Kelly Green
By Will Tucker
Kelly Green was off the
medication he needed for his schizophrenia and was talking about
killing himself. Alarmed by the homeless man’s erratic behavior on a
cold Oregon night in February 2013, a convenience store clerk called the
police.
When the Eugene police
arrived, they arrested Green, 28, on an outstanding warrant related to a
misdemeanor incident two months earlier.
At the Lane County Jail, Green cursed and talked to inanimate
objects. A booking deputy wrote in her notes: “May be
bipolar/schizophrenic. No meds … talks to himself … not making sense.”
Although the prison health care giant Corizon Health Inc. had a contract
to provide health screening and medical care at the jail, no one from
the on-site Corizon staff made any effort to see Green or talk to him.
Green was placed in a cell by himself. He wasn’t provided with any psychiatric treatment.
The next morning, he snapped. During his arraignment inside a courtroom
at the jail, a judge told him he would be detained for a couple of days.
Green suddenly sprinted 10 feet
toward a partition of concrete blocks, his head lowered. As skull met
concrete, it sounded like “throwing a watermelon at the wall,” one
observer later remarked.
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Source: The Southern Poverty Law Center
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