An Inmates lost LIFE

Mental Mistreatment

  After a mentally ill Bradley Ballard made a lewd gesture to a female guard at the Rikers Island jail, he was locked in his cell alone for seven increasingly agitated days in which he was denied some of his medication, clogged his toilet so that it overflowed, stripped off his clothes and tied a rubber band tightly around his genitals.

During that period, guards passed Ballard's cell in the mental observation unit dozens of times, peering through the window in the steel door but never venturing inside — until it was too late.

The 39-year-old Ballard was eventually found naked and unresponsive on the floor, covered in feces, his genitals swollen and badly infected. He was rushed to a hospital but died hours later.

"He didn't have to leave this world like that. They could have put him in a mental hospital, got him some treatment," Ballard's mother, Beverly Ann Griffin, said from her Houston, Texas, home. "He was a caring young man."

Ballard's death last September, detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press and in interviews with two city officials on condition of anonymity, came five months before another Rikers inmate in a similar mental health unit died in a cell that climbed to a suffocating 101 degrees because of malfunctioning heating equipment.

Experts say Ballard's death is only the latest example of how poorly equipped the city's jail system is to handle the mentally ill, who make up about 40 percent of the 12,000 inmates in the nation's most populous city. A third of those inmates suffer from serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

In Ballard's case, his family said, he was diagnosed as schizophrenic more than a decade ago, and he also had diabetes.

Faced with rising criticism over conditions at Rikers, Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed reforms. Correction Department spokesman Robin Campbell said in a statement Wednesday that Ballard's case is under investigation. He said mental health and jail officials have started shift-by-shift briefings on inmates like Ballard and are working on other measures "so that a similar tragedy will not happen again."

More tests are needed to determine exactly how Ballard died, the medical examiner's office says. But preliminary findings show that he probably succumbed to sepsis, an infection that has spread through the body, according to the two officials.

Ballard grew up in Houston and moved to New York to pursue a better life after working as a cook at a fried chicken restaurant, his family said. He spent six years behind bars after being arrested in 2004 for assaulting a receptionist and another employee of a New York law firm.

Last June, he was arrested in Houston on charges of public lewdness and assault for punching and exposing himself to a bus driver. He was sent back to jail in New York for not telling his parole officer that he'd left the city.

He was first placed in a Rikers facility for 17 days, then a Correction Department psychiatric hospital for 38 days. Then he was sent to a roughly 30-bed mental observation unit at Rikers.

In documents obtained by the AP via a public records request, Cathy Potler, executive director of the city Board of Correction, gave her account of Ballard's case, based on a review of records, security footage and interviews with inmates.

She noted that even though Ballard was in a unit where inmates are ordinarily allowed in and out of their cells to mingle with others for 14 hours a day, he was locked up continuously for seven days and for most of that time wasn't given his medication. The type of medication was not disclosed.

Guards confined Ballard to his cell on Sept. 4 after he stared for hours at a female officer, rolled up his shirt to look like a penis and thrust it toward her, Potler said.

The next day, Potler wrote, Ballard intentionally flooded his combination sink-toilet, after which a mental health provider spoke with him for 15 seconds through the cell door. The next day, a plumber turned off the water to his cell.

Over the next few days, guards and deputy wardens looked in his cell dozens of times throughout the day, Potler wrote, and the inmate was at times seen at the door.

On Sept. 10, video of an inmate delivering a tray of food to Ballard's cell showed the inmate covering his nose with his shirt and three officers backing away, "presumably because of the foul odor coming from the cell," Potler wrote.

Ballard was checked on at least two dozen times that day and night, with an officer at one point seen kicking his cell door several times, according to Potler's account.

By the time medical staffers were called in and his cell was opened, Ballard was so weak he couldn't move. He was pronounced dead early on the morning of Sept. 11.

Under city rules, mental health staffers are required to make twice-daily rounds in the unit where Ballard was jailed, and the guards on duty are supposed to be steadily assigned there and receive annual mental health training.

But mental health staffers visited Ballard's cell only once before he was discovered to be in distress, according to Potler. And of the 53 officers who worked in the unit in the days leading up to Ballard's death, only one was steady, and none had received the required annual refresher course on mental health, Potler wrote.

Following Ballard's death, Department of Health officials said a city investigation found workers missed multiple opportunities to treat him, transferred the unit chief to another facility and retrained staffers on how to do rounds and other procedures.

Jail officers have long complained that they aren't sufficiently trained to handle severely mentally ill inmates. At a recent public meeting, a union official said trainees get 21.5 hours of mental health training during their 16 weeks of academy instruction, plus the three-hour annual refresher.

In a statement, Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, said Ballard's death was an example of "non-communication between medical staff and uniform staff." He said officers can notify members of the medical staff, "but it's clearly up to them and solely them to determine treatment."

Ballard's death, though tragic, was unsurprising to those familiar with how the mentally ill fare in jails, said Dr. Bandy Lee, a Yale psychiatrist who was a co-author of a report critical of jail officials' use of solitary confinement.

"Correctional institutions are such a poor substitute for mental hospitals, which is what they're basically functioning as in our society," she said. "The problem is the correction setting is not fit to deliver the proper care, and in fact many of the settings exacerbate their symptoms."

Curtis Griffin, Ballard's stepfather, said a jail chaplain informed the family months ago of his son's death, but he wasn't told the specifics.

"They know," Griffin said, "that they were wrong in the way they handled the situation."

-Will Barlow 

 

Marriage.... The Function of It!

5 Stages of every Marriage

All marital unions are not created equal; but they all go through some predictable stages. The timing may differ, and the way a couple manages the phase they're in varies widely, but most of the stages happen, to most of us. 

Understanding the stages gives you the tools you need to move through with your loving union intact. Here's what you need to know.

Stage 1: Honeymoon heaven

Usually the first year or two (or three, depending on the arrival of children as well as whether you lived together beforehand) is a passion-fueled period that's all about the two of you and your intense focus on the attraction that made you want to walk down the aisle to begin with.

Your Challenge: As much as this stage is full of lovely things like lust, affection and late-night romps, you'd be wise to also use this time to cement your sense of coupledom outside the bedroom. Who are you, as a couple? For example, do you want to focus on your careers exclusively for a few years, or would you prefer to spend time traveling or taking classes? Will one or both of you want to get an advanced degree? Also spend time figuring out how you envision the rest of your marriage — such as whether and when to have children, or whether you see yourselves living in a city or the suburbs.

Stage 2: Settling in, settling down

This encompasses the realization stage, during which you learn things you might not have known (or happily ignored) about your spouse's strengths, weaknesses and personal habits. Also in this post-honeymoon, pre-children stage, power struggles can arise as the two of you work toward both separate and shared goals. This is the time to learn teamwork.

Your Challenge: As the shine fades a bit and reality sets in, you need to safely navigate what can be the first divorce danger zone of a young marriage, says Beverly Hyman, PhD, coauthor of How to Know If It’s Time to Go: A 10-Step Reality Test for Your Marriage. "After a couple of years, too many couples find that their values and goals aren't always on the same page." For example, if one of you wants children, or expects to spend every Sunday with his or her parents, and the other disagrees, you need to reach a compromise. Though you should have done this before you wed, if you haven't, it's not too late to discuss hot-button subjects like children, money, how often you'll see your families, religion, etc. If you find you can't see eye-to-eye, it may be time to seek counseling, says Dr. Hyman.

Stage 3: Family Central

Welcome to the "meat" of marriage, the years most couples spend raising their families, buying a home, building and/or changing careers and all-around trying to hold a busy, crazy modern life together. This can be another danger time. You may have a couple of kids, a mortgage to pay, possibly two demanding jobs — this puts enormous strain on the resources of a marriage. Too many couples start to wonder: 'Is this all there is to life?' And some of them answer that question by starting an affair or asking for a divorce.

Your Challenge: Not losing sight of your couple-ness in the swirl of all the other demands on your time and energy. "Pay close attention to your marriage," advises Dr. Hyman. Don't assume your relationship will be OK if one or both of you is on autopilot. "One thing that's essential to building an enduring marriage is open, honest and tender communication," she adds. Give yourselves a chance to communicate by — if you have to — scheduling together time, planning a regular date night or agreeing to turn off the TV after the kids go to bed so you can discuss important issues (or have sex!).

Stage 4: Back to the two of you

Some call this stage the "empty nest," but that implies that your home is devoid of love (i.e. empty) after your children grow up and leave. Hopefully, it's not that way (though it can be). In the best scenario, this stage is about reunion. You are getting to know each other all over again, unpacking old baggage and having fun.

Your Challenge: Assuming you've weathered the earlier storms of marriage, this time can be exhilarating. "You have the luxury of time," says Dr. Hyman, "So you can have new adventures, learn things together and take pride in your accomplishments, such as your history together and your children's successes." But many couples find it a struggle to be together again with nothing else to concentrate on. Spend some time figuring out things you can do together (such as a vacation or new activity, like tennis or a couples' book club) and apart (such as a sport or an adult-education class). If the issue is that you've ignored resentments toward your partner while you were busy with work and kids, you'll need to be honest about these thorny problems, says Dr. Hyman, "You can rescue a marriage that's been ignored for a long time, but it will take work," so seek couples' therapy.

Stage 5: You did it!

You've enjoyed the lust, lived the love and come through the chaos of family life — without splitting up in the face of troubles. You've reached "completion," a stage that retired, empty-nest couples who still enjoy being together can bask in for the rest of their lives.

Your Challenge: Continue to show each other affection and attention. Remember, says Dr. Hyman, if you've remained a loving, harmonious couple, you won't have an empty nest for long. Children and grandchildren gravitate back to the happy home they remember.

At any time: Explosion

This is less of a discrete stage than the others because it can happen at any time in a marriage. It's when major life stressors interrupt the forward motion of your life together — such as fertility issues, a death in the family, a major illness or the loss of a job that leads to serious economic upheaval.

Your Challenge: Seek support, both separately and together, depending on the situation. Never feel you have to power through problems on your own, or your marriage may suffer. Seek advice and guidance from friends, family members, religious counselors or professional therapists. Pay attention to your own physical and emotional health and well-being. Knowing when it’s time to divorce can be tricky, especially if you feel that the two of you have come to an impasse in terms of what you want from the marriage. Dr. Hyman suggests that you take great care, asking yourselves serious questions, such as: Have you been more unhappy than happy in your marriage? Is that unhappiness affecting your physical and mental health? What are your fears about possibly separating? Have you exhausted every remedy to save your marriage? Only you two can answer these hard questions.

Some say love is work, but honestly every relationship has it's on unique dynamic when it comes to understanding the major functions of any couple. Some marriages and partnerships are hard to gage but hopefully these stages and points can present an idea of how to handle challenges and issues. 

Bj Jackson

Girl POWER!

LIVING LIKE A POEM

On Monday, April 7^th I attended a book launch event for one of the greatest writers of our time, Pearl Cleage. Her new masterpiece, “Things I should have told my daughter: Lies, Lessons, and Love Affairs”, is a collection of her past journal entries dating back to the 1970s and 80s. This beautifully compiled work provides a magnified view of what she learned in the years passed. She strategically placed each entry to create a look into the good, the bad, and the ugly in regards to career, relationship, and lifestyle choices. From loves lost to juicy political secrets, Mrs. Cleage reminds readers that within a singular life’s journey are many stories that define the whole person. Creatively Mrs. Cleage defies the norm and equates to mere generous in her unapologetic feminist dialect, fearlessly approaching her craft with honesty.

 

I sat in awe listening to Mrs. Cleage read page after page of shear brilliance. I wrote down a quote from the book that changed my perspective of love and how I live everyday. I found that I don’t always let loose and love freely. It may be hard to believe that one statement could make me reach a philosophical revolution, but the truth is, it’s always more fun living in the moment than planning, closing your eyes and jumping instead of remaining on the ground, and even loving out loud rather than pouring your inner most feelings out silently on paper or in my case in a dance.

 

“Sometimes it’s more fun to be a poem than to write one.” –Pearl Cleage, Things I should have told my daughter: Lies, Lessons, and Love Affairs”

 

 

Things I should have told my daughter: Lies, Lessons, and Love Affairs is a work of art intended for a variation of audience members. Pearl Cleage oozes Girl Power, I’m just here to make everyone else aware of it. Until next time, TOOTLES!

 

Lyrric Cosby Jackson

 

Christopher Columbus is BLACK

DNA analysis of the remains of Christopher Columbus, done by forensic scientists at the University of Cambridge, prove beyond a shadow a doubt that the famed navigator was of African descent.

“A five-hundred-year-mystery has been solved,”  said Wellington Malley, the head of the Cambridge research team.  “Even though Columbus was born in Genoa, and spoke and wrote in Spanish most of his life, the DNA is clear – Columbus was 100% African.  We believe he was from the west coast, probably from what is now Cameroon.”

It’s the truth. .. Some of the remains of Christopher Columbus were found in Seville Cathedral, in Spain, and some bones were buried in Santo Domingo Cathedral in the Dominican Republic.  “All of the bones and the remains from both locations have been checked and rechecked.  He’s black.”

Columbus died in 1506.  In 1537, the widow of his son Diego was allowed to take the bones of both her husband and his father to the Dominican Republic for burial in the cathedral of Santo Domingo.  Diego was also black.

Not all African-Americans were pleased to know learn about Columbus’s ethnic identity.   “What?  Columbo was a thug, a killer.  He sailed out over here and slaughtered the Indians, ” said Fred Johnson of Harlem.  “I think the whole thing is bogus, trying to pin a crime on blacks again.  This is B.S.”

But President Obama heard news over the weekend and was proud to know that one of the greatest sailors and navigators of all time was black.  “I’m ordering all statues and monuments to Christopher Columbus be taken down and redone.  We want his likeness to be accurate.”

Mayor Bloomberg in New York said that the big Italian-American parade down 5th Avenue would be changed to an African-American parade in honor of Christopher Columbus.

The Grand Marshall of 2011 Columbus Day Parade – Maria Bartiromo was replaced by Beyonce.

Native-Americans were indifferent to the news, Navajo Indian tribes felt that they lost lives either way. 

-Joann Yoon

The New Burger King!

NEW YORK — Burger King is scrapping its 40-year-old "Have It Your Way" slogan in favor of the more personal "Be Your Way."

The chain says the new tag line will roll out across its marketing in the U.S., including in a TV ad that will begin airing Monday night. The line made its first appearance in an online video last month.

Burger King says in a statement that the new motto is intended to remind people that "they can and should live how they want anytime. It's ok to not be perfect ... Self-expression is most important and it's our differences that make us individuals instead of robots."

It may seem odd for a fast-food company to champion individuality, but Burger King isn't the only one trying to project a hip, non-corporate attitude to gain favor with customers. Since 2012, for instance, Taco Bell has been touting its "Live Mas" slogan, which means "live more" in Spanish.

Fernando Machado, Burger King's senior vice president of global brand management, noted in an interview that "Have It Your Way" focuses only on the purchase — the ability to customize a burger. By contrast, he said "Be Your Way" is about making a connection with a person's greater lifestyle.

"We want to evolve from just being the functional side of things to having a much stronger emotional appeal," said Machado, who joined the company in March.

Whether the new tag line can help Burger King's image over the long term remains to be seen. The company, along with McDonald's Corp., is fighting to boost sales at a time when people are moving toward foods they feel are fresher or higher quality. And Laura Ries, president of the brand consulting firm Ries & Ries, noted that companies can come across as trying too hard to be cool.

"The problem is that people don't see themselves as living the Burger King lifestyle," she said. "You've got to be realistic with the place that your brand holds in real life."

Burger King says new slogan was developed with ad agency DAVID, a unit of WPP.

Machado noted that Burger King hasn't been actively using the "Have It Your Way" slogan for some time in the U.S. The company, which is based in Miami, Florida, also will stop using its more recent "Taste Is King" motto. "Be Your Way" will start in the U.S. but eventually be rolled out globally, the company says.

The switch is the latest in a series of marketing and menu changes under Burger King's new management. The chain was bought by investment firm 3G Capital in late 2010, then taken public again in 2012. Soon after, 3G replaced the chain's CEO and early this year, Axel Schwan was appointed as global chief marketing officer.

In the latest quarter, Burger King said sales at U.S. restaurants open at least a year edged up 0.1 percent, hurt by bad weather.

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Follow Candice Choi atwww.twitter.com/candicechoi

D.C. Collects more than Bills!

They are some of the rarest bobblehead dolls ever produced. They're released erratically. They're given away for free, not sold. And if you get a certificate to claim one, you have to redeem it at a Washington, DC, law office.

The limited edition bobbleheads of U.S. Supreme Court justices are the work of law professor Ross Davies, who has been creating them for the past 10 years. When finished, they arrive unannounced on the real justices' desks, secreted there by unnamed confederates. And fans will go to some lengths to get one.

"I think we take seriously trying to do them well," said Davies, a law professor at Virginia's George Mason University and the editor of an entertaining quarterly legal journal called The Green Bag.

Subscribing to the journal is the most reliable way to get a voucher to claim a bobblehead when they are released, but there's no guarantee. The certificates warn that the bearer "might be able" to exchange it for a bobblehead, and the journal also hands out some bobbleheads to non-subscribers, including law school public interest groups that auction them at fundraisers. Some ultimately wobble their way onto eBay, where they reliably sell for hundreds of dollars.

The justices themselves seem to have been charmed by their caricatures. Antonin Scalia once said in an interview that he understands his is the most popular. Stephen Breyer had four of the figures of his colleagues on display in his chambers during a 2009 C-Span interview. His own is currently in the works. And former Chief Justice William Rehnquist sent a thank-you note for his, which was the first to come out in 2003.

"Thank you for the 'bobble-head' likeness of me which now sits on the mantle of the fireplace in my chambers," Rehnquist wrote. "It is probably a better likeness of me as I was 15 years ago than as I am now, but obviously I won't complain."

Davies said the idea for the bobbleheads came to him in the shower. In the decade since, he has immortalized 16 justices in ceramic, including four of the current court's nine members. Included in that total are a set of miniature bobbleheads representing the first justices appointed to the court. Certificates for the newest tiny justice, John Blair, recently went out.

The dolls, which are produced by Bellevue, Wash.,-based Alexander Global Promotions, are more than straight likenesses of the justices. Each has multiple references to the legal legacy of the person it honors. For example, Justice Louis Brandeis rides a train, a nod to his important opinion in a case involving the Erie Railroad in Pennsylvania. The David Souter bobblehead plays a song by "Modest Mouse," a group he mentioned in a copyright case. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg stands on a replica of the parade ground at the Virginia Military Institute. In 1996 she wrote an opinion striking down the school's all-male admissions policy.

Annotated sheets help collectors decode the details, which fans have been known to memorize and recite for visitors.

"It's like proof of their legal geekdom," said Gregory Jacob, a Washington law firm partner and part of a small group of Green Bag editors who help create the bobbleheads.

No detail is too small. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's bobblehead replicates the shoes she wore on Sept. 25, 1981, the day she was sworn in as the court's first female member. John Paul Stevens stands on a Betamax VCR, a nod to his opinion in a copyright case involving the device. When the VCR wasn't turning out right in production, Davies bought one on eBay and shipped it to China for a bobblehead sculptor to study. So far, Davies has gone through four drafts of the upcoming Breyer bobblehead, which portrays Breyer engaged in a favorite activity, riding his bike.

The attention to detail delights devotees, who have been known to drive hundreds of miles to pick up their bobbleheads. And the figurines often are displayed in a prominent place in their owners' offices.

Charmiane Claxton, a federal judge in Tennessee, said she contemplated insuring her collection, especially since she got her Scalia and O'Connor dolls signed by the justices. And Mark Killenbeck, a University of Arkansas law professor who collects the bobbleheads, says other faculty members have made "veiled threats to steal them."

Robert Henry, a former federal appeals court chief judge who now heads Oklahoma City University, displays his collection in the school's law library. The school is moving to a new building, and he says he plans a prominent spot for the dolls. Henry says he talks to Ross Davies every so often just to make sure his subscription to The Green Bag is paid up so he doesn't miss an issue, or a bobblehead.

"I do not want to miss one," he said.

- Etta Taylor