Insurrection Update

From Mychael Schnell's 8-2-21 THE HILL article entitled "Third Police Officer Who Responded to Jan. 6 Attack Dies by Suicide":

A third police officer who responded to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has died by suicide, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) confirmed on Monday.

Gunther Hashida was found dead in his home on Thursday, according to an emailed statement from the department.

A spokesperson for the MPD confirmed to The Hill that Hashida died by suicide.

“We are grieving as a Department as our thoughts and prayers are with Officer Hashida’s family and friends,” the department wrote in a statement.

Hashida was assigned to the Emergency Response Team within the Special Operations Division, according to the department.

Hashida died two days after the select committee probing the Jan. 6 attack held its first hearing, where four police officers delivered harrowing testimony about their experiences defending the Capitol amid the riots.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

From Sarah N. Lynch's 7-23-21 REUTERS article entitled "'QAnon Shaman' in Plea Negotiations After Mental Health Diagnosis": 

The participant in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots nicknamed the "QAnon Shaman" is negotiating a possible plea deal with prosecutors, after prison psychologists found he suffers from a variety of mental illnesses, his attorney said.

In an interview, defense lawyer Albert Watkins said that officials at the federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, have diagnosed his client Jacob Chansley with transient schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety.

The BOP's findings, which have not yet been made public, suggest Chansley's mental condition deteriorated due to the stress of being held in solitary confinement at a jail in Alexandria, Virginia, Watkins said.

"As he spent more time in solitary confinement ... the decline in his acuity was noticeable, even to an untrained eye," Watkins said in an interview on Thursday.

He said Chansley's 2006 mental health records from his time in the U.S. Navy show a similar diagnosis to the BOP's [...].

Federal prosecutors have arrested more than 535 people on charges of taking part in the violence, which saw rioters battle police, smash windows and send members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence running for safety.

About 20 defendants so far have pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with the attack, according to a government tally.

Chansley is jailed as he awaits trial, after prosecutors convinced a federal judge he remains a danger if released.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in May ordered him to undergo a competency evaluation.

As of July 5, he was one of 188 men and women undergoing an initial mental health evaluation to determine if they are competent to stand trial, according to BOP data.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

In light of the above news reports, it's illuminating to revisit a 1-6-18 GUARDIAN article entitled "Trump Is Now Dangerous – That Makes His Mental Health a Matter of Public Interest" by Dr. Bandy X. Lee (a forensic psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine and editor of the bestselling book THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP: 27 PSYCHIATRISTS AND MENTAL HEALTH EXPERTS ASSESS A PRESIDENT):

[A]t no other time in US history has a group of mental health professionals been so collectively concerned about a sitting president’s dangerousness. This is not because he is an unusual person – many of his symptoms are very common – but it is highly unusual to find a person with such signs of danger in the office of presidency. For the US, it may be unprecedented; for parts of the world where this has happened before, the outcome has been uniformly devastating.

Pathology does not feel right to the healthy. It repels, but it also exhausts and confuses. There is a reason why staying in close quarters with a person suffering from mental illness usually induces what is called a “shared psychosis”. Vulnerable or weakened individuals are more likely to succumb, and when their own mental health is compromised, they may develop an irresistible attraction to pathology. No matter the attraction, unlike healthy decisions that are life-affirming, choices that arise out of pathology lead to damage, destruction, and death. This is the definition of disease, and how we tell it apart from health.

Politics require that we allow everyone an equal chance; medicine requires that we treat everyone equally in protecting them from disease. That is why a liberal health professional would not ignore signs of appendicitis in a patient just because he is a Republican. Similarly, health professionals would not call pancreatic cancer something else because it is afflicting the president. When signs of illness become apparent, it is natural for the physician to recommend an examination. But when the disorder goes so far as to affect an individual’s ability to perform her function, and in some cases risks harm to the public as a result, then the health professional has a duty to sound the alarm.

The progress of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigations was worrisome to us for the effects it would have on the president’s stability. We predicted that Trump, who has shown marked signs of psychological fragility under ordinary circumstances, barely able to cope with basic criticism or unflattering news, would begin to unravel with the encroaching indictments. And if his mental stability suffered, then so would public safety and international security.

To read the entire article, click HERE.