@FL_corrections: either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that seizures end lives

DOC scrubs testimony from prison whistle-blower for allegedly violating HIPAA | Naked Politics

Doug Glisson, an inspector with the DOC’s Office of Inspector General, testified under oath at the March 10 meeting of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that the agency covered up potentially negligent medical care, criminal activity and sabotaged investigations to protect high ranking officials within the organization.

Among the examples Glisson cited was the case of inmate Quintin Foust, whose death was listed as “suspicious” by the medical examiner. Glisson said Foust was “undergoing medical care” at Jefferson Correctional Institution but did not provide any details about his medical condition or ailments. He said Foust “started having seizures” and “wound up dying.”

via DOC scrubs testimony from prison whistle-blower for allegedly violating HIPAA | Naked Politics.

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There is a great deal to be upset about in the remainder of the Miami Herald article about Florida’s deadly prisons, but as I’m being stonewalled by the Florida Department of Corrections on their ongoing failure to protect incarcerated innocent Gary Bennett – who has epilepsy – the above two paragraphs hit me hard, and not just because I have epilepsy, too.

I’ve been an advocate for Veterans since the Vietnam war, and there is a virtual epidemic of Vets returning from conflict with Traumatic Brain Injury that gave them epilepsy, and often PTSD … any brain injury that is sufficient to alter your brainwaves is certainly sufficient to cause emotional trauma.

These Vets are getting arrested and convicted for displaying symptoms of epilepsy and/or PTSD, and a prison sentence is not how to say, “Thank you for your service.”

PTSD is a treatable mental illness; it shouldn’t be criminalized.

Neither should epilepsy. Seizures can take bizarre forms – disrobing in public, walking in circles, making random pushing motions, staring blankly into space, talking nonsense, and more. No matter how offensive seizures look or sound, they never become crimes.

Governor Rick Scott isn’t enforcing current laws. It isn’t legal for corrections officers to kill an inmate by use of force, or by negligence. It therefore falls to Florida lawmakers to set aside their contentious attempts at legislating reform of our prisons, and author a veto-proof bill that will make recall or impeachment of lawless governors constitutional. Right now.

Quintin Foust was 5’11” and weighed 126 pounds. In the picture above, he looks more like a Holocaust victim than a Florida inmate.

It’s possible that I’ve seen him around a time or two, but can’t place his face due to his emaciation … he lived here in St. Lucie County.

Foust’s five-year sentence would have been been completed in August.

He died on November 15, 2012, proving yet again that surviving a Florida prison for even a short time is a very difficult thing to do.

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