Mental illness and mental health can coexist: The case of Arthur Martunovich, the Mexican worker who killed three workers with a hammer
Underlying this view is the belief that a person afflicted with severe mental health problems who engages in violence is too disconnected from reality to be aware of who they are attacking. In some cases, including that of Mr. Ramsey, this may be true. In some cases bias and mental illness can coexist. In the case of Patrick, who is accused of killing many Latino people in El Paso in this year, this was true. It was also true as well for Arthur Martunovich, a construction worker who the year before killed three workers with a hammer at a Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn. Three of the victims were Asian. Mr. Martunovich, who had a history of mental health problems, was reportedly inspired by a movie he’d watched that depicted Asian men as abusive to women and believed that he was acting as a savior. He spared the restaurant’s non-Asian workers. Margaret Chin, the city councilwoman, said that the crime was a racial hate crime. In January, the Brooklyn Supreme Court judge Danny Chun ruled that there was no responsibility for Martunovich’s behavior because he had a “dangerous mental disorder” and was sending him to a facility rather than prison. The women were incensed by the ruling. “I’m very upset, I’m outraged,” one of them said afterward. “I feel like there’s no justice here.”
Hundreds of attacks against Asian Americans are not related to bias, but how come they have continued to be targeted?
Dialogue of Black and Latino Leaders in Los Angeles after the 1992 Los Angeles Unruh Raid: A Call to Disturb the State of Los Angeles
Ms. Bass issued a condemnation as well. “Let me be clear about what was on those tapes: appalling, anti-Black racism,” she said in a statement, adding that she had “spent the day speaking with Black and Latino leaders about how to ensure this doesn’t divide our city.”
She said that Angelenos are being priced out of their hometowns because of the lack of affordable housing. The conversation among some of our city’s most powerful leaders could divide us further, as we already face a raft of challenges threatening to tear us apart. All those in the room must be held accountable.”
“We have three sitting council members being explicit about the Black community, and their language exemplifies anti-Blackness,” she said. How are these people in leadership?
Residents of the city routinely tout their diversity as an asset, and, since the 1992 riots, have expressed pride in the strides they have made in race relations. Latino residents in the city say that their Black neighbours understand them better than do any other ethnic group in LA according to surveys by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
Mr. Guerra said that when he heard the recording, he was appalled, particularly at the remarks about Mr. Bonin’s child. He noted that getting along is a work in progress in most of California but that the city of Los Angeles still allows elected officials to have the final say on their own district maps rather than an independent commission. That practice, he said, has contributed to ongoing racial tensions.
Last Thursday, at precisely 5:29pm Pacific Time, a mysterious Twitter account with the handle @LAunionLaundry posted secretly taped audio of now-former Los Angeles County Federation of Labor chief Ron Herrera. Two reporters at the Los Angeles Times were tagged by the account.
David Zahniser, one of the reporters who was tagged by the account, immediately got to work on the story with the help of four colleagues: Julia Wick, Benjamin Oreskes, Dakota Smith, and Gustavo Arellano
The team was guided by Steve Clow. Thursday blended into Friday, which blended into the weekend, and conference calls were convened late into Saturday night so that the team could discuss their reporting. Reporters and editors came to an agreement on a final draft after more conference calls.
From there, The LAT’s general counsel, Jeff Glasser, quickly dealt with a legal threat from the Federation of Labor which had warned that the audio could have been the result of “illegal” recordings. According to Glasser’s response to the union, it is a fundamental principle in the United States that we do not restrict or penalize the receipt and publication of newsworthy information.
After that, it was time to set the story live. At approximately 9am PT on Sunday, The LAT published its first story: “Racist remarks in leaked audio of L.A. council members spark outrage, disgust.”
President Joe Biden even weighed in, calling on the three council members caught on the tapes, all Democrats, to resign. She stepped down as president of the council Wednesday. Two of the members have not stepped down. The Federation of Labor head, Herrera, is no longer in office.
The reporting team has grown a lot since Sunday. Grad stated that there are over two dozen journalists working on the story at The LAT. And the paper has been publishing stories daily, covering the fallout while still trying to determine who is behind the leaked audio.
Days later, there is still no telling how big the blast radius might ultimately be and whether more audio tapes might find their way into the public square.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors: Why racism pose such an acute public health crisis? A response to the Republican Rep. Doug Chaffee
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Decades later, the refugee who arrived in the United States from Vietnam in the mid-1970s, is now a Republican member of the powerful Orange County, California, Board of Supervisors, yet continues to face vitriolic racism – even while seated on the dais at public government meetings.
Democrat Doug Chaffee, Chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, co-sponsored Do’s resolution and outlined during the meeting why racism poses such an acute public health crisis.
The resolution was unanimously adopted by the board but met with contempt by some of the audience who were heard on video yelling an ethnic slur.
The public comments portion of the meeting was when one speaker said critical race theory is an academic concept that seeks to understand and address inequality andracism in the US.
The supervisor told his critics, “For those who care enough to follow, please stop preaching to me and I am far from the Left.”
It has been shown thatExperiencing racism has been linked to increased risk for a number of chronic health conditions including heart diseases, cancer, asthma, stroke, and Alzheimer’s. “These health disparities underscore the urgent need to address systemic racism as a root cause of racial and ethnic health inequities and a core element of public health efforts.”
The board of supervisors will consider whether or not to change the policies in question if there is a lack of understanding or an error on their part.
For example, Do said the review will include looking at the locations of county social services facilities, homeless shelters, and hospitals, to “lower barriers” and ensure underrepresented communities are not being inadvertently denied access.
“[W]e need to expand the way we look at how we deliver services, because there are segments of the population perhaps that we haven’t reached,” he said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/us/orange-county-racism-public-health-crisis-reaj/index.html
Orange County Racism: A Public Health Crisis Founded in the Resilience of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s
While Orange County was the North Star for Ronald Reagan-style conservatism and now has more voters registered with the democrats than Republicans, Do does not like how progressives have expanded government in order to fight racism.
He fears that the discussion of racism can be hijacked either by people on either side or by those who don’t feel that there is racism. “Some people hijack that cause to then promote social programs – big government programs – that really are not necessarily related to what we’re talking about here.”
According to a recent annual report by the Orange County Human Relations Commission, documented hate crimes and related incidents in the county were up 165% in 2021 compared to five years ago.
Orange County’s Republican district attorney, Todd Spitzer, applauded the board’s resolution this week declaring racism a public health crisis, telling CNN in a statement, “No one is born into the world with hate in their heart; hate feeds off inaction and by looking the other way. Here in Orange County, we refuse to look the other way. We refuse to let hate fester and grow and for people to be victimized because of how they look, who they love, or what they believe in.”
Last year, Spitzer announced the creation of a special hate crimes unit staffed with prosecutors and investigators tasked with aggressively charging perpetrators who act “based on a bias against the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or gender.”
The county’s hate crimes figures have increased since the year of 2017, and the Covid-19 era has had instances of brutal attacks on Asian Americans, but the supervisor is hesitant to compare it to what he experienced as a young refugee.
“America is still the most accepting place in the world,” he says, and sees resolutions like the one he authored as “a step to make us a more perfect union,” quoting America’s founders.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/us/orange-county-racism-public-health-crisis-reaj/index.html
“Do I Lie!” — A Reply to the Editor of Do’s Correspondence on “Racism as a Public Health Crisis”
Still, certain people he has come into contact with while executing his official duties in public settings have not at all been subtle in targeting the elected leader and his colleagues in unquestionably racist ways.
A member of the audience shouted at the director of the Orange County Health Care Agency as the board prepared to vote on Do’s resolution declaring racism a public health crisis.
He slammed the man who threw the slur and those who claimed the resolution was unnecessary in Orange County.