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Police Violently Arrested A 73-Year-Old Woman With Dementia. Then, They Laughed At Her.

April 29, 2021BruceDayne

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

This week, cell phone video footage showed police in Loveland, CO violently arrested an 80-pound woman with dementia, fracturing her arm, spraining her wrist, and dislocating her shoulder. Hours after the arrest, which happened in June, the officers laughed about the incident: “I thought it went great,” one of them says in the released booking cell video. “I think we crushed it.”

Employees at a Walmart in Loveland called the police after 73-year-old Karen Garner allegedly pulled off an employee’’ mask and left the store without paying for items worth $13.88. The cops found her plucking flowers on the side of the road, and she repeatedly insisted that she was “going home” as they pushed her to the ground and handcuffed her. She was brought to jail, where she wasn’t given medical care until six hours later, according to a new lawsuit.

A lawyer representing Garner’s family who previously released bodycam footage of the arrest has now decided to release a cell video depicting the officers laughing and boasting about the incident. “When I had her pushed against the car when you first got there, I was like, ‘Okay, you’re gonna play,’ and I was pushing, pushing, pushing, I hear, pop. I was like, ‘Oh no,'” Officer Austin Hopp recounts in the video. Later, as they rewatch the footage, he jokes, “Ready for the pop? Hear the pop?”

Officer Daria Jalali, who was also involved in Garner’s arrest, shields her eyes and says, “I hate it. I hate this.” Another officer, Tyler Blackett, laughs and responds, “I love it.”

On April 14, Garner’s family filed a lawsuit against the city and three officers involved in the arrest. In the suit, they argue that Garner has dementia and sensory aphasia, which impeded her ability to understand the officers. After watching the booking cell footage, they amended the suit, accusing two more officers of failing to help Garner and call for medical assistance. The District Attorney’s office said in an April 19 statement that the incident is under criminal investigation, and the city of Loveland announced that another investigation would be conducted to determine whether the officers followed protocol. But since the cell phone footage has been widely released, on Tuesday, four officers were placed on administrative leave. Refinery29 will not be linking to the video.

“Karen is our mother. She is our children’s grandmother. She is a human being,” the family told The Washington Post in a statement. “The Loveland Police treated her like an animal. They reveled in her pain and did nothing to address it. They relished in stripping her of all dignity. Our hearts could not ache more.”

The lawsuit emphasizes the need to train officers how to interact with elderly people or those with disabilities like Garner. Lawyer Sarah Schielke said that, in this instance, the police should have requested a mental health unit. But Garner’s arrest wasn’t an isolated event — instead, it’s just another example of the police failing to understand and help someone with a mental health condition or illness, and further proof that mental health experts should be tasked with solving and de-escalating these kinds of situations.

“There is a cost associated with these controversial incidents,” Johnny Rice II, Dr.PH, a professor of criminal justice at Coppin State University, wrote in a 2020 blog post for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “For instance, family members and friends may be reluctant to call the police for assistance in a crisis if they think their loved one may get hurt or killed as a result of their intervention.”

Rice pointed to a 2016 incident in which Arnaldo Rios Soto, a man with autism, ran away from a Miami group home. A bystander called the police after watching Soto sit down in the middle of the street. When officers — and also his behavioral therapist, Charles Kinsey — arrived at the scene, Kinsey calmly attempted to explain that Soto posed no threat. An officer tried to shoot Soto and shot Kinsey instead.

“It is my opinion that the officer did not consider the context provided by Kinsey: that a man with a developmental disorder needed help and posed no harm,” wrote Rice. “What may be perceived by an officer as a person’s failure to reply to orders might simply reflect symptoms.”

There was also the 2013 murder of Ethan Saylor, a 26-year-old with Down syndrome: When Saylor tried to enter a movie theater with an old ticket, several off-duty officers working as security guards confronted him and tried to drag him out of the theater. He “ended up on the floor with at least one deputy on top of him,” wrote Saylor’s parents in a lawsuit. He stopped breathing and was then pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. His death was ruled a homicide, but the deputies were cleared of all charges. The state of Maryland, however, did implement new required training on responding to similar situations.

Or take the case of Daniel Prude, who was pushed and pinned to the ground in March 2020 after officers found him naked, rambling, and roaming a street in Rochester, NY. “I placed the phone call for my brother to get help. Not for my brother to get lynched,” said his brother, Joseph, according to NPR.

Isabella Collins, whose brother Angelo Quinto was also killed after she called the police for help dealing with a mental health episode, echoed this statement. “I just wanted him to be able to calm down, and I thought they could help with that,” she told The Associated Press. “I guess it was really naive of me to think that he wouldn’t get hurt.”

And it shouldn’t be. But according to the Police Shootings Database, almost one out of four people killed by officers since 2015 had a mental illness, even though at least 34 states already require law enforcement to undergo specific training. Some states have proposed even more training, but after so many preventable tragedies, trends, and heartbreaking videos like the one of Garner’s arrest, it’s clear that the problem will only be solved when situations related to mental health, developmental issues, and disabilities are handled by the people best equipped to deal with them. And those people will never be the police.

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Feeling Burnt Out? Maybe It’s Because You Haven’t Taken A Real Day Off In A Year

April 29, 2021BruceDayne

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

For most of the pandemic, Frankie, a social worker living in Kentucky, took barely a single day off work. She had her usual weekends and national holidays, but she didn’t use any PTO until March 2021 — and that was only because she had to have her gallbladder removed. Instead, she threw herself into her work.

About a month after the gallbladder surgery, however, she realized she was hitting a wall. “I was so stressed out by my medical bills from the surgery, and in my field we also deal with a lot of emotionally exhausting things,” Frankie tells Refinery29. “I just got to the point where I realized I really needed a day to myself.” That night, Frankie emailed her boss to say she was taking a mental health day and wouldn’t be coming in tomorrow. When she woke up, she called the hospital and asked about payment options for her bills. Once that stress was off her shoulders, she masked up and went to her favorite park.

Taking PTO has been particularly fraught in the past year. “Especially earlier on in the pandemic, people were not taking [time off] because, for one, there was no place to go,” says Lisa Frydenlund, an HR Knowledge Advisor at the Society for Human Resource Management. “Staycations are good, but not as fun as vacations. Plus, taking time away may not have been a whole lot different from your regular life if you were working at home with four-legged creatures — I mean dogs! — or children or family members. It was still in the same space and you were not getting a moment to yourself.”

But even pre-pandemic, WFH employees were likely to take fewer breaks and sick days than those who worked in offices, a 2014 Stanford University study found. This trend only worsened over the last year. Approximately 66% of employees working from home thought their employer would disapprove of them taking a sick day for anything other than COVID-19, a study of 2,000 people by OnePoll and ColdCalm found.

WFHers often felt that with no risk of spreading a cold — or something worse — to other employees, no need to suffer through a commute, and much less pressure to look professional (no one can see your sweatpants on Zoom), they couldn’t justify taking a sick day. “There’s a different expectation because before, you couldn’t get up and go to the office if you were really sick, but at home you can tell yourself, ‘I can roll over to my chair and make it work,’” Frankie says.

Fear may also explain why employees have been so reluctant to leave their (remote) desks. Unemployment rates soared to 14.7% amid the pandemic — a high reminiscent of the Depression era — compared to 3.5% in February 2020. This prompted some folks to overwork themselves, hoping to prove their worth to their employers.

Of course, workers’ anxieties about taking time off aren’t always imagined. If you’re working in a toxic environment, you may not feel comfortable taking vacation or sick days, even if they’re available to you, says Denise M. Rousseau, PhD, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who has researched worker well-being. Many other Americans don’t have any PTO to take, especially folks who work for smaller employers, says Dr. Rousseau. The U.S. enforces no federal or state statutory minimum paid vacation, and only some states require paid sick leave. And many people aren’t able to choose where they work based solely, or even partially, on PTO policy.

It’s often the workers who need time off the most who don’t have it. “One factor in Hispanic and [Black] populations being more likely to contract COVID-19 is employment in occupations associated with public contact and that cannot be done remotely,” Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said during a discussion of the American Rescue Plan. “The sad fact is that most workers in these occupations are less able to be absent from their job or to have paid time off.”

Megan Rice, PsyD, a Talkspace therapist, says that the onus to ensure workers have and take adequate time off should fall on employers. “Vacation and sick leave are good for the worker and employer,” Dr. Rousseau agrees. “They help people recover, especially if they have discretion over when they take the time… It’s just good work hygiene to insist people take time off.”

But Dr. Rousseau adds that it’s also up to employees to advocate for themselves if they need a break. Some people truly can’t take time off — but many others don’t take PTO often because they’re afraid of upsetting their bosses or coworkers. Sometimes that fear is based in reality, and other times it has more to do with self-inflicted pressure. It’s important to know the difference, and advocate for yourself when possible. “We get what we tolerate,” Dr. Rousseau says. “You don’t owe your employer your mental and physical health. These are resources only you can control.” She recommends that people who struggle with letting themselves take a break remind themselves that it’s not just normal to take time off and sick leave — it’s critical.

PTO really is that serious, especially this year. “We need more recognition of the need for recovery,” Dr. Rousseau says. “Current events and things going on in the workplace are driving employee depression and anxiety, and taking huge tolls, not only on the mental well-being and physical well-being of employees, but also on their performance on the job.”

The lack of time off may have been less damaging had the pandemic not lasted so long. Early on, most people weren’t sure how long we’d been dealing with COVID-19 and the related restrictions, so they often planned to just wait it out — in another month, many of us kept telling ourselves, we’d be back to normal. “We were pushing through,” says Andrea Agalloco, MSW, LICSW, a social worker and mental wellness counselor at Liv by Advantia Health.

But, although the vaccination roll-out is looking successful, a year-plus into the COVID-19 crisis, it’s now clear that a return to workplace normalcy is going to be a long, slow process, she says. And workers can no longer afford to wait to take time off. Forty-one percent of employees are feeling burned out from their work amid the pandemic, the Society for Human Resource Management’s COVID-19 research report found. People like Frankie are hitting their breaking points now. And though it seems like a small step, a mental health day can be hugely beneficial.

Over time, a lack of breaks will begin to wear you down and disrupt your ability to function in all areas of your life — work and home. “If you’re starting to notice burn out and it’s harder to get up in the morning or harder to fall asleep at night because you’re overstimulated from your workday, you’re probably not operating in terms of your full potential,” says Agalloco. “When someone is able to take a break, oftentimes they can return to their work and feel more able to do it.”

A day off can also be the wake up call you need if you’re in a workplace with problems. It can give you the energy to get yourself out of a toxic situation, Dr. Rousseau says. “One of the features of PTO and recovery days is they get people out of the tunnel vision from day-to-day pressure so that they can put their head up, look around, and reassess,” she notes. “That reappraisal and looking around at the broader options, they’re important for the mental wellbeing and for [figuring out] the next steps you take.”

“Increased irritability, an increased need to isolate, and a higher tendency to get lost in our own dysfunctional thoughts” are a few indicators that you may need a break, Rice says. So are “escape fantasies,” which is when you wake up in the morning and almost immediately begin plotting excuses to call in sick. If you’ve noticed these red flags — or if you are at all physically ill — it’s likely time to take a day off.

If you can’t take a full day because of childcare responsibilities or your employer’s policies, Agalloco stresses the importance of carving out space to decompress and focus on your own mental health needs. Try to find 30 minutes a few times a week to do something that you love — or to give yourself a chance to rest. “Listen to your body and your mind and give it what it needs during this time,” she says.

A few hours or a day can be restorative, but it’s not a cure-all. “If you feel like you can’t unwind, even when engaging in hobbies or otherwise enjoyable activities, it means that it’s time to rethink your personal care plan,” Dr. Rice says. Seeking the guidance of a therapist can be helpful in reducing burnout; so can turning to less-formal social support systems, like family members or friends.

But for many people, a mental health day (or even a half-day) is a great starting point on the road back from burnout. “Taking time away from work means leaning into disconnecting, relaxing, and being present,” Dr. Rice says. “We know that down time actually boosts productivity down the road and boosts our creativity in the moment. We would all be better people if we took time off from work.”

This was the case for Frankie, who says she came back to work on April 7 after her mental health day feeling refreshed. “I needed the day to handle things with my medical bills, but also to just breathe,” she says. “I’ve been so stressed, and I’ve been crying my eyes out. I knew I needed to do something about that and take the time for myself ”

At the park, Frankie and her boyfriend enjoyed the nice weather, held hands, and sat on their favorite bench, where they used to hang out and talk pre-COVID. “There was a nostalgia to it,” she says. “It was freeing.”

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There’s A Petition Asking Jill Biden To Un-Melania The Rose Garden

April 29, 2021BruceDayne

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

Like the rest of our country, the White House Rose Garden was left damaged by the Trump administration. In order to “fulfill the dynamic needs of the modern presidency,” according to CNN, former First Lady Melania Trump renovated the historic garden in summer 2020. As a result of those changes, which resulted in a bleak and cold space that lacked any semblance of joy, chaos ensued. (Not actually, but people tweeted a lot about how bad it looked.) Now, 42,000 people — and counting — are calling on Dr. Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff to restore the garden to its original state. Or, if you will, un-Melania the thing.

The Change.org petition was started in March, but it really gained traction last week. “In 2019, Melania Trump had the cherry trees, a gift from Japan, removed as well as the rest of the foliage and replaced with a boring tribute to herself,” wrote creator Liz Tapanes. “We want Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff to take this on and restore the Rose Garden to Jackie’s original design.”

Some supporters say they view a possible restoration as an important symbolic gesture. “I’m signing to restore positive traditions and move away from all the damage caused by Trump and his sycophants,” wrote one signer. Others are just livid that the garden, once full of color and flowers, had been made dull and lifeless. “Please restore the rose garden to its former look. The Trump look is terrible. It’s not warm and beautiful. Too many straight lines,” commented another person.

Gardeners and horticulturists weighed in, too: “I am a gardener. The reasons given for Melania Trump ‘re-doing’ the garden were incorrect and bogus,” one wrote. “Please restore it.”

Photograph I took of the White House Rose Garden early last month, which shows its evisceration by previous administration last year: pic.twitter.com/i3VJWRwiX8
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) April 16, 2021

As the petition states, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy oversaw the last major renovation of the Rose Garden in 1962. Americans were particularly furious to learn that Trump had removed Kennedy’s colorful crabapple trees. (The trees were reportedly planted elsewhere on the White House grounds.)

But even putting aside the garden’s history, Trump’s redesign just looked, well, soulless. And many people wondered why she decided it was a priority to revamp spaces like the Rose Garden and the White House Tennis Pavilion in the midst of a global pandemic and economic crisis. To that, she just said, “I encourage everyone who chooses to be negative & question my work at the @WhiteHouse to take time and contribute something good & productive in their own communities. #BeBest.”

Dr. Biden hasn’t yet commented on whether she’ll be overhauling the Rose Garden herself, but it’s certainly a possibility. In February, she gave an update on former First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House Kitchen Garden, which she said is still “going strong” more than 10 years after it was planted. Maybe under her leadership, the Bidens and Harris-Emhoffs can Make Gardens Beautiful Again.

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