MEDICAL WHISTLEBLOWER ADVOCACY NETWORK
Follow Up Report to the
United Nations Human Rights Committee
Concerning the implementation of obligations of
The United States of America
Pertaining to the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (CERD)
As of August 29, 2015
NGO ASSESSMENT OF ACTIONS GOVERNMENT HAS TAKEN ON ISSUE SINCE
REVIEW
CERD/C/USA/CO/7-9
August 29, 2014 (adoption of the Concluding Observations)
August 29, 2015 (Deadline for the State follow-up report)
Current Status: Report of the State still pending
REPORTING ORGANIZATION
Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network
Contact Information: Dr. Janet Parker DVM, Executive Director
P.O. Box 42700, Washington, DC 20015
Email: MedicalWhistleblower@gmail.com
http://medicalwhistleblowernetwork.jigsy.com/
FOLLOW-UP RECOMMENDATION REPORT WILL ASSESS
CERD articles: 5(b) and 6
ASSESSMENT GRADE
Reply/Action of the State party not satisfactory
C1: Response received but actions taken do not implement the recommendation
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RELATED REPORTS BY MEDICAL WHISTLEBLOWER ADVOCACY NETWORK
(MWAN)
1) Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network CAT report, Voiceless Victims: Wards of the Court, 9/22/14
to the 53rd Session in Geneva on November 12 and 13, 2014.
2) Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network (MWAN), Voiceless Victims: Wards of the Court, Report
March 16, 2015.
ISSUE 1 PARAGRAPH 17 EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE BY LAW ENFORCEMENT
OFFICIALS
“While recognizing the efforts made by the State party to intensify the enforcement of relevant laws, the
Committee reiterates its previous concern at the brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement
officials against members of racial and ethnic minorities, including against unarmed individuals, which
has a disparate impact on African Americans and on undocumented migrants crossing the United StatesMexico border (CERD/C/USA/CO/6, para.25). It also remains concerned that despite the measures taken
by the State party to prosecute law enforcement officials for criminal misconduct, impunity for abuses, in
particular those committed by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) against Hispanic/Latino
Americans and undocumented migrants, remains a widespread problem (arts. 5(b) and 6).”
RECOMMENDATION BY COMMITTEE
“The State party should: (a) “Ensure that each allegation of excessive use of force by law enforcement
officials is promptly and effectively investigated; that the alleged perpetrators are prosecuted and, if
convicted, punished with appropriate sanctions; that investigations are re-opened when new evidence
becomes available; and that victims or their families are provided with adequate compensation;”
RECOMMENDATION BY THE COMMITTEE
“(The State party should) also (b) “Intensify its efforts to prevent the excessive use of force by law
enforcement officials by ensuring compliance with the 1990 Basic Principles on the Use of Force and
Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, and ensure that the new CBP directive on the use of force is
applied and enforced in practice;”
CURRENT SITUATION/UPDATE: EXECESSIVE FORCE, ON DISABLED PERSONS OF
COLOR
Racial profiling - the targeting of people by law enforcement officers based on their race or some other
aspect of their identity - is a widespread and growing problem in our country. Thus being a person of
color and also disabled increases the risk of excessive force by police. More than 60% of the people in
prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or
jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on
drugs," in which two-thirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color. i Many killed by
the police were disabled persons who were also persons of color.ii These disabled victims of police force
were often shot and killed by police after there was a request for police assistance to get the person to
mental health care.iii Nationally half of the people killed by police officers had psychiatric disabilities.iv
In many cases, police were responding to requests for assistance to get the person mental health care.
Police are much more prone to consider subjects dangerous and use lethal force against those subjects
who are African American men, even when their disability is known to police. The responding police
officers knew at the time of the lethal incidents that the subjects were unstable psychiatric patients and yet
police interaction escalated to lethal force. This calls into question whether police officers should have
instead respected the comfort zone of the subject, engaged him/her in nonthreatening communications and
used the passage of time to defuse the situation rather than precipitating a deadly confrontation.
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Recent Police Excessive Force to Disabled Persons of Color:
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August 2015 San Francisco California, a black homeless man with prosthetic leg was violently
restrained by a group 14 police officers for 30 minutes. The police were responding to a call
about a black man who was waving his sticks in the air. The “weapons” turned out to be nothing
but his crutches. “These are my crutches. I use these to walk,” the man said in the video as the
cops took them away from him. At one point, one of the officers was clearly seen kneeling on the
victim’s prosthetic leg to contain him and the subject was crying out in pain. The disabled man
was later released without being charged with anything.v
March 2015 An unarmed, homeless, disabled African-American, named Africa, was shot by Los
Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers.
January 2015 Tanisha Anderson, a 37 year old black woman suffering from heart disease and
mental illness died in police custody as a result of being physically restrained in a prone position
by Cleveland police.
March 16, 2014 James Matthew Boyd, 38 years old homeless man suffering from schizophrenia
was fatally shot by Albuquerque Police Department officers.
August 2014 Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old African-American man, diagnosed with depression,
bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, died from multiple gunshot wounds after being shot by Los
Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers.
August 2014 Kajieme Powell, a 25-year-old black man mentally disturbed man, was shot to
death by St. Louis law-enforcement officers after walking toward them with a knife.
2012 Milton Hall, 49 year old mentally ill black man-carrying pen knife, shot by police.vi
Mental illness is commonly diagnosed in minority groups with greater frequency– possibly because of
personal bias and cultural differences. Minorities receive less care and poorer quality of care and 20% of
African Americans are uninsured. Thus African Americans are least likely to have a long-term
continuous doctor-patient relationship with a medical doctor they trust. African Americans were less
likely than others to have received treatment that conformed to recommended practices. The numbers of
mentally ill in the state prison population is five times greater than in the general adult population. The
number of individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails is now estimated to exceed the
number in state psychiatric hospitals tenfold. There has been an increase in the use of antipsychotics and
antidepressants increased dramatically over the last 5 years with the largest cost going for off-label
patented medications. Prisons distribute psychotropic medications to their inmates at an estimated cost to
taxpayers of about $9 billion annually. Inmates who received some psychotropic medication, showed a
greater ratio of aggressive incidents per days on medication than when off medication.vii These psychiatric
drugs have a FDA black box warning labels that indicate that these drugs increase violent thoughts and
suicidal ideation.
Common issues in law enforcement and disabled persons:
 Unexpected actions taken by some people with disabilities might be misconstrued by officers or
deputies as, 'suspicious,' or, 'illegal,' activity or uncooperative behavior.
 People who are deaf or hearing impaired, or who have speech disabilities, or intellectual
disabilities, or who are blind or visually impaired may not recognize or be able to respond to
directions from police officers. These people with disabilities might erroneously be perceived as
being, 'uncooperative.'
 Some people with disabilities may have a staggering gait, or slurred speech as a result of the
disabilities they experience, or the medications they take. The characteristics, which may be
associated with neurological forms of disabilities, mental or emotional disturbances or conditions,
or medical conditions such as hypoglycemia, might be perceived by police officers as
intoxication.
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ACTIONS TAKEN BY THE STATE PARTY IN REGARDS TO EXCESSIVE FORCE ON
PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES:
Numerous studies by public policy experts and the Department of Justice have documented concerns
regarding the use of excessive force against persons of color, migrants, immigrants, asylum seekers and
other minorities. Policy recommendations were are not really implemented. Currently collaboration and
joint planning of educational outreach by police departments to include these protection and advocacy
experts to provide human rights training for field law enforcement officers is limited. Many police
departments are instead depending on training modules which are primarily based on the medical model
of disability rather than a human rights model. Under the medical model, disabled people are defined by
their illness or medical condition. They are disempowered on the basis of a medical diagnosis used to
regulate and control their access to social benefits, housing, education, leisure and employment. This
model promotes the view of a disabled person being a dependent and needing to be cured or cared for,
and it justifies the way in which disabled people have been systematically excluded from society.
Alternatively, police agencies, use a charity model of disability, one in which disabled persons are
helpless victims needing ‘care’ and ‘protection’. The following federally funded agencies and non-profits
are able to provide guidance and training on human rights issues related to use of police force but are
currently underfunded, under resourced, and often not consulted.
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Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) program was established
by Congress in 1986.
Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities (PADD) was
established under the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 42. U.S.C.
Section 6000 et. seq.
The Protection and Advocacy of Individual Rights (PAIR) operates in each state under the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended in 1992.
The Protection and Advocacy for Beneficiaries of Social Security (PABSS), was established
pursuant to the Ticket to Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999.
Protection & Advocacy for Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury (PATBI) Program was
created by the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-166).
May 18, 2015 San Francisco v Sheehan appeal to Supreme Court was decided. Police officers who
forcibly entered the room of a woman with a mental disability and shot her are entitled to qualified
immunity from a lawsuit seeking redress for the woman’s injuries, because there was no clearly
established law requiring them to accommodate her mental illness. The case involved a 2008 police
shooting of a black woman in her mid-50s with a history of psychiatric disability who is in crisis. Instead
of waiting for back-up from properly trained officers, two police officers entered Sheehan's room with
guns drawn and proceeded to shoot her five times.
IMPACT OF THE ACTION OF THE STATE PARTY (IF ANY)
There has been very little decrease of incidents of excessive police force to minorities and persons of
color who are disabled.
The Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act, the Murphy bill HR 3717 would slash funding by over
85% and impose severe restrictions on the minimal program remaining. HR 3717 is an attack on the
recovery model of mental health care that empowers consumers to take an active role in their care
planning and decision making. HR 3717 will make it easier to discriminate against people with
disabilities in housing, education and employment, and lead to fewer individuals receiving the treatment
they need. The bill would eliminate evidence-based, peer-run services and supports that have a proven
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record of reducing health care costs and helping people stay out of the hospital and live successfully in
their communities. The Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) program is
a critical program that protects the lives of those with mental health needs.viii If not for the funding and
authority of the federal PAIMI program, persons with psychiatric disabilities would continue to be
abused, neglected and warehoused in atrocious conditions without access to an effective advocate or legal
remedy. With PAIMI funds, there is monitoring of conditions in state psychiatric hospitals significant
progress in advocating to eliminate deadly restraint practices, promote trauma-informed care that allows
people to recover, and protect individuals from sexual harassment and assault. PAIMI is also successful in
advocating for housing opportunities for people with mental health disabilities, many of whom were
formerly homeless.ix HR 3717 also threatens federal block grant monies going to the states by making the
funding contingent on the enactment of Involuntary Outpatient Commitment. PAIMI believes that it is the
availability of appropriate services and not the court order that keeps people engaged in mental health
care. Many mental health providers believe that coercive treatment is detrimental and makes individuals
reluctant to seek treatment or identify as having a mental health issues.
COMMENTS
The human rights model positions disability affirms that all human beings irrespective of their disabilities
have certain rights which are inalienable. This model builds upon the spirit of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, according to which, ‘all human beings are born free and equal in rights and dignity.’
The principle of diversity provides the foundation to accept disability as part of human variation.
“Nothing about us without us”. Disability rights advocates and in particular those with lived experience
are not engaged to provide policy input or be involved in curriculum development of police training.
Examples of peer support groups for those with mental disabilities include examples such as Intentional
Peer Support (Bristol, VT),x Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (Holyoke, MA),xi and The
Veterans Listening Project (Syracuse, NY).xii It is quite unfortunate that National Alliance on Mental
Illness (NAMI) has increasingly been looked to by law enforcement departments for providing
information about community integration based on outpatient commitment orders. NAMI has been in
strong support of the Murphy Bill HR 3717 which would slash funding to the Protection and Advocacy
for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) program.
i
The Sentencing Project, http://www.sentencingproject.org/
David Perry, “To assess LAPD shooting, look past the moment of gunfire.” CNN.com, 3/2/15,
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/02/opinion/perry-lapd-police-shooting/index.html
iii
David Perry, “Psychiatric Disability & the Police: The search for reasonable accommodations”CNN.com, 8/26/14
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/opinion/perry-police-shooting/index.html?hpt=op_t1
iv
Deadly Force, Police and the Mentally Ill, 4 part series Portland Herald Press,
http://www.pressherald.com/interactive/maine_police_deadly_force_series_day_1/
v
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/08/18/425299/Black-Handicapped-Police-Brutality
vi
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/milton-hall-shooting-video_n_6057402.html
vii
Workman, D. G., & Cunningham, D. G. (1975). Effect of Psychotropic Drugs on Aggression In a Prison Setting.
Canadian Family Physician, 21(11), 63–66.
viii
American Bar Association, 3/31/14 Letter to The Honorable Joe Pitts, Chairman of the Committee on Energy and
Commerce, Subcommittee on Health, U.S. House of Representatives
http://www.ndrn.org/images/Documents/Media/ABA_letter_on_hr_3717.pdf
ix
Submitted Testimony of the National Disability Rights Network, On a Legislative Hearing on H.R. 3717
The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. April 3, 2014
x
Intentional Peer Support, Sherry Mead, 187 Jerusalem Rd. Bristol, VT 05443, info@intentionalpeersupport.org,
802-453-6786.
xi
Western Mass Recovery Learning Community, 187 High St., Suite 303, Holyoke, MA 01040, 413-539-5941,
info@westernmassrlc.org
xii
The Veterans Listening Project, Syracuse, New York, www.veteranslisteningproject.org
ii
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