VivirLatino

The following is a disgusting story that exemplifies what happens when mental health issues are criminalized instead of treated.

A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye and told authorities he ate it.

Andre Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant’s death.

While in the Grayson County Jail in Sherman, Thomas plucked out his right eye before his trial later in 2004. A judge subsequently ruled he was competent to stand trial.

I am an anti-violence advocate big time. I think that men MUST be held accountable for the violence they commit against their partners. But you can’t tell me that this dude wasn’t a dude that had some *serious* mental issues. Mental issues that did not just begin when he decided that pulling the hearts out of his family would be a good idea. But now that he’s killed three people and probably eaten both of his eyes–he’s going to get help!

Thomas was treated at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler. Then he was transferred and remains at the Jester Unit, a prison psychiatric facility near Richmond southwest of Houston.

“He will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from day 1,” Bobbie Peterson-Cate, Thomas’ trial attorney, told the Sherman Herald Democrat. “He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one.”

Is this the price people must pay to get a little help in this system? Three human lives and two eyeballs?

Or do you think it’s only the price we expect people of color to pay?