GWOT IV - The Broken
Apr. 30th, 2022 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT IV - The Broken
I've been asked, several times, when the transition from the Resistance to the Republic took place.
I really have no idea. One day I was wearing SF Resist tabs. Then one day the orderly was sewing CA ARMY in their place. She didn't know either. They'd just shown up as a package in the latest uniform order.
(Yes, I had a female orderly. No, it wasn't an issue. Except when she tied my shoes, because my left hand still hurt so bad. I learned to look away and she learned to not look up, for fear of seeing the pain on each other's faces.)
I think first it was the aircraft that changed markings. But vehicles and uniforms came soon after.
You may recall that aircraft rarely visited Alviso, and the handful of times they did were for supporting executions.
However, we were in the flight pattern for two high traffic military airports so we did see them rather often.
We didn't see American aircraft. Bombs occasionally, missiles once in a while, but not the aircraft themselves. Except that one that pancaked on what had been the golf course at Sunnyvale, but that was much later.
I saw lots of Americans. But by the time I saw them, they were in POW or UC drab.
POW - Prisoner of War. UC - Unlawful Combatant. The only difference was the lettering painted on one leg and across the back. And of course, their fate.
Other institutions took longer. Freeways were no longer I- (for Interstate) or US, but were the CA-80 and the CA-101. The mail service was the CA Post. We no longer distinguished between veteran's hospitals and all the rest - every county had a huge hospital and a support network of smaller hospitals. The Santa Clara County hospital was now named Valley Medical City. God help us, it was a literal city.
I was running a prison and serving as a judge as well as overseeing the entire justice process. Left me too busy for field trips.
Until there was an issue. Defense counsel kept calling witnesses. They were resident in Valley Medical City, in buildings 50 and 51. They wouldn't appear.
After a little digging back and forth, to confirm that they were getting their summons by CA Post, I sent a patrol of MPs to go hand deliver the next batch.
They came back ... disturbed.
After intervewing them, I nearly called out the reaction platoon and drove over there myself.
Instead, I called out my big guns. Agent Johnson and our Psyche.
###
It was the sign on the outside of the complex that made me realize.
"Valley Medical City - Buildings 51 / 50. Authorized Personnel Only. This Means You. Ambulances Back Gate."
Fifty one fifty. 5150. California law for persons who were a danger to themselves and/or to others for mental health reasons.
It was not an asylum. It was a bedlam.
The front desk reception clerk looked us over, inferred correctly that we were more firepower than she cared to deal with, and advised that if we chose to enter, we would have to use the firearms lockers provided and carry white painted sticks in their place. Both mandatory.
Teams of white-uniformed orderlies with more of the white painted sticks patrolled around the edges. Others kept control of their areas.
There was no good line between indoors and outdoors. There were no doors - all removed. Especially restrooms, which had no partitions at all and in some cases windows cut in what had been walls.
There were many tables and chairs. Think of an overcrowded lounge at a junior college - or a large airport full of really upset travelers with no luggage and no departing flight time. Tables were heavy and hard to move, where not bolted down. Chairs were tiny and flimsy or large and plush and heavy - nothing in between. The wisdom of this was shown when a card game turned south and someone started to pick up exactly such a heavy chair before being bum-rushed by the staff.
Some people just wept. Others stared. There were books and magazines. The tables with games and the tables with arts and crafts had to literally be guarded, not only because people waited hours for their turns, but because of the potential for weapons manufacture.
They eyed us.
I realized that there was very real potential for us to have to lay about us with the sticks if something happened to anger the crowd.
We made our way to the doorway marked Legal Services. A conference room was found, staff were paged.
###
"We don't have the staff to escort witnesses to your court. If we did, we wouldn't have the drivers or the vehicles."
Agent Johnson, by common consent, took the lead.
"They have a right to testify and they have the right to justice."
"I'm going to be very blunt. A lot of these people are here because they are flatly cannot be managed in a halfway house or correctional setting. Your odds of getting testimony out of them are low. The amount of trauma we'd have to inflict on them just to get them going back and forth is not worth it."
"So what 'Legal Services' are you providing them?"
"Competency hearings. If they can fill out a 8.5' by 11' form and say why they shouldn't be here, they get a hearing with a commissioner. Nearly always that means they get to be placed somewhere _else_. All they have to do is find the door, fill out the paper, and have a moment of clarity long enough to say why they shouldn't be here. You are surrounded by the people who are so far gone that they can't even do THAT."
Which begged an interesting question for the defense counsel.
Was he calling witnesses because he thought they might exculpate his clients, or because they couldn't appear in court and he was hoping to overturn the justice process on the argument of denial of process?
"Still not getting it, are we? These are the relatively stable. The ones that don't have to be in four point. We don't have the meds for chemical restraints, so the best we can do is padded rooms and straightjackets. We would be doing more wet packs but we can't get the sheets. Keeping the place clean is a constant challenge. Keeping people from killing each other, more so. Attacks on each other and on staff are constant. One of the placements _from here_ is a smoke house where basically everyone stays high all the time. We try other placements as often as possible, but the people who accumulate here have failed multiple other placements."
"What's the placement below this one?"
"Thanatos hearing."
I flinched.
The overhead PA interrupted.
"Nurse Blaze to Music Therapy 3. Nurse Blaze, we have a wastebasket in Music Therapy 3."
Staff rushed to put out the fire.
We were left staring at each other.
I had to ask, when the overwrought staffer returned smelling of smoke.
"Thanatos hearing?"
"There is no longer a category for gravely disabled. A person who cannot recover and has no next of kin to speak for them ..."
I wished I had my handgun instead of this stick.
"Are you saying that they ... that we ... put them down like an ailing pet?"
"Not until there's no hope. Not until there's three hearings in a row, each thirty days apart. But these are the people that we have hope for. This is the show bedlam, you understand, the one we show the families when they sign their loved ones over. We have seven others supervised by Valley Medical City. You don't want to see them. You just don't."
"Perhaps we do," said Agent Johnson. "Perhaps we must."
We left. I had a job to do. So did Agent Johnson.
###
Agent Investigative Report
Bedlam #4
Gilroy, CA
###
"Sidebar hearing."
I dragged the defense counsel into a room. Threw him my report on the Valley Medical City 51/50 Healing Center. Threw him Agent Johnson's report on Bedlam #4.
"Read those, counselor. Then we are going to have a little talk about your tactic."
When he finished throwing up, he agreed that he wasn't going to call random witnesses from a list smuggled to him by an American sympathizer.
I agreed that I wasn't going to shoot him in both kneecaps and throw him down a third story stairwell. Repeatedly if required.
On this cheerful and cooperative note, hearings resumed.
###
We had to do better. We knew we had to do better. We were trying. But we'd had to bring back techniques from the dark ages because God help us all, the alternatives were all worse.
This was what was behind the huge push on mental health, the Psyche programs, what the American press called "the California crazies gazing into their own navels." Meds really would help, but we didn't have the balance of trade to get the good stuff, except for those who were already functional to keep them functional.
A couple of bad breaks and I could have ended up in Bedlam #4.
I already knew what would happen to someone like me in a Thanatos hearing, with no next of kin.
Opiate overdose. And a room filled with nitrogen once telemetry confirmed that I was unconscious.
Like an ailing pet.
There really were worse things than running Alviso.
I could see myself running a bedlam. A lot of the same skills were involved.
California needed me here. Because the more justice we could get here, the more Californians we could keep ... not sane, but sane-r. Functional.
You asked, when did the Resistance become the Republic?
When it stopped fighting shit and started running shit.
I've been asked, several times, when the transition from the Resistance to the Republic took place.
I really have no idea. One day I was wearing SF Resist tabs. Then one day the orderly was sewing CA ARMY in their place. She didn't know either. They'd just shown up as a package in the latest uniform order.
(Yes, I had a female orderly. No, it wasn't an issue. Except when she tied my shoes, because my left hand still hurt so bad. I learned to look away and she learned to not look up, for fear of seeing the pain on each other's faces.)
I think first it was the aircraft that changed markings. But vehicles and uniforms came soon after.
You may recall that aircraft rarely visited Alviso, and the handful of times they did were for supporting executions.
However, we were in the flight pattern for two high traffic military airports so we did see them rather often.
We didn't see American aircraft. Bombs occasionally, missiles once in a while, but not the aircraft themselves. Except that one that pancaked on what had been the golf course at Sunnyvale, but that was much later.
I saw lots of Americans. But by the time I saw them, they were in POW or UC drab.
POW - Prisoner of War. UC - Unlawful Combatant. The only difference was the lettering painted on one leg and across the back. And of course, their fate.
Other institutions took longer. Freeways were no longer I- (for Interstate) or US, but were the CA-80 and the CA-101. The mail service was the CA Post. We no longer distinguished between veteran's hospitals and all the rest - every county had a huge hospital and a support network of smaller hospitals. The Santa Clara County hospital was now named Valley Medical City. God help us, it was a literal city.
I was running a prison and serving as a judge as well as overseeing the entire justice process. Left me too busy for field trips.
Until there was an issue. Defense counsel kept calling witnesses. They were resident in Valley Medical City, in buildings 50 and 51. They wouldn't appear.
After a little digging back and forth, to confirm that they were getting their summons by CA Post, I sent a patrol of MPs to go hand deliver the next batch.
They came back ... disturbed.
After intervewing them, I nearly called out the reaction platoon and drove over there myself.
Instead, I called out my big guns. Agent Johnson and our Psyche.
###
It was the sign on the outside of the complex that made me realize.
"Valley Medical City - Buildings 51 / 50. Authorized Personnel Only. This Means You. Ambulances Back Gate."
Fifty one fifty. 5150. California law for persons who were a danger to themselves and/or to others for mental health reasons.
It was not an asylum. It was a bedlam.
The front desk reception clerk looked us over, inferred correctly that we were more firepower than she cared to deal with, and advised that if we chose to enter, we would have to use the firearms lockers provided and carry white painted sticks in their place. Both mandatory.
Teams of white-uniformed orderlies with more of the white painted sticks patrolled around the edges. Others kept control of their areas.
There was no good line between indoors and outdoors. There were no doors - all removed. Especially restrooms, which had no partitions at all and in some cases windows cut in what had been walls.
There were many tables and chairs. Think of an overcrowded lounge at a junior college - or a large airport full of really upset travelers with no luggage and no departing flight time. Tables were heavy and hard to move, where not bolted down. Chairs were tiny and flimsy or large and plush and heavy - nothing in between. The wisdom of this was shown when a card game turned south and someone started to pick up exactly such a heavy chair before being bum-rushed by the staff.
Some people just wept. Others stared. There were books and magazines. The tables with games and the tables with arts and crafts had to literally be guarded, not only because people waited hours for their turns, but because of the potential for weapons manufacture.
They eyed us.
I realized that there was very real potential for us to have to lay about us with the sticks if something happened to anger the crowd.
We made our way to the doorway marked Legal Services. A conference room was found, staff were paged.
###
"We don't have the staff to escort witnesses to your court. If we did, we wouldn't have the drivers or the vehicles."
Agent Johnson, by common consent, took the lead.
"They have a right to testify and they have the right to justice."
"I'm going to be very blunt. A lot of these people are here because they are flatly cannot be managed in a halfway house or correctional setting. Your odds of getting testimony out of them are low. The amount of trauma we'd have to inflict on them just to get them going back and forth is not worth it."
"So what 'Legal Services' are you providing them?"
"Competency hearings. If they can fill out a 8.5' by 11' form and say why they shouldn't be here, they get a hearing with a commissioner. Nearly always that means they get to be placed somewhere _else_. All they have to do is find the door, fill out the paper, and have a moment of clarity long enough to say why they shouldn't be here. You are surrounded by the people who are so far gone that they can't even do THAT."
Which begged an interesting question for the defense counsel.
Was he calling witnesses because he thought they might exculpate his clients, or because they couldn't appear in court and he was hoping to overturn the justice process on the argument of denial of process?
"Still not getting it, are we? These are the relatively stable. The ones that don't have to be in four point. We don't have the meds for chemical restraints, so the best we can do is padded rooms and straightjackets. We would be doing more wet packs but we can't get the sheets. Keeping the place clean is a constant challenge. Keeping people from killing each other, more so. Attacks on each other and on staff are constant. One of the placements _from here_ is a smoke house where basically everyone stays high all the time. We try other placements as often as possible, but the people who accumulate here have failed multiple other placements."
"What's the placement below this one?"
"Thanatos hearing."
I flinched.
The overhead PA interrupted.
"Nurse Blaze to Music Therapy 3. Nurse Blaze, we have a wastebasket in Music Therapy 3."
Staff rushed to put out the fire.
We were left staring at each other.
I had to ask, when the overwrought staffer returned smelling of smoke.
"Thanatos hearing?"
"There is no longer a category for gravely disabled. A person who cannot recover and has no next of kin to speak for them ..."
I wished I had my handgun instead of this stick.
"Are you saying that they ... that we ... put them down like an ailing pet?"
"Not until there's no hope. Not until there's three hearings in a row, each thirty days apart. But these are the people that we have hope for. This is the show bedlam, you understand, the one we show the families when they sign their loved ones over. We have seven others supervised by Valley Medical City. You don't want to see them. You just don't."
"Perhaps we do," said Agent Johnson. "Perhaps we must."
We left. I had a job to do. So did Agent Johnson.
###
Agent Investigative Report
Bedlam #4
Gilroy, CA
###
"Sidebar hearing."
I dragged the defense counsel into a room. Threw him my report on the Valley Medical City 51/50 Healing Center. Threw him Agent Johnson's report on Bedlam #4.
"Read those, counselor. Then we are going to have a little talk about your tactic."
When he finished throwing up, he agreed that he wasn't going to call random witnesses from a list smuggled to him by an American sympathizer.
I agreed that I wasn't going to shoot him in both kneecaps and throw him down a third story stairwell. Repeatedly if required.
On this cheerful and cooperative note, hearings resumed.
###
We had to do better. We knew we had to do better. We were trying. But we'd had to bring back techniques from the dark ages because God help us all, the alternatives were all worse.
This was what was behind the huge push on mental health, the Psyche programs, what the American press called "the California crazies gazing into their own navels." Meds really would help, but we didn't have the balance of trade to get the good stuff, except for those who were already functional to keep them functional.
A couple of bad breaks and I could have ended up in Bedlam #4.
I already knew what would happen to someone like me in a Thanatos hearing, with no next of kin.
Opiate overdose. And a room filled with nitrogen once telemetry confirmed that I was unconscious.
Like an ailing pet.
There really were worse things than running Alviso.
I could see myself running a bedlam. A lot of the same skills were involved.
California needed me here. Because the more justice we could get here, the more Californians we could keep ... not sane, but sane-r. Functional.
You asked, when did the Resistance become the Republic?
When it stopped fighting shit and started running shit.
