were ample warnings over the years concerning Ms. Menendez.
In 2003, according to the police, she attacked another stranger, Daniel Conlisk, a retired firefighter, as he took out his garbage in Queens.
“I was covered with blood,” Mr. Conlisk recalled on Sunday. “She was screaming the whole time.”
December 31, 2012
"Long before Erika Menendez was charged with pushing a stranger to his death under an oncoming train at a Queens elevated station..."
"... she had years of contact with New York City’s mental health and law enforcement establishments."
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103 comments:
Newtown CT was the site of Fairfield State Hospital for 62 years, from 1933 to 1995.
With no guns and no angry young white male, the media will have to find some other way to talk about this crime.
Where's the call to ban pushing...it clearly gets people killed and if pushing were illegal only racists would push...not, God forbid crazy people
So her problems go back to the Bush Administration. Hmmm.
Blame the subway exit gates that say push.
It's difficult to institutionalize people with mental illness today. Who's fault is that?
It's like long ago when a plane was hijacked out of Los Angeles and an investigation found that officially security was lax.
The investigators had been wandering around an airport with bags everywhere that said LAX.
As we are unwilling to institutionalize or jail the insane perhaps they should be used for medical research, target practice, soylent green... (Just a few ideas.)
In the 70's some mental institutions were exposed as failures, abusive or neglecting. Rather than do the difficult but right thing (improve care) the states just shut 'em down. Add to that the weakening of the states ability to involuntarily institutionalize and you get little to no effective treatment. Typical liberal process: correctly identify a problem, propose and implement faulty government based response that feels good, then ignore results and any negative consequences.
If we are going to institutionalize the mentally ill, then we will have to accept that some minority of not-so-dangerously mentally ill will also be institutionalized. Is it worth that risk? I am not so sure.
If we are going to institutionalize the mentally ill, then we will have to accept that some minority of not-so-dangerously mentally ill will also be institutionalized.
Humans being prone to error as they are, we will also be institutionalizing some people who aren't mentally ill at all.
Yet she is being charged with a hate crime?
If we are going to institutionalize the mentally ill, then we will have to accept that some minority of not-so-dangerously mentally ill will also be institutionalized. Is it worth that risk? I am not so sure.
That's a risk I can accept. The non-dangerous ones could use the help too.
"If we are going to institutionalize the mentally ill, then we will have to accept that some minority of not-so-dangerously mentally ill will also be institutionalized. Is it worth that risk?"
-- Require routine reviews and allow for appeals like you would a criminal case. That should be enough to build a safety system to prevent the worst of it.
"In the 70's some mental institutions were exposed as failures, abusive or neglecting. Rather than do the difficult but right thing (improve care) the states just shut 'em down."
Actually, the "exposure" was a movie called "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." The major tranquilizers had appeared and psychotic patients did much better if they took their meds. This allowed the politicians to close the hospitals while the patients were taking their meds. They stopped taking them after that but the hospitals were closed by then. That's a simplification but yours is too.
she had years of contact with New York City’s mental health and law enforcement establishments.
Mayor Bloomberg's first question: "How much salt did she have in her diet?"
Michael,,
I was thinking about an old Geraldo film I saw - but your points are well taken. Medicines and pop culture had their effects as well. In any case, the laws are too lax and the care inadequate.
Today, the mentally ill and the rest of us are equally free to scrounge in garbage cans for food, sleep in cardboard boxes, and rant at invisible persecutors.
If Mr. Conlisk fucked her mother then I'm willing to call it even.
Shutting down publicly funded long term residential care facilities for the mentally ill has meant that involuntary commitment procedures chiefly effect privately funded care facilities. Wouldn't want people put away for being rich and a trifle eccentric now, would we?
"With no guns and no angry young white male, the media will have to find some other way to talk about this crime."
Well it's not a total loss for the Narrative. Despite being batsh*t crazy, she's being charged with a hate crime.
I'd be willing to make an exception or even a charitable donation for members of the Tea Party and the NRA.
Paging Clayton Cramer ...
Sparrow, your description of the typical liberal process was perfect.
Sparrow, your description of the typical liberal process was perfect.
Innocent people end up in jail or prison. Should we shut down prisons because of that risk? Of course not!
Why should the considerations for mental health be any different?
It's time to ban trains.
Typical liberal process: correctly identify a problem, propose and implement faulty government based response that feels good, then ignore results and any negative consequences.
And now these same people are in charge of our health care. On top of that misery, we will be forced at gun point to pay for it.
"sydney said...
If we are going to institutionalize the mentally ill, then we will have to accept that some minority of not-so-dangerously mentally ill will also be institutionalized. Is it worth that risk? I am not so sure.
12/31/12 8:21 AM"
As a practical matter, the way to balance out the risk of confining too many non-dangerous mentally ill people and not enough dangerously mentally ill people is by controlling the budget of the mental health care agencies. With a limited budget they will have an incentive to keep only the most dangerous people against their will.
The problem is that bureaucracies will always tend to spend their budget hiring a lot of people to do nothing except make the supervisor look more important and meet EEOC hiring targets while letting dangerous people loose to harm innocent people in order to encourage larger budgets.
And yet...and *yet* the emphasis will be placed on her 'hatred of Muslims since 9/11' and NOT on the fact that she is - or is close to being- a whack job.
Craig said...
I'd be willing to make an exception or even a charitable donation for members of the Tea Party and the NRA.
Annnnnd the first troll/attention whore of the thread is heard from.
A lot of the solutions proposed are very expensive.
More than America, in steep decline due to free trade, overextension of military empire, and too in debt from too much government - can afford.
A half million unionized "Armed Hero" government people for 132,000 schools?? Paid for by the Feds? Local property taxes? A need to register all guns so each could be assessed an annual tax to pay for Armed Heroes?
100s of billions to open looney bins and at the same time allow the committed tens of billions a year in free doctor assessments, endless appeals in courtrooms full of lawyers that will bill taxpayers???
How about simpler things, like putting a line on diagnosed nutball drivers licenses they are "Medically contraindicated for firearms and any explosives". ? If they recover, they can get have a doctor's note to get the line expunged from their next drivers licence.
In the meantime, along with a requirement to alert police if the nut tries buying weapons or ammo, like the S Korean nutball at VT, Lanza and Holmes did, as they present their state drivers licence. You could stop a lot of the nexus between guns, violence, and the demented just by blocking their access to weaponry, full body armor, ammo, black powder, etc.
For the imminent threat types, lets drop the pretense of highly expensive doctors, nurses, a hospital....and put them in secure camps..with subcamps so the violent autistics can be separated from the young paranoid psychotics who have assaulted people who can be separated from violent senile dementeds and so on.
Barbed wire, guards inside and outside the fence, counselors, and put the camps way out in the boonies.
Whew - thank god there's nothing wrong with the mental health system in the US.
Just ban assault weapons!
The Lefties wanted it this way and now they have it.
But somebody else is going to have to fix it, and they will fight it tooth and nail.
"Long before Erika Menendez was charged with pushing a stranger to his death under an oncoming train at a Queens elevated station..."
Clearly then, as AprilApple notes, it is time, long past due, to ban these reckless assault subway trains and their high-capacity passenger platforms.
Urban America's clinging fixation with high-capacity assault subway trains is shameful. Worse yet, the government makes other Americans, who have no need or desire for these killing machines, subsidize them with their tax dollars.
It has got to end.
I can't be the only one who thinks it would be ironic if not just, at a time of dire need, no "Armed Heroes" were available to Cedarford.
So much of our culture is being driven by movies. It's depressing.
People are walking out of Django thinking that it is a historical film.
A Coocoo Gulag.
Cheaper, for sure Cedarford.
I'd think a tax on guns should pay for more humane treatment though.
It would create lots and lots of jobs, while housing the dangerously mentally ill, pump money back into the economy.
Win/win
Dangerous lunatics need to be locked up! There is no *right* to harm others because you are crazy.
AprilApple said...
It's time to ban trains.
==============
I think a small percentage of the population thinks it incredibly witty to think they can derail the argument on a societal problem by proposing ridiculous laws. "Cleverly" they think, to draw attention to the "absurdity" of stopping smoking in the workplace or nutballs able to legally arm themselves to the teeth in full HIPAA privacy.
So when we were talking about getting ciggies out of work - the witty ways thought up dumb slippery slope argumments and absurd other bans.
IF they take away my freedom!! to smoke where I want, the next thing they will take away my right to perfume!
If you are going to ban smoking , then why not ladders, because employees are killed in falls!
The comeback, "why not end kids swimming?" or "Stop use of subways since people die there too" stuff presumes that there is no legitimate discussion about ways to stop the VT butcher, James Holmes, Adam Lanza...so they try and mock possible actions as ridiculous by extension.
It isn't witty.
It just signals such people have no interest in the debate on what we can do to stop the nutballs before they massacre people.
We can't institutionalize the seriously mentally ill with a documented history of aggression and violence and of refusing to take their meds, but we can charge them with a hate crime and, if convicted, impose the same sentences we would on the sane.
Profoundly incoherent and deeply immoral, that.
Clearly, if she had a personal social worker, state sponsored meds, a special school to go to, a work study program and maybe an Obamaphone to dial in to the crazy hotline, this wouldn't have happened.
Also, take people's guns away, tax them more, make it harder to find a job, and build huge eco-friendly towers with numbered 400 sq ft boxes to house them in, and equality will just about be reached.
A perfect little world.
It's time to ban fuckers that don't think certain comments are witty.
Cedar -
Considering how off the rails and irrational the gun debate is within the echo chamber Piers Morgan hysterical media, the point about banning trains was a simple one. I'm glad you took what I said to be worthy of a multi-paragraph long diatribe.
How about a private sector solution? No government workers, no unions, no tax payer funded pensions, no lousy service coupled with abuse.
J Scott said...
..."People are walking out of Django thinking that it is a historical film."
As they did with "Apocalypse Now," "JFK," and, as we all know, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
The simple explanation, per Occam, is that these people are Democrats.
Inga: "It would create lots and lots of jobs, while housing the dangerously mentally ill, pump money back into the economy."
Laughable.
Government consumes resources. It does not create them.
If government spending money and "creating" jobs was a real "win/win", then the strongest economy in the world would have been the Soviet Union.
If you determine that society is served "well enough" by a government-run "service" that it "justifies", politically, the taking of resources from the productive sector in order to fund the service, then make that argument.
I anxiously await the rebound of that government-centric "enterprise" known as Greece to come roaring out of the economic doldrums any day now....
BTW - Some radical leftwing
anti-2nd amendment people are OFF THE RAILS.
AprilApple said...
"How about a private sector solution? No government workers, no unions, no tax payer funded pensions, no lousy service coupled with abuse."
April, I'm with you.
But in this nascent national discussion about subway passenger safety, let's start with a common-sense solution we can all agree on: banning high-capacity passenger platforms.
No one really needs them - hell, all the seasoned subway strap-hangers I talk too say they're just for tourists, occasional riders and people insecure with tight spaces - and, as we saw, the create all kinds of unnecessary risks: litter, homeless people, panhandlers, used hypodermic needles, used condoms, and now murder. Multiple murders. How many more people must die before we ban high-capacity passenger platforms?
That, or pace "Inga," we can tax passengers to offset the costs of providing the extra security necessary to secure these reckless, socially irresponsible high-capacity passenger platforms.
I'm embarrassed to be an American...
Here's another semi-thought out solution.
Place sane welfare recipients with insane people to monitor their behavior. Now the money paid to welfare is buying guards for the insane, who are a net drain on the economy.
win/win
Government consumes resources. It does not create them.
So when Gov. Walker vowed to create 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin was he intentionally lying or just woefully ignorant?
Wyo Sis, do you think that it's a new idea to use welfare recipients to work in healthcare? Welfare to work programs dumped millions of W-2 recipients into CNA classes back in Clinton's day. I worked with many of these women in Milwaukee over the 30+ years I was a nurse. Some were very resentful and abusive to the patients, some were naturals excellent, hardworking caregivers.
So when Gov. Walker vowed to create 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin was he intentionally lying or just woefully ignorant?
Governors can lure businesses into the State and encourage existing businesses to expand. But you already knew that, didn't you, you disingenuous Pen-Q-uin asshole?
So when Gov. Walker vowed to create 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin was he intentionally lying or just woefully ignorant?
Interesting that you chose that example and not the more egregious millions that Obama/Biden promised.
April Apple, obviously you don't know a thing about the thousands of privately owned nursing homes and hospitals. And there is abuse, plenty of it, perhaps not the kind you are thinking of though.
"So when Gov. Walker vowed to create 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin was he intentionally lying or just woefully ignorant?"
No, penguin is just woefully stupid, unable to comprehend Walker's claim.
In short, government does not and cannot create jobs, but it can create a playing field conducive to job creation.
Government jobs, which was the topic mentioned, are resources consumed, not created.
PP - I know it's hard for leftists to understand, but creating jobs outside of government can happen if you create a fair government that works in the best interest of all citizens, not just the unionized government tax payer funded ones.
When the private sector thrives, there is more money for you leftists to cull. Somehow you think that strangling the goose that laid the golden egg is a good thing.
Just a tangential note: In my days in public health, people who had TB and didn't take their meds could, in fact, be quarantined and isolated--not easy because of legal hurdles--but my question to the communtariat: A person with TB who refuses to take their meds is every bit a public safety hazard as are the deranged such as the Menedez woman. TB just kills more slowly. Perhaps we as a society need to reset the pendulum.
And PP--as Milton Friedman said (and I paraphrase): every dollar spent by the government must be paid by taxing the citizens. It is the citizens that always end up paying the freight.
So, purplepenquin is:
a)ignorant
or
b)disingenuous?
Could be both.
I love how so many of the leftists here like to place words in my mouth. Why is that?
I'm countering the idea that every time we face a crisis, we must swoop in with a government package.
I know there is abuse out there, but there are also privately run facilities that are wonderful.
As Drago wisely stated - Government consumes resources. It does not create them.
"In The Daily News, we learn that what she was screaming was "You fucked my mother."
As a time-honored motherfucker, I decry this blatant hate crime. Is this how we we want to raise our little motherfuckers? Will no one think of the children???
Tim -
"let's start with a common-sense solution we can all agree on: banning high-capacity passenger platforms."
Studies and polls show that everyone agrees. We should also tax and register. Register and tax.
No, AprilApple. We don't want to ban trains, we just want to establish common-sense regulations on high-capacity transportation.
I love how so many of the leftists here like to place words in my mouth. Why is that?
Ain't just you. A lot of leftists...like Pogo, Darrel, Scott, and Roger..play the same kind of games with me, so try not to take it too personally.
Liberals like them don't know how to have an actual convo, and instead spend most of their time barking just to make themselves heard. Nuttin' but a bunch of attention whores, the whole lefty lot of 'em.
Arms,legs & core are deadly assault weapons and must be banned!
Tough day for The Narrative.
Actually, Scott M's attempt at snark does bring up a valid point.
Gov Walker is just as much of a slimy conman as Pres Obama is. (But not due to these claims) How anyone can strongly support one while constantly attacking the other can only be explained as blind partisanship and a desire to put Party ahead of Country.
But that ain't neither here-nor-there. I just had to point out the folly of the claim that gov't doesn't create jobs: Almost 2.5million men&women in uniform are laughing right now, but they don't know why.
Seriously, that is like saying "Corporations don't create jobs." After all, every penny that a business gets comes from someplace else...
Ah yes -the corporations are evil canard. Except for the ones that improve your standard of living.
Another name for corporation is business. Lets ban all business and let the government take over.
PP--I take your point re government creation of jobs--in fact, given the growth of the public sector (ie, government created jobs) the governments at all levels have done wonderfully. I would submit that there is a major difference between a private sector (or if you prefer corporation) created jobs. The former jobs are paid for by tax payers who have no right to refuse to support such job creation--A private sector job is dependent on a free market and that, to me, is the difference in your view and mine. Or as Saint Milton (Friedman) might argue it comes down to an individual's choice in the market place.
Looks like April is another one of those liberals that put words in other people's mouth, 'cause it was never said nor implied corporations are evil.
I beleive that organized capital (ie, corporations) is just as needed as organized labor (ie, unions) when it comes to providing for a strong and steady economy. Please show me exactly what I've said that leads you to beleive otherwise.
Almost 2.5million men&women in uniform are laughing right now,
The ones in Afghanistan may not be laughing.
The government does not turn a profit. Therefore the jobs it creates are paid out of taxing the private sector, which hampers the job-creation and growth potential of the private sector.
I call for an immediate ban on trains.
C4 and camps... yeah, that goes together.
purplepenquin said...
Gov Walker is just as much of a slimy conman as Pres Obama is.
Walker solved our debt problem. Has Obama solved his debt problem?
Roger, I agree that there are some differences between public and private sector jobs. But I don't think that all of our gov't services should be ran just like a business. (Some of my more-libertarian-than-I pals have advocated in favor of a self-funded military and police dept, which scares the crap out of me!) and thus am perfectly ok with the gov't using public monies to create some jobs, 'cause there are some things/services that we-as-a-society should pay for as-a-whole rather than be ran by a for-profit entity.
And I apologize for lumping you in with the rest of those liberals. I mis-read what you said, and I shouldn't have tagged ya as a lefty like I did. Sorry 'bout that.
PP--apology accepted--I am basically a free market libertarian. And I do also believe that our constitution under the general welfare clause has a valid role in creating certain jobs that promote the general welfare. Our political debates, at the very fundamental level, are about where that line occurs. Anyway--appreciated your comments and am always willing to engage the arguments. Happy new year.
PP: "But that ain't neither here-nor-there. I just had to point out the folly of the claim that gov't doesn't create jobs: Almost 2.5million men&women in uniform are laughing right now, but they don't know why"
You are failing to address what the impact is to the private economy when government "removes" the resources necessary to fund those military jobs from the private sector.
This is an all too common error.
Now, do note what I am NOT saying. I am not saying that centrally run (government) military is not necessary.
I am saying that you cannot simply take one side of the balance sheet (Yeah, 2.5 million military jobs "created"!) without examining the other side of the balance sheet.
Pretty basic really.
"We can't institutionalize the seriously mentally ill with a documented history of aggression and violence and of refusing to take their meds, but we can charge them with a hate crime and, if convicted, impose the same sentences we would on the sane.
Profoundly incoherent and deeply immoral, that."
What rcommal said.
Obviously, charging her with a hate crime is deeply immoral, but if that's the only way to confine her, then that's what will have to be done.
My first thought at reading this about her ongoing problems is that for her entire life, then, her family has been held hostage. Nothing they can really do to solve anything, can't lock the crazy relative in the attic.
I imagine that they're horrified and relieved, and horrified for feeling relieved.
Some adult people need care. Assuming that they're cared for better by families ignores the vast chasm between intentions and what is possible for ordinary people.
"You are failing to address what the impact is to the private economy when government "removes" the resources necessary to fund those military jobs from the private sector."
It's not just the resources to fund the military that's removed from the private sector, strong healthy intelligent young men and women are also removed from the private sector.
Yes, I believe that the government should maintain and fund a military, but it is a tax on production in all ways. It's simply a necessary one.
It would be like society forcing you to become a Cat Lady.
Cat Ladies have loving and wonderful intentions and can't bear to trust anyone else to take care of their cats, but they can't do it either. No one could.
Re Synova's, drago's, pp's and my posts- it seems manifest to me that we can all agree that the requirement to maintain a military establishment is appropriate. I think Synova's comment extends that discussion into the impact of a military establishment on the general economy. I think her point is worth considering, but I would offer one comment in mitigation. The fact that the US does train its career soldiers in many longer term skills that will be applicable at some future time should be considered. I have no idea what the timeline is, but by producing some several million soldiers who, by the ends of their military careers, may well enhance the workforce when they retire should be considered.
Of course all of this goes to how we do the cost benefit analyses.
Health Care, Housing, Education Worse When Government Helps
It has long been the case that the nation's #1 provider for mental health services is the California Department of Corrections, with the other large states' penal systems not far behind.
The truly crazy, if they don't die on the streets, will get locked up eventually. The only question is where.
And I keep telling people guns are not the problem. IT'S THE NUTS ON THE STREET!!!
Institutionalization is the answer. We used to do that and we didn't have kids killed in schools (yet guns were mail-ordered!
And I keep telling people guns are not the problem. IT'S THE NUTS ON THE STREET!!!
Institutionalization is the answer. We used to do that and we didn't have kids killed in schools (yet guns were mail-ordered!
I employ a simple crude rule to help determine which of governments functions are essential and which are dispensable. Preface the function with public and private and evaluate. Examples: public education vs private education > private is better. Now try army > public army vs private army. Not a hard call.
So when a crazy African-American pushes a foreign-appearing bystander into an oncoming train its an awful story focusing on the photographer taking a picture. But when a crazy Hispanic pushes and equally foreign-appearing man its a hate crime because of her words.
Could it be that the only common thread is the craziness of the assailants and that we should therefore disregard their words.
Hell, in many places kids used to bring their gus to school, and hunt for dinner on the way home.
Gahrie,
When I was in high school I traded my H&R .22 revolver for a Browning .25 automatic with one of the teachers! We did it in the parking lot. No biggie back then.
And note, back in the '70s they did INSTITUTIONALIZE NUTS!
The problem is we let insane people walk the streets, simple as that.
In what fantasy world are psychotropics going to work when mixed with marijuana or cocaine? Which meds were off -- the prescribed or self-prescribed?
And yes, street meds are so often tested for quality and potency...
Off her meds, indeed. Meh.
Congress must pass laws for deadly subway trains control.
Class action lawsuits for "street-label" pharmaceutical companies anyone? FDA regulatory action?
Buehler? Buehler?
As Drago wisely stated - Government consumes resources. It does not create them.
==================
Not true in the sense of govermnent doing infrastructure, education, R&D, sector investments that create resources.
Add critical roles in ptotecting resources.
The poorest and most backward countries are lands with minimal government, run tribally, by the local Freedom Lovers!!! and religious totems. (See Afghanistan, Somalia, etc)
"The poorest and most backward countries are lands with minimal government, run tribally, by the local Freedom Lovers!!! and religious totems. (See Afghanistan, Somalia, etc)"
Cleptocrats, all of them.
If property was secure, private people would build roads. It's stealing other people's stuff that makes any place a sh*t hole.
Actually, close to the end of the Times article, it does say she accused Conlisk "of sleeping with her mother."
We continue to institutionalize mentally ill people. Unfortunately, they are in prison with criminals. I know people who work at the prison and that's what they say. Is that as humane as being confined to a mental health facility?
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