Still Got Cotton in My Blood
Here’s the hard truth: What happened at the University of Chicago, where a campus police officer shot an allegedly threatening student, is exactly how our mental health system is designed to operate.
For years the mental health community has argued that police should not be the safety net for mental health crises. Years. And the response from decision-makers and elected officials has not been to increase mental health funding. Or to build a comprehensive mental health crisis system to handle such situations. Or to pour funding into college campuses where 25 percent of people first experience the onset of mental health conditions. No, the response has been to pay for better police training. Until we put money and effort and thought into building a better mental health system, police officers will remain the safety net.
Don’t misunderstand me: Mental health awareness and deescalation training for police officers are vitally important and a critical part of any robust mental health system. Sadly, those experiencing mental health or substance use disorders come into contact with the police because their behavior sometimes appears criminal. In most cases, police officers compassionately and competently connect these folks to the treatment they need.
This happens scores of times a year in Chicago. No one is hurt, and the individuals and their families are grateful that officers have the knowledge and training to connect these individuals with the proper care.
The U. of C. Police Department makes it a priority to provide its officers with crisis intervention training. The reality is that the U. of C. officer in this case responded to a difficult situation, followed his training and did the job he was asked to do.
Nobody wants to see a college student who may have mental illness get shot. It is one of the worst possible outcomes. That’s why we need to do more than train police officers; we need to build a mental health safety net that goes far beyond law enforcement.
Hours after the shooting, U. of C. students protested, arguing campus police should not have been involved, that this was a medical health emergency.
The students’ hearts are in the right place. In a better world, mental health should be as commonly discussed as the flu season. Mental health illness should be addressed with the same forthright courage we now afford cancer. In a better world, we would not talk about mental health only after crises. Until then, the harsh reality is that the system worked as designed.
Because that’s the system we’ve paid for.
Iguess over the last year my wife and I have won at least five free vacations, and left several million in funds from folks we didn’t even know we were the next of kin. And thankfully when my bank account gets out of whack, there’s somebody calling us to straighten it out, whether we have an account with that financial institution or not. It seems that in this modern age we are bombarded with folks trying to separate us from our money, no matter how little it may be, but it’s a game that is not new.
Let’s look at the period from 1890 till 1900. Around 1893 a young man from Rome named McGuire was in New York City, either on vacation or business, I don’t know which.
He met a gentleman that went by “Lord Beresford” and claimed to be a descendant of the same. His given name was Sidney Lascelles, but he was referred to as the present “Lord Beresford.” He was quite a polished gentleman, living in high New York style.
In talking to Mr. McGuire he let it slip that he had a million dollars he wished to invest in American manufacturing. Mr. McGuire knew just the place to drop that amount of funds. That would be in Rome, Georgia. Somehow Lord Beresford acquired a railroad ticket and showed up in Rome. He was immediately taken in tow by the proprietors of the Etna Iron Works. This property was given in tax records an appraisal of approximately $30,000, but they felt they could give Beresford half the stock for $500,000. After a week of hard negotiations, a deal was reached. Lord Beresford did ask the owners for a bit of change for personal expenses, and gave them a check for $2,000 on a London bank to cover same.
Before the check even made it to the coast to travel to England, Lord Beresford was on a train back to New York without saying goodbye to his hosts, and he carried with him a diamond ring loaned to him by a young woman … of short acquaintance.
J.W. Lancaster, local photographer, was kept busy for several days making photos of “Lord Beresford” for police departments and detective agencies across the country. Lascelles was eventually apprehended in New York City, and Deputy Sheriff Dallas Turner was sent to get him. On the return trip, another Roman was on board the train and traveling home. He spent hours in conversation with His Highness, and was so impressed with his pretensions that he told his fellow townsmen that nothing but good could come from such a man.
Lord Beresford still had friends whose sympathies supplied him with every need he may have had while residing in the Floyd County Jail. His stories of the castle in England, and of princes and princesses, taken with the lavender in his silk handkerchief, provided a steady stream of visitors which taxed the sheriff and jailer, Jake Moore, to no end.
He was an avid letter writer, and sent many of his friends a detailed script of his bad luck in Rome. He also had married a woman in New York, who had friends in Atlanta. With the funds he received from his letter writing and the influence of Atlanta friends he was released on bond.
While awaiting trial he opened a bicycle shop in the basement of the Armstrong Hotel; the bicycle craze was at its height, and he sold a lot of bicycles in Rome and probably made part payments on some of them. He gave a Rome boy a nice bicycle and touched his “daddy” for a $600 loan.
A jury found him guilty of cheating and swindling, and Judge J.W. Maddox sentenced him to two years in the penitentiary. He was represented by Attorney Linton A. Dean and prosecuted by Solicitor Cicero T. Clements.
He actually served part of his sentence at a lumber camp as timekeeper and sort of a secretary of the gang. It is said that he would have soon owned the “works” if he had not departed to breathe the fresh air of freedom. He was captured in Americus, put back in and did most of his sentence.
During his confinement he enjoyed a considerable amount of leisure as before, and wrote a humorous paper on his experiences, which he published in pamphlet form and sold at 25 cents a copy. His local friends bought his writings eagerly, to see what he had to say about his Rome.
In one entry he wrote he was much amused by the lady he was residing with and her butler. The good lady inquired, “Milord, at what hour would it suit your highness to breakfast?” “Midam, at 11 o’clock,” I replied. She had instructed her butler to observe the royal etiquette, and to follow the royal form, and so he said to me at the table.
“Won’t you have some buckwheat cakes, My god?”
“I had exceeding difficulty repressing a smile.”
Lord Beresford sold many of his pamphlets in cities where he had visited. His wife in New York, learning of his pranks with other women, quit him, but he turned up in Fitzgerald and married a woman with money, and when she died shortly afterward he was left with some $40,000 of her funds.
Everywhere he went he left a string of shady transactions. He headed west, but was soon in another peck of trouble.
Traveling back east he settled in Asheville, North Carolina, where he succumbed to consumption in 1898 or 1899. He was dressed in all his finery and pictures were taken of him in his burial outfit.
I’ve tried to find one of the pictures but am unable too. If you know of one, and its whereabouts, please call me.
You see, con men have been with us for as long as we’ve been here. Wonder how many vacations or cruises we’ll win this year? MIKE RAGLAND