The nightmare begins immediately following the intake process, which, a nightmare in itself, includes being forced to strip naked and taking a shower in a stall located just inside the entrance before being allowed any further into the building, a full blown medical exam that is as invasive as the shower experience, and a drive-thru psychological exam which may yield yet undiscovered mental health problems faster than it takes to decide if you want fries with that. After going through the intake wringer patients are taken to their rooms where they are given a few minutes of rest before being introduced to their tormentors, the Security Therapy Aides; more infamously known as STAs. Lead by a bald 300+ pound, loud, vulgar, belligerent, less attractive doppelganger for Jaba The Hut that goes by the name of Michael McDonald, they appear in the new patients' doorways three to five members strong with such warm welcomes as, "We run this motherfucker, you don't run shit," or, "We better not have any problems out of you," or even, "Don't find out the hard way." Sometimes they skip the pleasantries and get right down to business as one poor, unsuspecting patient found out when, on his first day in Chester's House, STA Tyler Hunter entered his room unannounced and, without provocation, punched the unaware patient in the back of the head when he wasn't looking then proceeded to beat on him for another minute or two before leaving as if nothing had happened. STA Tyler Hunter, when not declaring his deep fascination with gay porn to his co-workers or forcing patients that can't defend themselves to perform oral sex on him, has developed a well-deserved reputation as one of the most feared members of the notorious good squad known as STAs. But this one instance of abuse is not even the tip of the iceberg; it is a drop in the ocean.
From verbal to psychological to physical abuse, every day at Chester Mental Health Center is an exercise in despair. One of the most extreme forms of abuse happens when patients are placed in restraints then left to be physically attacked while immobilized and defenseless. During one such attack a restrained patient by the name of Jimmy Lee (Rest In Peace) passed out from the beating being administered by STA Karl Williams, who specializes in this department, only to regain consciousness some time later to find out that the attack was still taking place. The degree of depravity of these attacks has no boundaries. Not only are the restrained patients beaten in the face and head, they are choked, spit on, kicked in the ribs, elbowed, and punched in the groin; or worse! Some patients have even made claims of being sodomized and other unimaginable violations. There is no mistaking the atmosphere of fear and intimidation that resides in Chester's House of Horrors. Patients are abused on such a regular basis that some simply accept it as a way of life and give up on the idea of making use of a broken and corrupted reporting process that, more often than not, turns against them. The abuse goes unchecked because every responsible party turns a blind eye to or even encourages, and/or anticipates, in the egregious offenses. From the Office of Inspector General (OIG) Representative to the nursing staff to the employee union, everyone is complicit with the abuses and violations taking place.
For his part, OIG Representative Doug Hogan, also head of security, cannot be legitimately expected to be fair and impartial since he was once a member of the staff committing the abuses and lying to cover for each other. That's right; the fox has been put in charge of the hen house and given the keys to the gates. In some cases he even uses the information gathered from the victim to try to convince the psychiatrist that the victim is delusional and needs more medication even though he knows that the allegations have merit. It is no wonder the majority of the reported instances of abuse are eventually ruled "unfounded."
The nursing staff is even more culpable. They see and distribute medication to the patients on a daily basis, some as often as three or four times a day, and the signs of abuse (the battered and swollen faces, the bruises, the loose teeth and bleeding gums, and the looks of despair, shame, and hopelessness on the victims' faces and in their eyes; not to mention the cries for help and mercy during an active attack) are visible and undeniable. Yet these nurses who witness all of this say and do nothing. In this and other ways they both condone and perpetuate the abuse. You see, they often times launch the opening salvo only to deliver the final blow. Many staff members, including the nurses themselves, find sport in getting some patients worked up by tormenting them with their own psychological issues, or by verbally abusing patients and insulting their loved ones. They even use other patients to target and harass the patient they're after, sometimes compensating one patient with food and other favors for physically attacking another patient. They even let the housekeeping staff in on the fun. And when the targeted patient has finally had enough and suffers a mental breakdown or gets into a fight they are physically restrained on restraint beds and injected, by the nurses, with sedatives to subdue and make them defenseless. Then the cycle of abuse is taken to a new level as the staff now has free reign to have their way with the now defenseless victim who is strapped to a torture device in a room with no cameras.
Make no mistake about it, many, if not most, of these patients have criminal backgrounds and some will even live out the rest of their lives in this or similar facilities. But regardless of that fact, they also have rights; legal rights; constitutional rights; basic human rights. And those rights are being violated without care or concern for repercussion.
Every so often, however, there is a staff member with ethics who will report the abuses. But what happens next exposes an even more troubling revelation; the employee union, AFSCME Local 424, and the corrupt reporting process trump criminal law. In one such instance, when an administrative staff member caught an STA in the act of physically violating a patient in restraints, it was reported and an internal investigation was initiated. And that has been the full extent of the consequences for over a year. Although this incident was reported by a long-tenured and trusted senior staff member with an impeccable track record, there have been no criminal charges filed for what can be nothing less than aggravated assault and battery, never mind patient abuse or even torture. In the meantime the investigation, which, like most of those initiated by the abused patients themselves, will most likely be deemed "unfounded", drags on while this sadistic abuser shows up to work daily and collects a state paycheck. Even though this individual is not allowed to be around other patients until the matter is "resolved", their job and freedom are protected by the employee union until a determination is made. Sadly, even if the investigation finds in favor of the victim, as has happened on rare occasions in the past, with the help of the union the culprit will more than likely still be allowed to keep their job and avoid criminal charges; as has also happened in the past. Therefore, it is fair to say that some of the worst criminals at Chester Mental Health Center get to go home to their families every day.
But the uphill battle for justice for the patients gets even steeper still. As if the deck wasn't already stacked against them enough, there is yet another, hugely significant hurdle to scale in seeking ethical treatment and resolution of the violations; nepotism. Not only is the staff taught to turn a blind eye to abuse and cover for each other from day one in the institution, apparently, in some cases, it also starts at home. And with the proper placement, some is enough to control all. Take for instance the case of STA1 Melissa Miller, who has steadfastly developed a reputation as being one of the most calculating, vindictive, and downright evil people walking the halls of Chester's House. She manipulates low-functioning patients with diminished mental capacities into doing her bidding when targeting other patients with low thresholds for negative stimulation. She violates HIPAA laws by ensuring that every patient knows the details of each others' patient files and she initiates a fair amount of the incidents in which patients end up in restraints and physically abused. She basically shows up to work to create as much discomfort for the patients as humanly possible and she does this with impunity and reckless abandon. Yet no one dares to oppose her. For what the ones who already know that the ones who don't find out the hard way when they try to stand up to her is, that it is and exercise in futility. You see, the next step up the ladder of authority and the complaint process is none other than STA2/Charge-Aide William Miller, her husband; and it doesn't take much observation to recognize who wears the pants in that household. If William Miller knows what's good for him a patient's complaint is dead before it even leaves their lips. Or, perhaps, he's just an intelligent man who knows when his goose is cooked. He not only has to answer to the woman who has him by the balls when he gets home (when she's not cheating on him with one of their co-workers), he also has to answer to her mother at work. That's right, William Miller's boss, and the very next step in the complaint process, is none other than Jama Klausing, his mother-in-law. If William Miller doesn't give Melissa her way, her mother is going to have her way with him. Talk about being stuck being a rock and a hard place; but the patients pay the price. This dynamic is enough to wreak havoc, forge alliances, and provide enough cover for tyranny to reign all by itself, but as fate would have it there are multiple such relationship hurdles for patients to clear in their futile fight for justice at Chester Mental Health Center. Perhaps none are more toxic than the type that exists between Nurse Ashlie Cushman and her husband, STA J.R. Cushman. This type of relationship doesn't simply steepen the incline up the chain of command in the pursuit for justice; it broadens it across the landscape of responsibility and stands as a warning sign for all who dare infringe on the status quo. The incentive for a nurse to report or prevent abuses is greatly diminished, if not completely eliminated, when doing so would potentially mean taking food off the table or negatively impacting the lucrative pension that will help carry them through retirement. And in a city like Chester, Illinois where the patients are counted as part of the population of less than 9,000 this is a significant loss as there aren't a whole lot of other options. Faced with the choice of protecting one's self interest and enduring what would essentially be a self-inflicted wound, it isn't hard to imagine the decision being made to turn a blind eye. This is where toxic alliances can be formed between STAs, for just as the husband/wife team won't betray each other, neither would they betray each other's colleagues for fear of alienating one another at work. Who wants to be friends with the guy whose wife is sniping pension plans? And why would any other nurse put themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to oppose the ones whose relationships command their silence on a daily basis? They wouldn't. Under the protection of these relationships the goon squad throughout the entire facility need not fear the detection of their abuses by the one group of people best positioned to do so. With all the obstacles patients have to face it's hard to imagine how things could get worse. Yet, somehow, things get worse.
Perhaps it's because the housekeeping staff is too busy sitting around harassing patients to do their jobs properly, but the health code violations are staggering! Staff members and support personnel alike display what can only be seen as an institution-wide blatant disregard for health code measures. The patient rooms are cleaned poorly and infrequently using mops, when used at all, that are used to clean the communal showers and staff restrooms. Restrooms that are located in the midst of patient common areas and are used as smoking pits where STAs frequently take smoke breaks, leaving a trail of the smell of cigarette smoke behind them as they re-emerge to continue their shifts. The restrooms are also where they go to use their cell phones which, according to state laws and HIPAA regulations, they're not allowed to bring into the building. The communal showers are cleaned once weekly, or less, even though they are used daily by multiple patients. Yet patients are not given shower shoes to wear. They are forced to buy them at $4.30/pair despite the facility receiving $783.00 per day, per patient. If the patients are indigent, as most are, they have to use the filthy showers barefoot. The chairs and tables in the common areas are hardly ever cleaned and the floors are cleaned so infrequently that those patients who are inclined to do so can often find food to eat off the ground and furniture whenever they please. In what should be considered the second sign of things to come for a new patient, they are usually placed in rooms that are filthy to the point that the toilets are still splattered with urine and fecal matter from patients past, however long ago it was they left, and the floors are covered in layers of dirt and hair. To very little surprise, the rooms are infested year round with spiders, ants, crickets and other bugs. But it may not all be attributable to the housekeeping staff time while sitting around harassing patients, it may also have something to do with the fact that some housekeeping personnel often double as food prep/kitchen personnel, taking breaks from poorly cleaning to handle and serve patient meals. Sadly, there is no boundary too sacred to cross at this facility. Some STAs jokingly state, "If you weren't crazy when you got here, you will be when you leave," and in situations so dire, they just might be right.
Take all of these elements and place them in a secluded, remote setting and what prevails is a recipe for abuse being cooked up by a staff so comfortable in their behavior they don't even try to hide it anymore; if they ever did at all. It's the reason why STAs like Karl Williams run around challenging patients to "handle it like men" when they protest being spoken to in a degrading manner; or why STA Tyler Hunter enters patients' rooms and chokes them out or force them to perform oral sex on him while Karl Williams stands watch; or why the likes of Cliff Wisely, who took his turn at beating a schizophrenic patient while he was in restraints, are staff favorites; why STA2 William Miller doesn't "give a fuck" that he gets at least three notices a week that he's been written up by patients. It's the reason why STA Bruce Williams has walked around for more than twenty years wearing racially inciting paraphernalia while spewing racial slurs and coordinating plots to contaminate patient food with dog feces; or why the nursing staff files false reports to punish patients that aren't complicit with the abuse; or why STA Monica Griggs, a white woman, runs around telling "nigga" jokes to black patients in an attempt to get them worked up. It may very well be why another female STA, Erin White, who was recently caught in a sexually compromising position with a patient, still has a job; or why Jarrett Brooks, a cook, feels comfortable flirting (blowing kisses, licking his lips) with the male patients he fancies without fear of losing his job; or why, like the ocean, this list can go on forever. Maybe the most telling sign of their over-inflated sense of self importance is their sale and display of t-shirts bearing the slogan "STA LIVES MATTER", a slogan borrowed from the "BLACK LIVES MATTER" movement, as if someone has done them some sort of injustice by giving them a paycheck and a pension for taking free shots at restrained and defenseless mental health patients suffering from dementia and other debilitating mental illnesses. One thing is for certain; this group is large and in charge and, in their own minds, nothing or no one can touch them.
Whether it's the verbal, psychological, and physical abuse, the deplorable living conditions, or the corrupt and broken system making it all possible, something is definitely rotten in the state of Illinois and that stench is coming from Chester Mental Health Center, Chester's House of Horrors. It is supposed to be a place of healing and recovery, but despite its designation as such, it is no hospital; it is a humanitarian crisis in progress. And with the likes of Melissa Miller being groomed for future leadership, progress is a ride down a long, lonely road in the wrong direction.
To Be Continued...
The second installment of this series will take a deeper look into the corrupt judicial system that allows state prosecutors and judges to employ facilities such as Chester Mental Health Center as a tool for denying injustice and due process to detainees and inmates around the State of Illinois, and the state-employed mental health professionals who serve as their psycholegal mercenaries.
"Three things cannot long stay hidden; the sun, the moon, and the truth."
- Buddha
Addendum
On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 4:30 a.m., patient Jimmy Lee, beloved by many, died as a result of the abuse and neglect imposed on him at Chester Mental Health Center. Please don't let his death be in vain, share this truth.
#HisNameIsJimmyLee #RIPJimmyLee #JusticeForJimmy #WhoKilledJimmyLee #ChestersHouseOfHorrors #ChestersHouse
