UPDATE 24 August 2010: Activist Cindi Fisher reports that the below alert helped, and this campaign is a SUCCESS.  Emily Darguzhyte is now FREE. She was released on 24 August and is now home with family and friends. Thank you in Lithuanian is Aciu! So aciu, everyone who took action in any way, it’s appreciated.

 

[This below alert is by friends and family of Emily, who are responsible for the content.]

 

Free Emily from Western State Hospital, and Reopen Court Case from Year 2001!

by Cindi Fisher on behalf of the Darguzhyte family:

Hello Friends around the World:

EitaDarhguzene needs your help to free her daughter, Emily Darguzhyte andto prove her daughter’s innocence in a 2001 kangaroo court case.

 

Action

Pleasecall and request that Emily be given her freedom and returned to herfamily immediately. She has been involuntarily confined and drugged forover nine months and now the doctors are petitioning for an additional180 days. They are using her false charge and conviction in 2001 aspart of the support for their petition, and charging yet again that sheis gravely disabled.

She goes to court 1 July 2010, but keep speaking out until she is free.

Pleasecall the CEO of Western State Hospital, Jess Jamison 253-756-2525 andtell him to instruct the treatment team to withdraw their petition andgive Emily her freedom.

Please E-mail Governor Gregoir andrequest that Emily be given her freedom and tell her to investigate andreopen the court case against Emily Dargughyte in 2001.

Click here: http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/

 

 

More information:

Click here http://eitaleta.blogspot.com/2010/06/mother-fights-to-prove-daughter.htmlto read the details of the impulsive mistake made by court house guardsand the cover up that followed, resulting in young Emily, then 19 yearsold, being illegally coerced into plea bargaining to gain her freedom,in a courtroom where no one else was present except Emily’s parents,after over 165 days of psychiatric drugging, jail and isolation fromher family. No interpreter has ever present.

In this latesttravesty of justice, Emily, now 28, was sentenced first to a 90 dayinvoluntary commitment with court-ordered forced drugging and thenmanipulated into signing an additional 180 day confinement to WesternState Hospital. She was committed as gravely disabled because sherefused to talk to the hospital emergency room staff and because shewas determined to give a urine sample as she was asked to do.

Emily’sspeaks English, but her native language is Lithuanian and Lithuanian isthe only language spoken at home. An interpreter was never present.

Almost300 days ago, Emily went to the local emergency room for dysmenorrhea,a form of severe menstrual cramps. Her chart stated she had beenhospitalized before at Western State Hospital, so instead of treatingher dysmenorrhea in the regular emergency room she had first beenplaced in, they transported her to the part of the hospital reservedfor those with mental illness.

Having been misunderstood andunjustly committed from this behavioral health room before, she refusedto respond to their questions and kept silent until her mother arrived.She then conversed quite fluently in Lithuanian with her mother.

 

Misunderstanding About Urine Sample Escalates

Whenasked for a urine sample she sat on the commode for a half hour, tryingto overcome the effects of prior medication which causes difficulty inurinating. The staff became impatient after waiting a half hour for thesample and demanded she get off the commode.

Her mother, knowingEmily’s difficulty, had left the room to give Emily privacy and time.When her mother returned; she was shocked and horrified to see Emilyface down on the floor with her hands handcuffed behind her back. WhenEmily had refused to move, the staff did not attempt to locate Emily’smother, but became impatient and instead sought the assistance ofsecurity to have her forcefully removed from the commode.

Givensuch cruel, embarrassing, and humiliating treatment, Emily refused totalk to the County mental health male practitioner, who had been calledby the nursing staff.

For this silence… and for her determinedeffort to overcome a medication side effect… she lost her freedom andher health. The DMHP pronounced Emily gravely disabled, despite Emily’smother explanation that her daughter was socializing with friends andfamily, and caring for herself, just prior to the onset of the severemenstrual cramps; not at all gravely disabled. And 300 days later, sheis now suffering physically and emotionally from the high doses ofmedication and their terrible side effects; and extreme isolation fromher mother and family since she was involuntarily committed!

Recently,after being denied her second outing outside in 270 days with hermother, Emily, in despair, fell on the floor and cried out “I amnothing..I am nothing.”

Emily and her family speak Lithuanian athome and never once was an interpreter present for any of theproceedings or events during this almost 300 day ordeal. This in itselfwas/is a travesty of justice, but extremely so, when after a 90 dayconfinement of mandated drugging, Emily was manipulated into signing upfor an additional 180 days when her mother was not present.

Andnow Emily is very silent and talks very little with the staff and theywant to use this as well, as evidence of “gravely disabled”, andimprison Emily for another 180 days. They even site her 2001 charge,even though it was reduced to a coerced plea bargain, as support forthis continued violation of Emily’s human rights and due process of law.

Ifthe treatment team does not withdraw the petition, we have requested ahearing (July 1, 2010) and will have Dr. Toby Watson, director of theInternational Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology as anexpert witness by telephone. But the reality is that the staff shouldwithdraw the petition and release Emily immediately! Although theyrecently changed members of the treatment team, the two mainpetitioners were Dr. Longawa, psychiatrist, and Anneliese Simons,social worker.

 

Easy Actions You Can Take

Please use the web site for the Governor of Washington to complain, and show there is international attention.

Click here: http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/

[Sample message, your own words are best:]

Dear Governor Christine Gregoir:

Pleaseinvestigate reports on the Internet of the forced psychiatric drugging,and unfair institutionalization, of 28-year-old Emily Darguzhyte.Please provide translation services in her native language, Lithuanian.Also please investigate and reopen Emily’s 2001 court case where shewas coerced to plea bargain for her freedom in a private courtroomsetting with no interpreter ever being present.

 

If you can do more…

Please contact the CEO of Western State Hospital, Jess Jamieson (photo on right).

Ph: 253-756-2525.

E-mail: JAMIEJC@dshs.wa.gov, Jess.jamieson@dshs.wa.gov

Ask him to instruct the treatment team to withdraw the petition and release Emily to her family!