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Help Saul get home:
Saul Nuñez Needs Mental Health Treatment, Not Prison
Saul has struggled with mental illness since his teenage years. His schizophrenia caused hallucinations, making him see devils and start carrying a cane to suck the devils out of the air. He was hospitalized in March 2017 but was released after a week without receiving treatment despite his mother’s requests. A doctor at North Central Mental Hospital in the Bronx even told Saul’s mother, after she informed the doctor that Saul was seeing devils, that “People say a lot of things. That doesn’t mean they’re going to do something bad.” Governor Cuomo ordered a probe on North Central Mental Health Hospital in the Bronx for releasing Saul.
On June 2nd, 2017, Saul, believing devils were attacking him, struck an elderly man with his cane. He was arrested, charged with felony 1st-degree assault, and, after less than a month at Bellevue Hospital, was transferred to Rikers where he has been for over two years. He faces 3.5 to 15 years in prison and is being held on $75,000 bail. The prosecutor, the judge, and even Saul’s court-appointed defense lawyer have been trying to get Saul to take a plea deal for a 7-year sentence and dragging his case out in one status hearing after another.
Saul Nuñez is not a criminal, but a young man with schizophrenia whom the mental health system has failed. At least 11% of inmates at Rikers have severe mental illness, and the government has decided to use prison to deal with the epidemic of mental illness in our society, especially for those who aren’t wealthy enough to afford proper treatment. Saul has been a model inmate, and his doctor and therapist at Rikers have written letters to the judge explaining Saul’s dramatic improvement after treatment, which the judge has ignored. The prosecutor tried to dictate what dosage of medication Saul should be on, contradicting the doctor’s prescription. Even the elderly man Saul hit with a cane, Juan Llorens, recognizes this is a mental health issue, hugging Saul’s mother on camera in a story by PIX11 News, and saying “I told her she has nothing to be sorry for. As soon as I saw him coming at me, I knew that he was sick.”
Saul Nuñez has been jailed at Rikers Island for over two years on a felony assault charge without yet facing trial. The only reason Saul was arrested in the first place is that he is schizophrenic and did not receive proper mental health treatment which Saul and his mother so desperately sought. He needs to be released from Rikers now and given treatment, not punishment, for his mental illness.
At Rikers, Saul is living in a very violent environment and where dehumanization of the detainees is the norm. Inmates are referred as packages and bodies; Saul constatly hears "I am trasporting 5 packages" refering to moving 5 detainees from one place to another.
Saul needs to be home in a loving enviroment and where he feels human again. Please donate to help Saul get home and the mental health treament he needs.
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