Jamycheal M. Mitchell
1991 – 2015 | Obituary | Condolences | Gallery
Portsmouth – Jamycheal M. Mitchell, 24, known as “Weezy” of the 900 block of Centre Ave. in Portsmouth, Virginia… was born on April 19, 1991 in Thibodaux, LA. Jamycheal was a member of St. Luke Catholic Church, Thibodaux, LA. He served as an alter boy, and attended Capital High School, in Baton Rouge, La. Jamycheal is survived by his mother, Sonia R. Adams, of Portsmouth, VA; father, Mycheal Mitchell; sister, Jasmine R. Adams (Chad) of Thibodaux, La.; and 11 siblings
– See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pilotonline/obituary.aspx?pid=175637656
Inmate’s death reveals serious problems:
The jail administration allowed this man to die.
by Roger Chesley
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 1, 2015
Something is wrong when a mentally ill man dies in jail – after being charged with stealing the princely sum of $5 worth of junk food – while awaiting space in a state treatment center.
The Aug. 19 death of 24-year-old Jamycheal Mitchell at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, reported by The Pilot and The Guardian news organization, raises troubling questions for the criminal justice and mental health systems in Virginia. Nothing in the public documents I reviewed Monday hinted that law enforcement officials or a clinical psychologist thought Mitchell was a threat to others.
Authorities found Mitchell dead in his cell – some four months after his arrest. A spokeswoman for the state Medical Examiner’s Office said Monday the cause and manner of death haven’t been determined.
Why did Mitchell face bail of $3,000? If he didn’t have a few bucks to buy the Snickers bar, Zebra Cake and 2-liter Mountain Dew allegedly stolen from a Portsmouth 7-Eleven, he surely couldn’t pay that amount.
He initially waived his right to an attorney. How was he even capable of making that decision? An attorney was later appointed.
Relatives said Mitchell lost lots of weight behind bars. “His appearance from when he was arrested to his appearance at his death was just appalling,” said his aunt, Roxanne Adams. Relatives weren’t allowed to see him in jail, she told me, because Mitchell didn’t fill out a list of visitors.
Adams told The Guardian they believe Mitchell starved to death after refusing to eat or take medication for his mental illness.
Lt. Col. Eugene Taylor, a jail spokesman, disputed that Monday. “There’s no indication he was refusing food,” Taylor said.
Such circumstances could easily occur again. A March report by the Urban Institute found 56 percent of state prisoners, 45 percent of federal prisoners and 64 percent of jail inmates have a mental health problem.
“These numbers represent a substantial need for mental health treatment in the criminal justice system,” the institute report said.
Unfortunately, jails and prisons have become de-facto holding facilities for the mentally ill. Most aren’t equipped to do the job. Taylor noted the regional jail is “not a mental health facility.”
Virginia does have state hospital beds, said Mira Signer, executive director of the nonprofit National Alliance on Mental Illness-Virginia. “But 120 to 150 are occupied by people on the ‘extraordinary barriers list,’ ” she said. “There’s nowhere else for them to go because the state hasn’t beefed up housing and supportive services in the community.”
A spokeswoman with the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services said by email that the commonwealth has 1,455 beds among its eight state hospitals serving adults with mental illness. “Among those, 356 are designated for forensic patients,” she said.
Portsmouth police say Mitchell had been told to stay away from a 7-Eleven at 3201 George Washington Hwy., and police issued a trespassing summons against him the evening of April 21. Several hours later, he came back to the store and stole items in front of a clerk, police said. He was charged with larceny and trespassing, stayed a few weeks in the city jail and then was transferred to the regional jail, also in Portsmouth.
Mitchell seemed fixated on that store, Adams told me Monday.
“Unexplainable,” she said.
Records from a bail hearing showed he had a lifelong disability, and Mitchell said he suffered from bipolar disorder.
A forensic psychologist evaluated him and said Mitchell was “manic and psychotic” during the interview. “His themes involved voodoo, music, how he was rich, and sex,” the psychologist wrote.
In May, a General District Court judge said Mitchell was incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg in the care of “qualified staff.” A jail official said the hospital had no room for him.
Obviously, gaps in the safety net exist.
Mitchell’s death in jail proves the net needs to be repaired.
Roger Chesley, 757-446-2329, roger.chesley@pilotonline.com, pilotonline.com/chesley, facebook.com/RogerChesley, @ChesleyRoger on Twitter
Virginia: Black Man Dies in Jail After 4 Months for $5 Theft
In Virginia, a mentally ill African-American man has been found dead in his jail cell after he spent four months behind bars for allegedly stealing $5 worth of food from a 7-Eleven. The Guardian reports Jamycheal Mitchell was arrested by Portsmouth police in April for allegedly stealing a Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a pastry. A judge had ordered Mitchell’s transfer to a mental hospital, but when there were no beds available, he was kept behind bars, without bail. He was found dead August 19. His family believes he starved to death after refusing medication and food in jail. He was 24 years old. http://www.democracynow.org/2015/8/31/headlines
The story of Jamycheal Mitchell should make national headlines.For a living, I wade through hundreds and hundreds of awful cases of police brutality, torture, prison/jail abuse, misconduct, and racial injustice and have the agonizing pressure to choose which of those stories to amplify to the world. Ninety-five percent of what I learn never gets told. With all of that said…
The injustice, abuse, corruption, incompetence, discrimination, and horror faced by Jamycheal Mitchell may be the worst I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s that horrendous.
On Wednesday, August 19, at 5:45 AM, Mitchell was found dead in a Hampton Roads, Virginia, jail cell. Two days later, it barely made a whimper in the local news.
In a statement later released by police, law enforcement claimed that Mitchell died of “natural causes.”
“As of right now it is deemed ‘natural causes’,” Natasha Perry, the master jail officer at the Hampton Roads regional jail in Portsmouth, said of his death in an interview. Perry said there were no obvious outward signs of injury to the 24-year-old’s body. Portsmouth police are looking into the death.
When a law enforcement official made that statement, it was clear that we could not trust another word they said about this case, their role in his death, and their potential coverup of it.Nothing about the arrest, incarceration, or death of Jamycheal Mitchell was natural. Instead, it reveals a system designed to chew up and spit out people of color as if they are worthless pieces of trash. Add mental illness to the equation and Mitchell never stood a damn chance.
Let’s rewind a bit ….
On April 21, two days after his 24th birthday, Jamycheal Mitchell was arrested for stealing less than $5 worth of snacks from a Virginia 7-Eleven store. The snacks included a Snickers, a Mountain Dew, and a Zebra Cake, which altogether probably cost more like $3.50.
This a crime, no doubt, but Mitchell, according to court records, had already been diagnosed with severe mental illness and was ruled permanently disabled and unfit for work because of it. This was a lifelong battle for him.
At that very point, a special designation should’ve been given to his case and he should’ve either been taken home and released to his family or immediately taken to a mental health facility. Again, we’re talking about $3.50 of snacks taken by a hungry mentally ill man who is unable to work.
The very opposite of this happened, though. Mitchell, who at the time of his arrest stood 6 foot, 3 inches, and weighed approximately 185 pounds, was taken to the city jail.
For three weeks he languished there, all for those damn snacks, until he was transferred across town to the regional jail on May 11. There, he languished, at great expense to taxpayers, for ten more days until he finally saw a judge.
Judge Morton Whitlow ruled Mitchell was not competent to stand trial and ordered that he be transferred to Eastern State hospital, a state-run mental health facility in Williamsburg, for treatment.
Again, just to be clear, we’re talking about a mentally ill man not being able to stand trial for stealing snacks.Having already spent a month between two jails, and declared unfit for trial because of his mental illness, we now know that what should’ve taken hours, days maybe, first turned into weeks, then into months.
For three more months, Mitchell, having already served a month in jail, languished away there.
I say languished because something awful happened to him between the time he entered jail and the day his body left there. His family has communicated that he appeared to weigh a little more than 100 pounds and was completely unrecognizable and emaciated.
His family believes he starved to death in jail.
“The person I saw deceased was not even the same person.” Adams, who is a registered nurse, said Mitchell had practically no muscle mass left by the time of his death.
As you see, we have a huge gap in our story. Mitchell didn’t starve to death overnight, but died slowly, day by day, over a period of months while in jail. At any given point, any decision the jail could’ve made, including taking him to a public hospital or taking him back to his family, would’ve been exponentially better than what they chose to do by letting him rot to death there.It’s hard to believe that not one mental health facility could’ve accepted him as a patient. At the point in which he had lost 15 or 20 or 40 pounds, it should’ve been realized that jailers were facing a dire emergency in need of immediate medical attention, but this didn’t happen and we don’t need to guess why.
Jamycheal Mitchell was not treated like someone who truly mattered.
THIS IS WHAT WE MEAN when we say Black Lives Matter.
How worthless do you have to believe a man to be, in modern America no less, when you allow him, day in and day out, to starve to death before your very eyes?
How little courage must employees have had to not notify the media in advance of his death?
Again, and we must say it, this man stole a Snickers, a Zebra Cake, and a Mountain Dew but died of starvation after serving four months in jail without being charged with a crime.
This is America. 2015.
“A young black man arrested by police in Portsmouth, Virginia, on the same day that one of the city’s officers fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old, has been found dead in jail after spending almost four months behind bars without bail for stealing groceries worth $5.
“Jamycheal Mitchell, who had mental health problems, was discovered lying on the floor of his cell by guards early last Wednesday, according to authorities. While his body is still awaiting an autopsy, senior prison officials said his death was not being treated as suspicious.
“As of right now it is deemed ‘natural causes’,” Natasha Perry, the master jail officer at the Hampton Roads regional jail in Portsmouth, said of his death in an interview. Perry said there were no obvious outward signs of injury to the 24-year-old’s body. Portsmouth police are looking into the death.
“Mitchell’s family said they believed he starved to death after refusing meals and medication at the jail, where he was being held on misdemeanour charges of petty larceny and trespassing. A clerk at Portsmouth district court said Mitchell was accused of stealing a bottle of Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake worth a total of $5 from a 7-Eleven.”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/28/jamycheal-mitchell-virginia-jail-found-dead
Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, was arrested in April for allegedly stealing a Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake from a 7-Eleven. Photograph: Facebook
A young black man arrested by police in Portsmouth, Virginia, has been found dead in jail after spending almost four months behind bars without bail for stealing groceries worth $5.
Jamycheal Mitchell, who had mental health problems, was discovered lying on the floor of his cell by guards early last Wednesday, according to authorities. While his body is still awaiting an autopsy, senior prison officials said his death was not being treated as suspicious.
“As of right now it is deemed ‘natural causes’,” Natasha Perry, the master jail officer at the Hampton Roads regional jail in Portsmouth, said of his death in an interview. Perry said there were no obvious outward signs of injury to the 24-year-old’s body. Portsmouth police are looking into the death.
Mitchell’s family said they believed he starved to death after refusing meals and medication at the jail, where he was being held on misdemeanour charges of petty larceny and trespassing. A clerk at Portsmouth district court said Mitchell was accused of stealing a bottle of Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake worth a total of $5 from a 7-Eleven.
“His body failed,” said Roxanne Adams, Mitchell’s aunt. “It is extraordinary. The person I saw deceased was not even the same person.” Adams, who is a registered nurse, said Mitchell had practically no muscle mass left by the time of his death.
A few hours after Mitchell was arrested on 22 April by Portsmouth police officer L Schaefer for the alleged theft, William Chapman was shot dead by officer Stephen Rankin outside a Walmart superstore about 2.5 miles away in the same city. State prosecutor Stephanie Morales said on Thursday she would pursue criminal charges over Chapman’s death.
Except for a brief item stating that an inmate had been found dead, the story of Mitchell’s death has not been covered by local media in Virginia, and is reported for the first time here.
Adams said in an interview that her nephew had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia for about five years. Nicknamed Weezy, he lived with his mother Sonia and had been unable to hold down work. “He just chain-smoked and made people laugh,” said Adams. “He never did anything serious, never harmed anybody.”
Officials said that after his arrest, Mitchell was taken to Portsmouth city jail, where he stayed for almost three weeks before being transferred across the city to the regional jail on 11 May.
Ten days after that, the court clerk said, Judge Morton Whitlow ruled Mitchell was not competent to stand trial and ordered that he be transferred to Eastern State hospital, a state-run mental health facility in Williamsburg, for treatment.
The clerk said that typically in such cases “we do an order to restore the defendant to competence, send it to the hospital, and when the hospital has a bed, we do a transportation order, and he’s taken to the hospital.” Whitlow reiterated the order on 31 July and was due to review the case again on 4 September, according to the clerk.
But the hospital said it had no vacancy and the 24-year-old was therefore detained in jail until his death on 19 August, according to Adams, Mitchell’s aunt, who said she had tried to assist the hospitalisation process herself but was left frustrated.
“He was just deteriorating so fast,” she said. “I kept calling the jail, but they said they couldn’t transfer him because there were no available beds. So I called Eastern State, too, and people there said they didn’t know anything about the request or not having bed availability.”
When asked which state agency was ultimately responsible for ensuring Mitchell was transferred to the hospital, the court clerk said: “It’s hard to tell who’s responsible for it.”
Officials from the court, the police department and the jail could not explain why Mitchell was not given the opportunity to be released on bail.
Mitchell previously spent four months in the jail from April 2010, also on charges of petty larceny and trespassing, before being ordered released by the courts, according to Perry, the prison official.
She said Mitchell returned to the jail in January 2012, again on a petty larceny charge, before being released in May 2012 having spent a month in a state hospital.
from Shannon Wheeler
Two spokespeople for Virginia’s department of behavioural health and developmental services, which runs Eastern State hospital, did not return several messages and emails seeking comment about Mitchell’s death.
Following the publication of this article, Maria Reppas, a spokeswoman for the department, said she would not discuss why a hospital bed for Mitchell was apparently not found. “Healthcare privacy laws, specifically HIPAA, do not permit DBHDS to comment on any individual’s treatment,” she said in an email.
Adams said medics at the jail told her Mitchell refused to take medication for his conditions. Before his arrest her nephew was on prescriptions for the antipsychotic drugs Prolixin and Zyprexin, and the mood stabiliser Depakote, according to Adams. She said prison officials then prescribed him the antipsychotic drug Haldol and Cogentin, which is intended to reduce the side-effects of the other medication, but he refused to take the drugs.
Adams said prison officials said her nephew had also been declining to eat. She said she saw Mitchell in court in recent weeks and estimated that he had lost 65 pounds since being detained. “He was extremely emaciated,” said Adams.
The aunt said relatives had not been able to visit Mitchell because he had not given jail officials their names as approved visitors. “His mind was gone because he wasn’t taking his meds, so he didn’t have a list for anyone to see him,” she said.
Asked to confirm the family’s claims about Mitchell deteriorating after declining food and medication, Perry said: “I don’t have that information.” She referred inquiries to the jail’s medical office, where an official who gave her name as Ms Thomas said: “I can not divulge any information relating to this patient.”
Perry said the 24-year-old had been housed alone in a regular jail cell comprising a bunk with a mattress, a toilet, a sink, a shelf and a slit-like window. She said she did not know the size of the cell and declined to estimate.
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At that very point, a special designation should’ve been given to his case and he should’ve either been taken home and released to his family or immediately taken to a mental health facility. Again, we’re talking about $3.50 of snacks taken by a hungry mentally ill man who is unable to work.
Again, just to be clear, we’re talking about a mentally ill man not being able to stand trial for stealing snacks.Having already spent a month between two jails, and declared unfit for trial because of his mental illness, we now know that what should’ve taken hours, days maybe, first turned into weeks, then into months.
As you see, we have a huge gap in our story. Mitchell didn’t starve to death overnight, but died slowly, day by day, over a period of months while in jail. At any given point, any decision the jail could’ve made, including taking him to a public hospital or taking him back to his family, would’ve been exponentially better than what they chose to do by letting him rot to death there.It’s hard to believe that not one mental health facility could’ve accepted him as a patient. At the point in which he had lost 15 or 20 or 40 pounds, it should’ve been realized that jailers were facing a dire emergency in need of immediate medical attention, but this didn’t happen and we don’t need to guess why.
How worthless do you have to believe a man to be, in modern America no less, when you allow him, day in and day out, to starve to death before your very eyes?
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