White House Fence Jumper On Psychiatric Drugs
Omar is not some maniac. He’s a veteran who needs help’
September 23, 2014 by Chelsea Schillin
Only five months after a senior neuropsychologist in charge of Fort Hood’s outpatient psychiatry clinic revealed to WND a crisis in psychological testing and treatment at the U.S. Army post, a decorated war veteran who sought therapy at the installation is now in federal custody for jumping the White House fence and bursting through the executive mansion doors.
On Sept. 19, Omar J. Gonzalez, a 42-year-old Army veteran who had deployed to Iraq three times and was injured by a homemade bomb, jumped over the north fence, sprinted across the lawn and was stopped only after he entered the White House doors.
Omar Gonzalez
Gonzalez has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia and was being treated at Fort Hood, Texas, for a time, according to his former stepson, Jerry S. Murphy.
A psychiatrist at Fort Hood prescribed Gonzalez medications, he said.
An unidentified family member told the Los Angeles Times Gonzalez said he had planned to go to a Veterans Administration hospital to seek treatment after his exit from the military in 2012. The person said Gonzalez had been taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, but he was unsure if Gonzalez had stopped.
“Omar is not some maniac,” he said. “He’s a veteran who needs help.”
Gonzalez joined the Army in 1997 and was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood. In 2003, he was honorably discharged. He re-enlisted in 2005, serving at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood until he retired in 2012 due to disability from a combat-related wound.
Murphy described Gonzalez as a “hero” who was proud of his service to his country.
But every time the soldier deployed, his mental state deteriorated.
Omar Gonzalez
Now, after completing 13 years of honorable service in the Army, the decorated war veteran has been homeless and living in his car with his dogs.
According to a police affidavit, Gonzalez told a Secret Service agent “that he was concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing and needed to get the information to the president of the United States so that he could get the word out to the people.”
When Gonzalez was arrested Friday, he had a Spyderco VG-10 folding knife in his pocket. In his car, police found more than 800 rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete, according to an affidavit.
In July, Gonzalez was arrested in Wythe County, Virginia, and charged reckless driving, one felony count of eluding police and possession of a sawed-off shotgun, according to reports. Police said Gonzalez had a map of the area and had circled the White House. Also in August, police say they stopped Gonzalez while he was walking around the White House fence, carrying a hatchet.
So what happened to the proud soldier who fought so valiantly for his country?
And had he received suitable psychological treatment following his three deployments to Iraq?
Dr. C. Alan Hopewell, the senior neuropsychologist in charge of Fort Hood’s outpatient psychiatry clinic – who resigned from his position in February – warned just months ago that the post has insufficient resources to treat soldiers seeking psychological help, including:
– Inferior testing and evaluation procedures,
– Lack of adequate funding for clinic services,
– Senior mental health professionals forced into retirement by the Army,
– Months-long wait times for soldiers seeking evaluation and treatment for psychological conditions,
– Only one trained clinical neuropsychologist for more than 50,000 soldiers
Fort Hood – one of the largest military installations in the world and the primary hub for deploying U.S. soldiers overseas – has been using free tests it finds on the Internet to evaluate soldiers’ psychological health and only employs a single neuropsychologist to treat up to 500 soldiers a month, according to Hopewell.
And while the post’s traumatic brain injury clinic had a brand-new hot tub in storage, it received little money to test soldiers for psychological trauma, Hopewell told WND in April.
Soldiers ‘lined up’ for psychological screening
Maj. (Dr.) C. Alan Hopewell, now retired
Hopewell was a senior neuropsychologist in the Department of the Army and prescribing psychologist who served as officer in charge of Fort Hood’s Traumatic Brain Injury clinic and Resilience and Restoration Center. Hopewell, who was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in Operation Iraqi Freedom, was the first prescribing psychologist to ever serve in a combat theater. He retired from the Army as a major in 2010 and continued to treat soldiers from the post’s outpatient psychiatry clinic until the beginning of this year.
He worked on Fort Hood at the same time as Army psychiatrist and Islamist Maj. Nidal Hasan, who called himself a “mujahedeen,” or holy warrior. On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar!” (“Allah is greater!”) and brutally murdered 14 people (including an unborn baby) and injured 32.
Hopewell told WND his personal horror stories of urging leadership to hire more mental health personnel as the Resilience and Restoration Center was being inundated with soldiers requesting evaluation.
“By spring of 2007, with the re-deployment of the 4th Infantry Division, we had soldiers literally lying on the grass and lined up outside the building as the waiting room was full and they could not be seen for service,” he explained.
The Resilience and Restoration Center was busier than the Army hospital emergency room in 2007, exceeding 300 patient encounters every day, he said. In many cases, he was forced to send patients more than two hours away from the military post, to Dallas and San Antonio, for treatment.
Soldiers and veterans who have, or who claim to have, a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, must often be evaluated by specially trained clinical neuropsychologists. Hopewell said now there is only one neuropsychologist doing testing on Fort Hood in the TBI clinic. There are only about 203 of them at any time on active service with the Army Medical Command, which covers five regions in the U.S. and Europe.
Gonzalez had been injured in an explosion when his Humvee was hit by a homemade explosive device three years ago in Baghdad, and part of his foot was amputated. While it’s possible he suffered a brain injury from the explosion, reports do not indicate he had been diagnosed with TBI.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, frequently occurs with TBI. Both conditions may include the following symptoms: insomnia, memory problems, poor concentration, emotional instability, depression, anxiety, irritability and fatigue. In June of 2013, Brig. Gen. (Dr.) John M. Cho, deputy chief of staff for operations with Army Medical Command, acknowledged, “We’re nowhere near where we want to be, however, when it comes to researching PTSD and TBI. A lot more needs to be done.”
According to a 2008 study, around 20 percent of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Only half of those soldiers sought treatment.
Treating soldiers from a trailer
Jihadist Nidal Hasan
After Hasan’s attack, the TBI clinic’s three new brick buildings were closed off for an entire year. Hopewell said three civilian neuropsychologists resigned between 2009 and 2011, due to similar problems of which he had complained, and half of the entire staff quit after the Hasan terror attack because of stress.
Without his clinic buildings, Hopewell had to treat soldiers out of troop trailers in a parking lot.
“My car still has a bullet hole in it,” he said. “For months, I used a piece of plywood on two chairs for my desk. After six months, all the electricity was turned off and we were given about 24 hours to move to another set of trailers … I did not have enough electrical outlets for a fax machine, and many other limitations. The clinic was basically run from my cell phone and perhaps a phone the clerk had at the desk.”
That arrangement lasted until Oct. 30, 2010, when Hopewell acquired more trailers for his work.
The clinics serve two complete combat divisions, non-divisional support units, dozens of U.S. Army Reserve units passing through Fort Hood (about 50,000 soldiers) and tens of thousands of retired veterans living in the surrounding area. He said hundreds of temporarily retired soldiers live between San Antonio and as far as Arkansas, and they also must be evaluated in a timely manner or they stand to lose their disability benefits.
Soldiers comfort each other at a memorial service for victims of the Fort Hood shootings, Nov. 10, 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas (White House photo)
Taking psychological tests from Internet
In September 2013, Fort Hood allowed its contract to expire after five years of using the psychological testing to evaluate troops returning from combat. Also, Hopewell said the sequestration shut down 20 percent of all mental health services for several weeks during the summer of 2013. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., had expressed concern that across-the-board sequestration cuts may have compromised the military’s mental health services.
The contract was for a number of critical tests to use for patients, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test, the most frequently given test in the world; pain tests; tests for driving, depression and anxiety; tests for personality disorder and PTSD; and tests for patient responses to medical illness and injury.
The soldiers’ responses were sent to the contracted company, which would score the tests and return a complete report within 24 hours.
Dr. Robert Christopher of Professional, Clinical, and Forensic Assessments, a company that holds testing contracts with both military and law enforcement agencies, told WND, “We didn’t receive any notification that the contract would not be renewed. There were only indications that the need for assessment was increasing tremendously.”
He added, “This year, all the troops are coming back from Afghanistan, so the huge volume anticipated was a good justification to renew the contract. Not only did they not renew the contract, they failed to pay us for the last month.”
Instead, Hopewell said the clinic began using free tests it found on the Internet, like the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, adding, “There is no comparison between these approved, standardized tests and something like the Epworth.”
Christopher said, “That really doesn’t make any sense because usually it takes a psychologist three, four or even five hours to do a complete profile on an individual. Our capacity is about five to 10 tests an hour. It was unusual and, to be honest with you, a little bit of a mystery why the military decided not to renew the contract.”
Both Hopewell and Christopher said the testing services were offered “at a fraction of the price” of other vendors.
Christopher added, “When you look at what’s going on with the military, based on the publications on the number of suicides and cases of PTSD, which is a very complex kind of issue, it’s a mystery to me why there’s not a military-wide assessment.”
Up to 6 months before soldiers get treatment
Hopewell said soldiers often waited up to two months for an initial appointment for psychological evaluations. Then they were seen by either a social worker or psychologist for an initial diagnostic interview. If medications were needed, they typically waited two more months to be seen by a psychiatrist or be referred out to the civilian community.
“Once seen by the psychiatrist, a second medical review would be done and perhaps lab work before anything would be prescribed,” he said. “So, perhaps two months after all that, the soldier might actually receive a prescription.”
Hopewell would have his patients come in once a week for three weeks to ensure they didn’t suffer from side effects and possibly increase the medications to the proper therapeutic dosage.
2014 Fort Hood gunman, Spc. Ivan Lopez
The Army terminated its psychological testing contract at Fort Hood only seven months before Spc. Ivan Lopez’s eight-minute shooting rampage that left Lopez and three other soldiers dead and 16 more wounded on April 2 of this year.
In Lopez’s case, the soldier had only been stationed at Fort Hood since February, two months before he shot himself and 19 other soldiers. Officials have stated that he was receiving antidepressants and the sleep aid, Ambien. If he had been following the Fort Hood treatment process Hopewell describes, he wouldn’t receive a full medical review and treatment plan for several more months.
However, things might have been different for Lopez if mental health professionals hadn’t been forced to deal with Army bureaucracy, Hopewell said.
“If we had been civilians and [the psychiatrist] turned around and said, ‘Look this guy has problems. I’m evaluating him for PTSD. I gave him some Ambien, but I need to know more about his overall psychological status,’ within two or three days I would normally have had a report back to the psychiatrist and we would be able to construct an overall treatment plan,” he said.
“But working in the Army system, this took weeks and weeks and months.”
When Hopewell needed outside help to speed up the testing process – even though a premiere TBI treatment facility was located only two hours away at Fort Sam Houston’s Brooke Army Medical Center – he said he was ordered not to send soldiers there.
“We were given direct orders never to send anybody to Brooke Army Medical Center or to the civilian community for neuropsychological testing,” he said. “I was given these as direct orders, even though the clinic as a whole was screening 500 patients per month some coming from as far as Arkansas for their medical boards.”
Hopewell added, “Now that there is only one psychologist at the TBI clinic doing all the testing, and he is not even board certified, there is no way to keep up with the workload that I can see.”
Fort Hood is also subject to the military’s Title 10 law, which forces out the very mental health professionals that Hopewell says are desperately needed – experienced, senior psychologists – through mandatory retirement. Title 10 allows waivers to mandatory retirement for all medical personnel except psychologists and social workers.
‘The clinic doesn’t do Jacuzzi work’
At the same time the post was plagued by inadequate funding for psychological testing and treatment, Hopewell said “tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of useless equipment” sat in a storage facility at the TBI clinic.
“We had a new Jacuzzi sitting in the Conex [storage container], at one time four extra refrigerators, beds and toilets that would only be used for extremely impaired patients who could not get into or out of bed by themselves, and stuff like that,” he said.
“I kept beating my head against the wall. I could never figure out who in their right mind would set up a clinic and provide nothing in the budget for the testing materials that were the main thing we needed.”
Hopewell said testing is the main priority of a TBI clinic with high-functioning patients who almost always present with co-morbid psychiatric disorders.
“This is an ambulatory concussion clinic with patients who also have PTSD, depression, stress, pain and other psychological issues,” he said. “The clinic doesn’t do Jacuzzi work and does very little physical therapy. It does primarily medical screening for headache management, psychological testing, psychological therapies and high-level speech and occupation therapy.”
Example of a biofeedback session at California State University, Fullerton (Photo by Kelly Lacefield)
Meanwhile, Hopewell said he built a biofeedback service, a computerized program that takes a soldier’s heart rate and respiratory measures and helps him learn to physiologically control anxiety, muscle tension and heart rate. However, there was no funding even for an adequate chair for his soldier-patients while they received the treatment.
“We had the equipment, but it is useless if the patient cannot learn properly due to discomfort,” he said. “Usually a soft type of recliner is used, which is adjusted so the patient can see the screen.”
Fortunately, Hopewell was able to buy a chair, but only with the help of the Red Cross.
‘Government failing to meet needs of this generation’s veterans’
A poll conducted by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation found, “More than half [56 percent] of the 2.6 million Americans dispatched to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan struggle with physical or mental health problems stemming from their service, feel disconnected from civilian life and believe the government is failing to meet the needs of this generation’s veterans.”
On April 9, after the Lopez shooting at the installation, President Obama traveled to Fort Hood and vowed to improve mental health services for troubled soldiers while also limiting their access to firearms.
“This tragedy tears at wounds still raw from five years ago,” he said. “… [A]s a nation, we can do more to help counsel those with mental health issues, to keep firearms out of the hands of those who are having such deep difficulties. As a military, we must continue to do everything in our power to secure our facilities and spare others this pain.”
He added, “We must honor these men by doing more to care for our fellow Americans living with mental illness, civilian and military. … As commander in chief, I’m determined that we will continue to step up our efforts – to reach our troops and veterans who are hurting, to deliver to them the care that they need, and to make sure we never stigmatize those who have the courage to seek help.”
President Obama attends a memorial service for the victims of the Fort Hood shootings, April 9, 2014. (White House photo)
Concerned individuals may contact the following Texas lawmakers:
Rep. John Carter, R-Texas
Bell County, Texas, office: (254) 933-1392
Washington, D.C., office: (202) 225-3864
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas
Austin office: (512) 469-6034
Washington, D.C., office: (202) 224-2934
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas
Austin office: (512) 916-5834
Washington, D.C., office: (202) 224-5922
http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/key-fact-about-white-house-fence-jumper-revealed/
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White House Fence Jumper On Psychiatric Drugs
Another example of unstable behavior linked with SSRIs
Image Credits: Anthony Freda
September 23, 2014 by Kit Daniels
The ex-stepson of the veteran arrested for jumping over the White House fence says the vet was on psychiatric medication prescribed by a Ft. Hood psychiatrist, highlighting once again the connection between unstable behavior and SSRIs.
Jerry S. Murphy told CNN his former stepfather, Omar J. Gonzalez, had served three tours in Iraq and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia, which his base psychiatrist was treating with medication.
Gonzales, 42, was arrested on Sept. 19 after reportedly jumping over the north White House fence, sprinting across the lawn and entering the White House.
Police say Gonzales was carrying a Spyderco VG-10 folding knife and a 3½-inch serrated blade, in addition to the 800 rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete found in his car.
SSRIs, which are well known to trigger unstable and often violent behavior, are commonly prescribed to treat PTSD and other mental conditions.
“On December 15, 2010, PLoS Medicine released a study which showed that, in regard to prescription medications associated with reports of violence towards others, the FDA had received the most reports of violence from the SSRI & SNRI antidepressants, except for Chantix, the smoking cessation drug,” the web site SSRI Stories reported, which covers the connection between adverse behavior and SSRIs. “The study listed Prozac as the number two drug for violence, and Paxil as number three.”
“Antidepressants have been recognized as potential inducers of mania and psychosis since their introduction in the 1950s.”
And in the past several decades there have been hundreds of violent incidents, including recent mass shootings, committed by individuals taking psychiatric drugs.
After U.S. Army Specialist Ivan Lopez killed three people and wounded 16 others on Ft. Hood in April, the base commander, Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley, admitted that Lopez was taking SSRIs.
“He was on medications, that’s correct,” he told Infowars when asked if Lopez was prescribed anti-depressants.
Later it was revealed that Lopez had also been taking Ambien, a sleeping pill associated with aggressive outbursts.
Similarly, the Washington Navy Yard shooter, Aaron Alexis, had been treated with SSRIs for his mental problems.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was also taking psychiatric drugs when he slaughtered 16 Afghan civilians back in 2012.
And both ‘Batman’ shooter James Holmes and Columbine killer Eric Harris were prescribed Zoloft, which the Food and Drug Administration warns can cause hostility and aggression.
Unfortunately, it would appear that the medical profession is underestimating the known risks associated with these drugs, due to both ignorance and the pursuit of billions in profits.
http://www.infowars.com/accused-white-house-fence-jumper-given-psychiatric-drugs/
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