Borderline patients unfairly labelled violent

January 20, 2012 By Mary Anne Kenny

Most people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are not violent, contrary to the overwhelming body of research, which has unduly focused on those already in the justice system, a systematic review has found.

“Although this may be the case in some patients, they are likely the minority of individuals with BPD,” the researchers from the University of Toronto wrote in Current Psychiatry Reports. “The diagnosis of BPD may be less useful in predicting violence than one might suspect, and violence in BPD may not be as strongly determined by impulsivity as is commonly held.”

Most research had been conducted in unrepresentative samples including prisoners, people undergoing mandated psychiatric treatment, psychiatric patients, substance abusers and delinquent youths, the report noted.

“Clinical lore holds that patients are at risk of committing violence, especially in the context of perceived or feared loss or abandonment in interpersonal relationships,” the researchers said. However, this and other contextual factors needed to be examined more closely.

It was important to look beyond the diagnosis of BPD and individually assess the issue in light of interpersonal relationships and other risk factors for violence, the researchers said.

The diagnostic criteria for the condition included unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, impulsivity, affective instability, and difficulties with controlling intense or inappropriate anger.

These features suggested that aggression might be a common result, but it was important to avoid over-generalising and adding to the heavy burden of stigma that BPD patients already faced, the authors wrote.

Current Psychiatry Reports 2011 doi 10.1007/s11920-011-0244-9

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Tears of freedom, now the bidding war begins

Karen Kissane October 05, 2011

THE family of the murdered girl was bereft; the family of the alleged murderer jubilant.

Amanda Knox

After judges in the Italian hill town of Perugia declared convicted murderer Amanda Knox not guilty on appeal, her sister Deanna said outside court: “We’re thankful that Amanda’s nightmare is over. She has suffered four years for a crime she didn’t commit.”

Ms Knox, 24, was flying home to Seattle last night, where she is expected to receive offers for multimillion-dollar book and movie deals about her ordeal.

TV networks are already bidding for her first interview.

Ms Knox’s mother and other relatives were seen at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport, where Ms Knox joined them on a flight to London before boarding a connection to the United States.

But for the family of the woman she was accused of murdering, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, there was no joy in the legal decision that overturned Ms Knox’s conviction and 26-year jail sentence.

They said in a statement: “We respect the decision of the judges but we do not understand how the decision of the first trial could be so radically overturned. We still trust the Italian justice system and hope that the truth will eventually emerge.”
The prosecutor Giuliano Mignini vowed an appeal to Italy’s highest criminal court.

“Let’s wait and we will see who was right. The first court or the appeal court,” Mr Mignini said.

“This trial was done under unacceptable media pressure. The decision was almost already announced; this is not normal.” If the highest court overturns the acquittal, prosecutors could request Ms Knox’s extradition to finish her sentence.

At an earlier media conference Ms Kercher’s sister Stephanie said the “brutal murder” was being overlooked: “Meredith has been hugely forgotten.” Her brother Lyle said: “It is very hard to find forgiveness at this time. Four years is a very long time but on the other hand it is still raw.”

Judges also acquitted Ms Knox’s alleged partner in crime, her Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. The two had been convicted of raping and murdering Ms Kercher, an English exchange student, in the bedroom of a cottage the two women shared in Perugia in 2007.

The case sparked lurid language and an almost lascivious fascination inside and outside Italy’s justice system.

Judges have yet to give their reasoning but it is thought they relied on experts who testified the original investigation had been botched, with more than 50 errors in the handling of DNA evidence. The two judges, sitting with a six-person jury, were not swayed by the venomous language of the lawyer who had painted Ms Knox as a she-devil for initially falsely blaming her employer, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, for killing Ms Kercher. Mr Lumumba was arrested and jailed for two weeks after Ms Knox claimed she had heard him enter Ms Kercher’s room and then clapped her hands over her ears to muffle screams.

Mr Lumumba’s lawyer told the court: “The woman you see before you today is charming [and] angel faced … [but] she was a diabolical, demonic she-devil. She was muddy on the outside and dirty on the inside. She has two souls, the clean one you see before you, and the other.” He also claimed: “She is borderline. She likes alcohol, drugs and she likes wild, hot sex.”

Borderline personality is a serious psychiatric disorder involving severe mood swings, chaotic personal relationships and sometimes dissociation.

Police had become suspicious early on because of reportedly strange behaviour by Ms Knox, who had allegedly performed cartwheels and splits while waiting to be questioned and who had gone shopping for a g-string the day after the killing, where she was heard promising her boyfriend wild sex.

She was found to have lied about Mr Lumumba. Judges this week sentenced her to three years’ jail for slandering him. She was freed because she has already served four years jail, although she must also pay him €22,000 ($30,600) in damages.

Ms Knox said she lied only after being bullied and cuffed by police, who questioned her without a lawyer present. Ms Knox’s parents reportedly mortgaged their homes to pay her legal fees.

Mobile phone records suggested that she and her boyfriend had been near the scene at the time of the killing and turned off their phones for three hours around the time Ms Kercher is thought to have died.

Prosecutors at one point suggested the killing was the result of an attempted sex game and that Ms Kercher had been raped and killed for refusing to play. But this theory did not fit with the fact that the courts also convicted an Ivory Coast drifter, Rudy Guede, of the killing after DNA samples at the scene were matched to him. Ms Knox barely knew Mr Guede and Mr Sollecito had not met him.

Ms Knox’s father, Curt, said after her conviction “the attacks on Amanda’s character … overshadowed the lack of evidence in the case against her”.

Ms Knox thanked those “who shared my suffering and helped me survive with hope”, in a letter to a foundation that seeks to promote ties between Italy and the US and which has always championed her cause.

Her supporters in the US, where she is expected to take part in a $US1 million ($1.03 million) interview, greeted her acquittal with delight. In Seattle, supporters holding vigil hugged, wept and cheered.
They were not alone. Ms Knox, who had been rushed sobbing from the courtroom by guards, was returned to jail to be formally released. “There was a huge cheer … an ovation from every cell,” one of her supporters, the Italian MP Rocco Girlanda, told journalists. “Everyone was shouting ‘libera, libera!’ [free, free!] It was like being in a football stadium and was something I will never forget. Amanda saluted the other prisoners with a timid wave – she didn’t really know how to react.”

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Casey Anthony BPD or Psychopath or What?

A few days ago I got an email from a member of the ATSTP list asking me what I thought about the possibility of Casey Anthony, who is currently on trial for the murder of her 2 year old daughter (Caylee Anthony), having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In 2008, I was following the case with interest. I have followed it a bit during the trial. I am not a doctor or a mental health professional, yet I have met a LOT of people with BPD (both men and women) and members of their families. I’ve looked at Casey Anthony’s behavior and compared it with the behavior of people that I know with BPD. I pretty much come to the conclusion that Casey Anthony doesn’t have borderline personality disorder. It seems to be more likely that she’s a psychopath. It seems that some criminal profilers agree…

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36551199/ns/today-today_people/t/do-letters-show-casey-anthony-psychopath/

Pat Brown, a criminal profiler, told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira that in her opinion, Anthony is a psychopath who is trying to get potential jurors to feel sorry for her. The letters are the way she does it, Brown said.

“This will prove she’s a new woman. After all, she’s found God,” Brown said, adding that juries will frequently sympathize with a woman who claims she was abused and mistreated but now has found the light.

“A lot of time women go to court, juries start feeling sorry for them,” Brown said. “It’s manipulation.”

Brown called the letters “a wonderful window into how a psychopath thinks.”

Here is some information about psychopathy:

In his 1941 book, Mask of Sanity, Hervey M. Cleckley introduced 16 behavioral characteristics of a psychopath:

• Superficial charm and good “intelligence”
• Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
• Absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations
• Unreliability
• Untruthfulness and insincerity
• Lack of remorse and shame
• Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
• Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
• Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
• General poverty in major affective reactions
• Specific loss of insight
• Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
• Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without
• Suicide threats rarely carried out
• Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
• Failure to follow any life plan.

And here is some information from the Hare checklist:

PCL-R items

The following findings are for research purposes only, and are not used in clinical diagnosis. These items cover the affective, interpersonal, and behavioral features. Each item is rated on a score from zero to two. The sum total determines the extent of a person’s psychopathy.

Factor 1

Aggressive narcissism

Glibness/superficial charm

Grandiose sense of self-worth

Pathological lying

Cunning/manipulative

Lack of remorse or guilt

Emotionally shallow

Callous/lack of empathy

Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Factor 2

Socially deviant lifestyle

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom

Parasitic lifestyle

Poor behavioral control

Promiscuous sexual behavior

Lack of realistic, long-term goals

Impulsiveness

Irresponsibility

Juvenile delinquency

Early behavioral problems

Revocation of conditional release

Traits not correlated with either factor

Many short-term marital relationships

Criminal versatility

One thing we can say about Casey Anthony is that she is a compulsive liar. Here is one story about her continued insistence that she dropped her daughter off a the nanny’s even after the police were aware that it was a lie:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/02/us-crime-anthony-idUSTRE75162O20110602

Accused child killer Casey Anthony insisted that her daughter Caylee was kidnapped by a nanny, even after admitting to detectives that everything else she had told them was a lie, according to a taped interview played for jurors Thursday.

“I dropped her off at the (nanny’s) apartment,” Casey told detectives on July 16, 2008 in a tense exchange about her 2-year-old daughter.

“No you didn’t,” a detective responded.

“That’s exactly where I dropped her off,” Casey said.

“No you didn’t. And who did you drop her off with?” the detective asked.

“I dropped her off with Zenaida,” Casey said.

“No you didn’t,” the detective said.

By then, Detective Yuri Melich testified, he knew the apartment identified by Casey had been vacant for months and no one named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez had ever lived in the apartment complex. Many other details provided by Casey about Caylee’s disappearance had not panned out, he said.

And here is some information from ABC News about Casey Anthony’s “top ten lies”:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/casey-anthony-top-ten-lies/story?id=13742643

• Casey Anthony told police that she spoke to her daughter Caylee on July 15, 2008, the day Caylee was reported missing. She told police Caylee said, “Hi, mommy” and told her a story about her shoes and a book she was reading. “She was excited to talk to me,” Casey Anthony told police. Caylee was already dead.
• She said she had a job as an event planner at Universal Studios. She even led police to a building on the Universal lot and down a hallway until she finally turned to them and admitted she didn’t work there.
• She claimed the babysitter was a former girlfriend of Jeffrey Hopkins, and that Hopkins was also a one time boyfriend of hers. She told her mother, Cindy Casey, that Hopkins had a toddler named Zachary. She had a picture of a man and a boy on her cell phone identified as Hopkins and filed under “boyfriend,” her mother told the court. Hopkins testified that he attended middle school with Anthony. Hopkins said he has no child and never met anyone named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez.
• Casey Anthony described how Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez lived in one neighborhood for several months and then moved to another location. Her story of the babysitter’s move was complete with a description of the apartment’s interior.
• She claimed her friend and co-worker at Universal Studios was named Juliette Lewis. Casey and her mother, Cindy, went to help Lewis with a fundraiser, but after waiting for about 90 minutes, Lewis didn’t show up, Cindy Casey testified. Universal had said that no one named Juliette Lewis worked there.
• Casey Anthony told her mother that the father of Caylee was a man named Eric Baker. She later called home frantically to tell her mother that Eric Baker had been killed in a car crash. Anthony even told detectives she had Baker’s obituary to prove Caylee’s father was dead. It’s never been confirmed Baker is the father of Caylee and it’s still unclear the paternity of Caylee.
• Hopkins’ mother was named Jules and she had cancer. Cindy Anthony even baked a cake for a Christmas season meeting with Hopkins and his mother, but the meeting was cancelled at the last minute.
• Casey Anthony told her mother that she was in Jacksonville and was going to stay longer to attend Jules’ wedding. She was actually staying at the home of her boyfriend Tony Lazzarro and another friend’s apartment in Orlando.
• Casey Anthony told her mother at different times during the month that the girl was missing that Caylee was at Disney World, was at Sea World, was at Universal Studios. Caylee was already dead.
• “I don’t know where she is and that is the God’s honest truth,” Casey Anthony told police on July 16, 2008.

It seems if anyone doesn’t know the “God’s honest truth” is Casey Anthony. Guess we’ll see what happens in her trial.

Here’s my book about BPD:

When Hope is Not Enough
Get the Non-BPD book that is designed for
staying and working on the relationship

Here are some good books about psychopaths:

Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain

Handbook of Psychopathy

The Mask of Sanity (Mosby medical library)

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Getting Someone to Psychiatric Treatment Can Be Difficult and Inconclusive
By A. G. SULZBERGER and BENEDICT CAREY

TUCSON —What are you supposed to do with someone like Jared L. Loughner?

That question is as difficult to answer today as it was in the years and months and days leading up to the shooting here that left 6 dead and 13 wounded.

Millions of Americans have wondered about a troubled loved one, friend or co-worker, fearing not so much an act of violence, but — far more likely — self-inflicted harm, landing in the streets, in jail or on suicide watch. But those in a position to help often struggle with how to distinguish ominous behavior from the merely odd, the red flags from the red herrings.

In Mr. Loughner’s case there is no evidence that he ever received a formal diagnosis of mental illness, let alone treatment. Yet many psychiatrists say that the warning sings of a descent into psychosis were there for months, and perhaps far longer.

Moving a person who is resistant into treatment is an emotional, sometimes exhausting process that in the end may not lead to real changes in behavior. Mental health resources are scarce in most states, laws make it difficult to commit an adult involuntarily, and even after receiving treatment, patients frequently stop taking their medication or seeing a therapist, believing that they are no longer ill.

The Virginia Tech gunman was committed involuntarily before killing 32 people in a 2007 rampage.

With Mr. Loughner, dozens of people apparently saw warning signs: the classmates who listened as his dogmatic language grew more detached from reality. The police officers who nervously advised that he could not return to college without a medical note stating that he was not dangerous. His father, who chased him into the desert hours before the attack as Mr. Loughner carried a black bag full of ammunition.

“This isn’t an isolated incident,” said Daniel J. Ranieri, president of La Frontera Center, a nonprofit group that provides mental health services. “There are lots of people who are operating on the fringes who I would describe as pretty combustible. And most of them aren’t known to the mental health system.”

Dr. Jack McClellan, an adult and child psychiatrist at the University of Washington, said he advises people who are worried that someone is struggling with a mental disorder to watch for three things — a sudden change in personality, in thought processes, or in daily living. “This is not about whether someone is acting bizarrely; many people, especially young people, experiment with all sorts of strange beliefs and counterculture ideas,” Dr. McLellan said. “We’re talking about a real change. Is this the same person you knew three months ago?”

Those who have watched the mental unraveling of a loved one say that recognizing the signs is only the first step in an emotional, often confusing, process. About half of people with mental illnesses do not receive treatment, experts estimate, in part because many of them do not recognize that they even have an illness.

Pushing such a person into treatment is legally difficult in most states, especially when he or she is an adult — and the attempt itself can shatter the trust between a troubled soul and the one who is most desperate to help. Others, though, later express gratitude.

“If the reason is love, don’t worry if they’ll be mad at you,” said Robbie Alvarez, 28, who received a diagnosis of schizophrenia after being involuntarily committed when his increasingly erratic behavior led to a suicide attempt. At the time, he said, he was living in Phoenix with his parents, who he was convinced were trying to kill him. In Arizona it is easier to obtain an involuntary commitment than in many states because anyone can request an evaluation if they observe behavior that suggests a person may present a danger or is severely disabled (often state laws require some evidence of imminent danger to self or others).

But there are also questions about whether the system can accommodate an influx of new patients. Arizona’s mental health system has been badly strained by recent budget cuts that left those without Medicaid stripped of most of their services, including counseling and residential treatment, though eligibility remains for emergency services like involuntary commitment. And the state is trying to change eligibility requirements for Medicaid, which would potentially reduce financing further and leave more with limited services.

Still, people who have been through the experience argue that it is better to act sooner rather than later. “It’s not easy to know when we could or should intervene but I would rather err on the side of safety than not,” said H. Clarke Romans, executive director of the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group, who had a son with schizophrenia.

The collective failure to move Mr. Loughner into treatment, either voluntarily or not, will never be fully understood, because those who knew the young man presumably wrestled separately and privately about whether to take action. But the inaction has certainly provoked second-guessing. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County told CNN last Wednesday that Mr. Loughner’s parents were as shocked as everyone else. “It’s been very, very devastating for them,” he said. “They had absolutely no way to predict this kind of behavior.”

Linda Rosenberg, president of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, said, “The failure here is that we ignored someone for a long time who was clearly in tremendous distress.” Ms. Rosenberg, whose group is a nonprofit agency leading a campaign to teach people how to recognize and respond to signs of mental illness, added, “He wasn’t someone who could ask for help because his thinking was affected, and as a community no one said, let’s stop and make sure he gets help.”

At the University of Arizona, where a nursing student killed three instructors on campus eight years ago before killing himself, feelings of sadness and anger initially mixed with some guilt as the university examined the missed warning signs.

The overhauled process for addressing concerns is now more responsive, even if there are sometimes false alarms, said Melissa M. Vito, vice president for student affairs. “I guess I’d rather explain why I called someone’s parents than why I didn’t do something,” she said.

Many others feel the same way.

Four years ago Susan Junck watched her 18-year-old son return from community college to their Phoenix home one afternoon and, after preparing a snack, repeatedly call the police to accuse his mother of poisoning him. She assumed it was an isolated outburst, maybe connected to his marijuana use. In the coming months, though, her son’s behavior grew more alarming, culminating in an arrest for assaulting his girlfriend, who was at the center of a number of his conspiracy theories.

“I knew something was wrong but I literally just did not understand what,” Ms. Junck, 49, said in a recent interview. “It probably took a year before I realized my son has a mental illness. This isn’t drug related, this isn’t bad behavior, this isn’t teenage stuff. This is a serious mental illness.”

Fearful and desperate, she brought her son to an urgent psychiatric center and — after a five-hour wait — agreed to sign paperwork to have him involuntarily committed as a danger to himself or others. Her son screamed for her help as he was carried off. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and remains in a residential treatment facility.

This week Erin Adams Goldman, a suicide prevention specialist with a mental health nonprofit organization in Tucson, is teaching the first local installment of a course that is being promoted around the country called mental health first aid, which instructs participants how to recognize and respond to the signs of mental illness.

A central tenet is that if a person has suspicions about mental illness it is better to open the conversation, either by approaching the individual directly, someone else who knows the person well or by asking for a professional evaluation.

“There is so much fear and mystery around mental illness that people are not even aware of how to recognize it and what to do about it,” Ms. Goldman said. “But we get a feeling when something is not right. And what we teach is to follow your gut and take some action.”

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There is a diagnosable condition known as a personality disorder. According to the American Psychiatric Association personality disorder typically rears its ugly head in late adolescence but, in rarer instances, childhood. It’s subjective, but a person with borderline personality disorder, should exhibit three or more of the following:

1. Failure to conform to lawful social norms – repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;

2. Deceitfulness – repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;

3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;

4. Irritability and aggressiveness – repeated physical fights or assaults;

5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;

6. Consistent irresponsibility – repeated failure to sustain consistent work behaviour or honour financial obligations;

7. Lack of remorse – being indifferent to or rationalising having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

I’m no psychologist but if you ticked too many of those boxes for yourself or a loved one, with a GP’s referral you can see a qualified psychologist for free in Australia. One referral entitles any Medicare cardholder to 12 free consultations and 12 group sessions.

No, you’re not psychologist all right. The criteria to which she is referring is the criteria for Anti-social Personality disorder, not Borderline Personality Disorder. I think before you post something about which you know next to nothing about, at least get it fact-checked.There’s already enough stigma around BPD without having people attribute ASPD criteria to it as well.

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Obviously, my heart goes out to his victims more than to him. I just wonder how many other people are suffering out there in isolation and painful emotions. So many people require emotional skills. IMO most violence, included these horrible mass murders, are caused by painful emotions.

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Article published Dec 5, 2008
Innocent plea entered by caregiver in case where woman died
By Thatcher Moats Times Argus Staff
BARRE – Julie Davis is accused of doing too little too late to help a vulnerable adult who died while in her care last summer.

Davis, 47, of Calais pleaded innocent in Vermont District Court in Barre Thursday to neglect of a vulnerable adult by a caregiver, which carries a potential penalty of 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Davis was the caregiver responsible for Jean Lemire when Lemire, 45, died last August of hypothermia after being removed from Davis’ Calais home.

Lemire’s core body temperature was 82 degrees when she arrived at Central Vermont Medical Center, and she had multiple bruises, lacerations and a broken rib, court records state. When rescue workers found Lemire, she was soaking wet and had significant bruising on her face and chest, according to Jay Copping of the East Calais rescue squad. Lemire had been eating mud and grass, and Copping told police that he extracted muddy water and grass from Lemire as he attempted to force a tube down her throat.

The court records paint a picture of Lemire as a difficult person to handle, who become more so in the days leading up to her death. Her worsened condition may have been triggered by news of the death of her nephew, who family members said she was close to. Lemire was also scheduled to be moved from Davis’ residence, according to the affidavit, which also may have caused anxiety.

Davis told investigators that Lemire was a self-mutilator who would punch herself in the face and slam her face into the walls. Davis said that in the five days before she died, Lemire refused to sleep and often ran into the woods naked. She also ran over to a neighbors’ house without her clothes on a few days before her death.

On the day of Lemire’s death, Davis said Lemire had been given her morning dose of medication and then spent the majority of the day outside.

However, Davis didn’t call 911 until Lemire collapsed and stopped breathing. Davis had been trying to get Lemire to eat and drink Gatorade, she told investigators, and she performed CPR on Lemire until rescue workers arrived.

Shirley Cichonowicz, a sister and guardian of Lemire, told police that at the hospital the family decided to take Lemire off life support. Lemire died that Aug. 9 at about 10 p.m., according to court records.

Thursday’s proceeding in Vermont District Court in Barre was brief, and Davis was released on conditions. About 15 of Lemire’s family members were in the courthouse, and they filed out of the courtroom after the arraignment but declined to comment.

In an interview with police, Davis’ supervisor and Lemire’s case manager, Karen Daley-Regan, said that Lemire should have been placed in a crisis home based on her behavior in the days before her death.

Daley-Regan said that Lemire’s behavior before her death was uncharacteristic. But she also said that Lemire was known to take her clothes off and had an eating disorder, two of the things that lead to the woman’s death.

On Aug. 5, Daley-Regan prepared a monthly log that indicated no irregular issues with Lemire or Davis, court records state.

But the next day Davis reported that Lemire had gone to a neighbor’s home naked.

Daley-Regan then told Davis that she needed to have her eyes on Lemire at all times, but Daley-Regan did not do a home visit.

Daley-Regan told police that on Aug. 7 she checked in with Davis, who did not say there was an emergency.

Daley-Regan told police that had she known what was going on at the Davis residence, she would have intervened.

Davis told investigators that she tried to communicate what was going on when she talked to Daley-Regan, but also admitted she did not try hard enough. Davis also told police that she knows she should have done more to help Lemire, according to court records.

Communication was not Davis’ strength, according to a former colleague who was the case manager for one of Davis’ previous clients.

Troy Busconi, of the Vermont Crisis Intervention Network at Upper Valley Services, was the case manager for Shawn Leary, whom Davis cared for at one time.

Busconi told police that Davis lacked communication skills, and said he heard about a seizure that Leary had had only long after the incident. And when Davis asked for help, she would “not communicate it directly,” Busconi told investigators.

Davis had a limited skill set, but did the best she could, Busconi told police.

Last May, Adult Protective Services received a complaint that a caregiver was being abusive to her client in a local drugstore. The complainant, Lisa Sargent, took down the license plate number on the vehicle, which was registered to Doug Ballou, who lived with Davis in Calais.

Sargent also told police that the caregiver was referring to the client as “Jean.”

Another caregiver told police that he witnessed Davis scream at Lemire to get her to do things.

It also appears that Lemire was not the first client to die while in the care of Davis. The affidavit is not entirely clear on how much responsibility Davis may have had for the death of a man named Doug Lafrance, who, according to court records, died of pneumonia. But he was in her care when he died, according to the affidavit.

Police pointed out that in the two deaths, Davis did not call 911 until it was too late.

Lemire had been a client of Lincoln Street Inc., a non-profit agency based in Springfield, dedicated to caring for people with developmental disabilities, for 24 years. She was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, according to the affidavit, and also suffered from anorexia, bulimia, seizure disorder and other conditions.

Lemire required daily doses of a handful of mood stabilizing and anti-depressant drugs.

Davis, who has been a homecare provider for 11 years, began caring for Lemire late last March.

Joan Senecal, the commissioner of the state Department of Aging and Disability, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Cheryl Thrall, the executive director at Lincoln Street declined to comment.

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Ventura murder trial opens

By Raul Hernandez
Originally published 12:01 a.m., November 20, 2008
Updated 01:00 p.m., November 19, 2008

A Ventura woman tried break free from her killer’s grip but was stabbed more than 130 times in a deadly attack, a prosecutor told a jury today in the murder trial of 24-year-old Uriel Cruz.

Prosecutor Rebecca Day told jurors that the 2007 death of Barbarita Yvonne Luna, 25, was premeditated murder and that her alleged killer, Cruz, had been lying in wait.

“She was using her hands to push him away, but she couldn’t get out of his grasp,” Day said in her opening statement to the Ventura County Superior Court jury.

The prosecutor said Cruz and Luna were romantically involved until she broke off their relationship, and she refused his numerous requests to get back together.

Cruz is accused of stabbing Luna to death in a car in the parking lot of the Target store on Main Street in Ventura on May 11, 2007. Authorities say he drove away and was arrested later the same day by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Calabasas after his relatives urged him to turn himself in.

Today, the jury saw photographs taken by Los Angeles County deputies. One showed Cruz standing next to his car with blood on his clothes and face. Other photos showed the victim’s lifeless and bloody body, slumped in the passenger side of the car.

Cruz’s lawyer, Josie Banuelos of the county Public Defender’s Office, said he never intended to kill Luna.

In her opening statement to the jury, Banuelos said Cruz has a borderline personality disorder and a history of cutting himself to relieve his mental pain. Banuelos said he bought the knife to mutilate himself and had no intention of killing Luna.

“That knife was for him because he was going to go see Ms. Luna. He was afraid he might be hearing something he didn’t want to hear, and he could cut himself to relieve the pain,” Banuelos said.

She said every interview Cruz had with detectives indicates that he told them: “I didn’t intend to kill her. Why would I kill the woman I love?”

Day pointed out to jurors that Cruz isn’t using the insanity defense in his trial.

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Comedian Andy Dick arrested in drug, sexual battery case in Murrieta
From the Associated Press

Andy Dick, 42, was arrested today on suspicion of drug use and sexual battery in Murrieta.
The former ‘NewsRadio’ star allegedly fondled a teen and pulled down her tank top outside a restaurant. Police say they found marijuana and Xanax in his possession.
By David Kelly, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 17, 2008
Actor and comedian Andy Dick, who has a history of run-ins with the law, was arrested early Wednesday outside a Murrieta restaurant on suspicion of sexual battery and drug possession.

Police said Dick, who was heavily intoxicated, grabbed and fondled the breast of a 17-year-old girl before pulling her top down in the parking lot of the Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar about 1:15 in the morning.

“The victim was traumatized by this,” said Lt. Dennis Vrooman, spokesman for the Murrieta Police Department.

Police later found one gram of marijuana and one Xanax anti-anxiety pill in Dick’s pocket. He was arrested and later released on $5,000 bail.

It was the latest in a string of encounters that Dick, 42, has had with authorities. The former star of the comedy series “NewsRadio” was cited last year in Columbus, Ohio, for urinating in public. He was kicked off the set of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” for repeatedly touching fellow guest Ivanka Trump. In 1999 he drove his car into a telephone pole and was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana.

Calls to his manager were not returned.

Vrooman said police had already warned Dick about his intoxication before he went to the restaurant. Officers had encountered the comedian while responding to an altercation at the Corner Pocket Sports Cafe in Murrieta about 9 p.m. Tuesday. They told him to leave or face possible arrest on public intoxication charges. He left with five or six friends.

Dick, who listed his address as Woodland Hills, told officers he was in town to attend the funeral of a friend’s father.

Later that night, Dick and his entourage arrived at the Buffalo Wild Wings and began drinking, police said. He was recognized by several patrons, including the alleged victim, who approached him.

Vrooman said the girl, who is from Murrieta, tried to talk to Dick but backed off when she realized how intoxicated he was.

Sara Lidman, one of the restaurant managers, would say only that Dick was in the bar with friends.

Police said that when Dick left he spotted the girl and her friend in the parking lot and shouted, “There are the girls!”

“He groped her breast with his right hand, then pulled down her top,” Vrooman said.

The teen’s friend called police.

When they arrived, they found Dick in the front seat of a Honda pickup truck heading toward a nearby Sam’s Club parking lot.

Officers stopped the truck and forced all the men inside to line up so the girl could identify the man who allegedly groped her. She pointed to Dick.

A search of his pockets turned up the Xanax and marijuana. He did not have a prescription for the Xanax, police said.

Vrooman said Dick was belligerent at first and then answered officers’ questions.

On Saturday, Dick was spotted at Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant and Cantina in Canyon Lake in Riverside County.

“My understanding was that he was drinking soda water and was not drunk,” said Pepe’s owner Marty Gibson. “There was no altercation that I heard of.”

Dick was arrested on suspicion of sexual battery, possession of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana, and he may yet be charged with public intoxication, Vrooman said.

He is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 12 in Murrieta.

david.kelly@latimes.com

Times staff writer Harriet Ryan contributed to this report.

The video.

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More than half firearm deaths are suicides

• Story Highlights
• Recent Supreme Court ruling on guns focused on protection from home invasion
• Suicides accounted for 55 percent of nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005 in U.S.
• More gun-related suicides than homicides and accidents in 20 of last 25 years
• Research shows if gun in home, higher likelihood of suicide or homicide in home

ATLANTA, Georgia, (AP) — The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens’ ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.

Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation’s nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was nothing unique about that year — gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.

Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.

Studies have also shown that homes in which a suicide occurred were three to five times more likely to have a gun present than households that did not experience a suicide, even after accounting for other risk factors.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court on Thursday struck down a handgun ban enacted in the District of Columbia in 1976 and rejected requirements that firearms have trigger locks or be kept disassembled. The ruling left intact the district’s licensing restrictions for gun owners.

One public-health study found that suicide and homicide rates in the district dropped after the ban was adopted. The district has allowed shotguns and rifles to be kept in homes if they are registered, kept unloaded and taken apart or equipped with trigger locks.

The American Public Health Association, the American Association of Suicidology and two other groups filed a legal brief supporting the district’s ban. The brief challenged arguments that if a gun is not available, suicidal people will just kill themselves using other means.

More than 90 percent of suicide attempts using guns are successful, while the success rate for jumping from high places was 34 percent. The success rate for drug overdose was 2 percent, the brief said, citing studies.

“Other methods are not as lethal,” said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.

The high court’s majority opinion made no mention of suicide. But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer used the word 14 times in voicing concern about the impact of striking down the handgun ban.

“If a resident has a handgun in the home that he can use for self-defense, then he has a handgun in the home that he can use to commit suicide or engage in acts of domestic violence,” Breyer wrote.

Researchers in other fields have raised questions about the public-health findings on guns.

Gary Kleck, a researcher at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, estimates there are more than 1 million incidents each year in which firearms are used to prevent an actual or threatened criminal attack.

Public-health experts have said the telephone survey methodology Kleck used likely resulted in an overestimate. iReport.com: Watch William Bernstein share his views on gun ownership

Both sides agree there has been a significant decline in the last decade in public-health research into gun violence.

The CDC traditionally was a primary funder of research on guns and gun-related injuries, allocating more than $2.1 million a year to such projects in the mid-1990s.

But the agency cut back research on the subject after Congress in 1996 ordered that none of the CDC’s appropriations be used to promote gun control.

Vernick said the Supreme Court decision underscores the need for further study into what will happen to suicide and homicide rates in the district when the handgun ban is lifted.

Today, the CDC budgets less than $900,000 for firearm-related projects, and most of it is spent to track statistics. The agency no longer funds gun-related policy analysis.

Now, consider that a person with BPD is 400 times more likely to commit suicide than the general public. And consider that:

Nearly 3/4 of borderlines attempt suicide or display self-mutilating behaviors like cutting themselves with razors or burning themselves. Only about 10% of suicide attempts are successful.

If only 10% of suicides are successful and 75% attempt suicide, what do you think the successful suicide rate for BPD would be if they all had access to a gun? Suicide attempts in BPD are usually impulsive. They are not usually a “call for help” or manipulative. A lot of non-BPs think that they are, but typically the suicide is not thought out. The BP just wants to end the huge amount of pain that they are in. They will use whatever method is at hand (i.e. take all the pills in the cabinent). If a handgun is at hand and loaded, suicide is much more likely to occur.

If you look at Kurt Cobain (who MAY have had BPD), he tried to commit suicide with pills at one point (that we know of) and drug overdose is not very effective. When he got a hold of his shotgun, the deed was done. From the above CNN article:

More than 90 percent of suicide attempts using guns are successful, while the success rate for jumping from high places was 34 percent. The success rate for drug overdose was 2 percent, the brief said, citing studies.

So, gun suicides are 90% sucessful, drug overdose 2%. Please don’t keep a loaded gun around someone with BPD.

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Troubled mind
The discoveries added to the puzzle surrounding Kazmierczak.

While friends, family, educators and investigators remain baffled and shocked at the gunman’s acts, a closer look reveals that Kazmierczak’s friendly exterior masked a troubled mind.

University Police Chief Donald Grady said, without giving details, that Kazmierczak, 27, had become erratic in the past two weeks after he had stopped taking his medication.

A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak’s parents placed him there after high school. She said he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications.

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The true problem was that Cho was mentally ill and did not seek treatment for his mental illness. I am not going to postulate as to what actual diagnosis that Cho had (I am not qualified to do so) – I will suggest that his true problem was probably emotional. He was unable to control his anger and rage. I would also like to point out that he carried around shame and self-hatred. When inner shame is left untreated, it often leaks out as anger and rage. It is extremely difficult for a person with inner shame to take ownership of that shame. Instead, it bubbles underneath the surface and comes out as anger toward those that have wronged them. I suspect this was Cho’s real problem. He was humiliated throughout his life and, quite possibly, had a biological pre-disposition to emotional dysregulation. The combination of these two factors – biological and environmental – adds up to self-hatred, shame and a persecution complex. I am not suggesting that all people with this sort of make-up and history are dangerous or would take that rage out on other people. In fact, many people with those issues end up taking their inner rage out of themselves – through suicide or risky behaviors. It seems to me that Cho couldn’t handle his shame or his intense emotions, so he acted to take revenge on other people. In doing so, he handled his emotions poorly (obviously). He probably also believed that shame to be true; meaning, he hated himself and thought other’s teasing and bullying was deserved. In pointing out the feeling that he believed to be true (that he was a bad, worthless person), he took revenge on all other people, regardless of whether they participated in his belittling.

The point of this post is to say that what we really need in this country is better and more assessable mental health care. We need to teach people, adults as well as children, about the functions of emotions and the skills that can be utilized to handle those emotions. We educate people about academic subjects everyday, but do very little to teach self-regulatory skills for emotional states. For some people, these emotional regulation skills are the very ones that can save their lives (and, in Cho’s case, the lives of others).

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