News &
Advocacy in Disability Rights
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News &
Advocacy in Disability Rights |
The following reports originate from a variety of sources, including the Associated Press. We're always on the lookout for news of interest. Send us news and if we use it here we'll send you a `Piss on Pity' button. Use the eMail below.
Dr. Death rides again The Hawking man Killer dad Austin access Accessible society Greyhound-ed Placard fees Nevada housing Yankee Stadium Church work Family care Park and run Wal-Mart - again No settlement
Kicking it up a notch, "Dr. Death" Jack Kevorkian went on "60 Minutes" and said, "See what I did!" Live on video tape, Dr. Death injected something into a man with ALS and the man died on camera. And then Kevorkian says, "What are you going to do about it?"
The man is determined to kill people with disabilities or what he calls "terminal diseases." First, it was "assisted suicide" to help people kill themselves without Dr. Death going to prison. He's done that about 130 times, he boasts. Now, he's raising the stakes - forget that "assist" stuff, just bump people off. Full-blown assassination.
He says he just wants a public debate on death. To many people with disabilities, it sounds like war.
As it stands, Kevorkian has been charged with murder and other offenses. Will he get off again?
In a curious and wonderful juxtaposition in time and space, while Kevorkian is killing a man with ALS on national TV, Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most famous living person with ALS as well as being one of the most pre-eminent scientists in the world, was visiting San Jose, California.
Hawking came over from England to give a speech (on his voice synthesizer) and meet with local people with disabilities.
Unfortunately, Dr. Death swept the ratings this time out; Hawking didn't get national TV exposure during his visit.
But in the long run, perhaps the reality of Stephen Hawking's life and career will leave Jack Kevorkian in a big black hole.
A Canadian appeals court ordered a Saskatchewan farmer to serve at least 10 years in prison for killing his severely disabled daughter, overturning a lenient sentence issued by a judge who said the father had acted out of love.
The ruling against Robert Latimer was the latest twist in a five-year case that has fueled divisive public debate over the ethics of mercy killing. Latimer was convicted last year of second-degree murder for the 1993 killing of his 12-year-old daughter, Tracy, who had cerebral palsy.
The judge in the murder trial provoked a national furor by refusing to impose the mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 years. Instead, invoking a rarely used exemption, he sentenced Latimer to serve one year in a provincial jail and a second year confined to his farm.
Saskatchewan's Court of Appeal upheld a prosecution appeal and ruled that the trial judge erred by refusing to impose the mandatory sentence. Latimer said he was disappointed by the ruling but preferred a long jail term to the alternative of watching Tracy suffer indefinitely.
Latimer, who had been free on bail, turned himself in to police, but he was released a few hours later and will be allowed to remain free pending a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on whether it will consider an appeal.
Latimer, who has three other children, admitted to killing Tracy by placing her in his pickup truck at the family farm and pumping carbon monoxide into the cab.
Austin, Texas became the second city in the nation to enact an ordinance requiring basic access to new single-family houses, duplexes and triplexes that receive financial assistance from the city.
The new city law requires one no-step entrance, 32-inch-wide doors throughout, 36-inch-wide halls, reinforcements in bathroom walls around the toilet and tub/showers for installing grab bars, and light and other switches between 15 and 48 inches from the floor.
Atlanta, Georgia was the first city to pass such a "visitability" law, after being lobbied by the grass-roots advocacy organization Concrete Change.
In Austin, Cathy Cranston, a member of ADAPT, said the new law "leads to the day when renting a house, growing older in one's own home, becoming temporarily disabled or having a child with a disability will be that much easier because more and more homes will have this basic - visitability - level of access."
The Austin ordinance evolved from public hearings and months of meetings of a focus group of builders, developers, and realtors.
Who's next? Why not make it your city?
Exploding Myths, Inc., publisher of MAINSTREAM, has established the Accessible Society Action Project (ASAP!) to focus the attention of the mainstream media on disability and independent living issues.
Funded by a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), the mission of ASAP! is to disseminate information developed by NIDRR-funded research to promote independent living by people with disabilities.
"The people who need this information are not getting it," said Cyndi Jones, president of Exploding Myths and director of ASAP!. "We know that most people, including persons with disabilities, get most of their information from the popular mass media. That's where we need this information to be."
ASAP! will analyze disability issues, talk to researchers and work with a national media relations firm to develop coverage of these issues by the national media.
"The goal is to put disability on the agenda of the national media," Jones said.
ASAP! also plans to develop a pool of articulate spokespersons to serve as expert resources for members of the media.
Jones, the project director, will be assisted in the five-year project by veteran journalists William G. Stothers, editor of MAINSTREAM magazine, and Mary Johnson, editor of Ragged Edge magazine.
A Greyhound bus driver left a blind woman stranded at a bus stop in Texas after refusing to help her when she had been a passenger and railing at her for seeking a forward seat, according to a lawsuit.
Pamela Fogg, 41, who lost much of her vision from a rare brain disease four years ago, accused Greyhound Lines of discriminating against her and violating the ADA. A Greyhound spokeswoman declined comment on the lawsuit.
The ordeal her lawsuit recounts began in Dallas early August 17 while she was en route home from a blind veterans association convention in Chicago. The bus driver refused to allow her access to front seats reserved for people with disabilities, blocked one such seat and told her to sit in the middle of the bus, the lawsuit says. He also refused to help her board the bus and, later, again refused her a front seat, the suit says.
At Weatherford, Texas, where everyone got off the bus for a break, she again requested a front seat as she attempted to get back on the bus, the last person to do so, according to the suit. Instead, the driver closed the bus door as she stood in the stairwell and began driving away, then braked and yelled at her, "If you're blind, then you can't see where we are going anyway, so why does it matter where you sit," according to the suit.
The driver then took her bags and ticket, went into a bus ticket office in a convenience store at that stop and told the agent, "She is only doing this because she wants a seat to herself." Then the bus drove away, leaving her behind, and the agent ultimately ordered her out, saying she was bothering others and that she couldn't make a call because the public phones were broken, according to the suit.
Though increasingly ill as a result of her condition, she ultimately managed to get a clerk to make a call for her and was taken to a hospital. There she called a sister collect in Washington state and asked her to seek help from Greyhound.
That afternoon, another Greyhound bus arrived with a driver who knew of her plight and helped her get on with the journey. All the other drivers were helpful and gave her the appropriate front seating, the suit says.
At least 30 other lawsuits have been filed accusing Greyhound of violating the ADA.
Connecticut's Attorney General said he may appeal a federal ruling that makes it illegal to charge disabled residents for dashboard placards allowing them to park in spaces reserved for the handicapped.
Alan N. Ponanski of the Connecticut Attorney General's office, argued that the fee, which the state uses to cover the cost of the placard program, is not discriminatory because other residents - including those not covered by the ADA - also are eligible for the special permits.
"We're reviewing it and we'll consult with the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles," Blumenthal said. U.S. District Judge Gerard L. Goettel in Waterbury ruled the fee amounts to discrimination. He said that while the DMV can charge those not protected by ADA for the placard, "it cannot impose a surcharge on those . . . individuals with disabilities under the ADA."
The ruling could mean that the state will have to pay back about $1 million to more than 100,000 people who bought the placards during the past seven years.
As many as 39,000 severely disabled Nevadans - or 85 percent of the state's severely disabled adult population - can't afford a decent place to live, according to a study.
The study, produced by the private Fannie Mae Foundation for the Nevada Special Needs Housing Coalition, pointed to a combination of high rents, low wages, and an overall lack of affordable housing around the state.
People who use wheelchairs are discriminated against at Yankee Stadium because they are severely limited in seating choices and are forced to pay more than most fans, according to a federal lawsuit.
Two men from New Jersey and one from Manhattan complained in the lawsuit that the World Series champions are violating the ADA. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and calls on the court to make the Yankees change policies that direct fans in wheelchairs to one area with poor visibility and another area that costs much more than most seats.
The 75-year-old Bronx stadium reserves 64 wheelchair spaces and 24 accompanying seats for each game. The lawsuit said one area for wheelchair users behind the main box level has no seats for companions and costs twice as much as most stadium seats. The other area, located on the field box level, limits the wheelchair fan to one companion and costs up to three times as much as general stadium seating, the lawsuit claims.
Archbishop Francis George was recovering from knee problems resulting from childhood polio when he saw Pope John Paul II in 1996. Unable to kneel before the seated pontiff, George was about to bow when the pope rose to greet him.
"You're the man for whom the pope stands," a friend chided him. Now a cardinal and the Archbishop of Chicago, George, who wears a leg brace, says he's the U.S. bishop with the most serious disability. And he's committed to making both church and society accessible to people with physical and emotional problems.
That's the theme the National Conference of Catholic Bishops addressed at their convention. They voted on the statement, "Welcome and Justice for People With Disabilities," on the 20th anniversary of the bishops' first document on inclusion. The document says it is the responsibility of both pastors and laity to assure that "the doors to participation" are always open. Cost, it says, "must never be the exclusive consideration in creating welcome . . . since provision of access to religious functions is a pastoral duty." The statement also calls on diocesan staff and parish committees to evangelize to people with disabilities.
Both the church and society, George says, have made progress in making facilities accessible. But beliefs about physical and mental disabilities, he says, have been slower to change. "In terms of attitudes about what it means to be human," he says, "and associating humanity with the ability to do things, I think we've slipped back."
Society, he says, tends to believe the best human beings are the strongest. "Disabled people tell us that's not true," he says.
Nebraska does not have to pay an Omaha woman for taking care of her disabled brother, even though it mistakenly did so for years, the Nebraska Court of Appeals ruled.
Peggy Bojanski was inadvertently paid federal funds by the state to be a personal care provider for her 43-year-old brother, Timothy Peers, who is profoundly retarded and does not walk. Bojanski was paid minimum wage for a 40-hour work week starting in 1976 under a program to keep disabled people from being institutionalized. In the early 1980s, however, federal regulations were changed to exclude relatives from being paid to provide such care.
Bojanski asked about the new regulations, but was told by a caseworker that she had been "grandfathered in" and would still be paid for taking care of her brother, said B. Gail Steen, the Legal Aid Society lawyer who handled the case.
The payments to Bojanski continued until 1995, when Margaret Peers, the mother of Timothy and Bojanksi, needed surgery. That required Bojanski to begin providing 24-hour care. When Bojanski applied for overtime pay, the Department of Health and Humans Services said she was not eligible under the rules to be paid at all.
A Douglas County District Court in 1997 affirmed the decision by HHS to stop the payments. Mrs. Peers, as Timothy's legal guardian, appealed, saying that the state had a duty to continue paying Bojanski. The Appeals Court disagreed. "The parties have not cited, and we have not located, any applicable grandfather clause, and we therefore conclude none exists," Judge Edward Hannon wrote. Steen said she would appeal the case to the state Supreme Court. A loss there would mean Timothy will likely have to be institutionalized. "And if he gets institutionalized, the state is going to have to pay the costs, which will be huge, because he requires 24-hour care," Steen said.
David St. Cyr, a University of Minnesota police officer, watched a young man get out of a car parked in a disabled space. It had the proper disability tag hanging on the rearview mirror. The man then grabbed his backpack and sprinted toward a classroom building.
Suspicious, St. Cyr decided to verify the serial number on the state-issued hang-tag. That's when he learned the placard had been issued to a person who died about a year ago þ the grandparent of the student. The student wound up paying towing charges, a fine and fees that totaled $577.
Since that incident last month, St. Cyr says he has been issuing "two or three violations a day" for misused disability placards or license plates. He has confiscated about 40 placards and several plates.
Federal employment officials in Chicago filed a discrimination complaint against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for allegedly refusing to give a desk job to an employee with disabling foot problems. Officials at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission say Mickey Traver, a former clerk at the Wal-Mart store in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, had a doctor's order to take a desk job. EEOC officials say the order qualifies Traver as disabled under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The EEOC is seeking unspecified financial damages for Traver, as well as an order barring Wal-Mart from similar behavior in the future.
A spokesman at Arkansas-based Wal-Mart declined to comment but said the company has a record of treating disabled employees well.
What? Just count the employment lawsuits against Wal-Mart reported in these pages over the past year or so.
An advocacy group for people with brain injuries is taking Connecticut back to court, claiming the state is violating the civil rights of people with brain injuries by confining them to hospitals or dumping them out onto the street.
Leaders of the Brain Injury Association of Connecticut said they will return to court because two years of negotiations over a federal lawsuit have failed to yield a settlement with the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
"We feel these individuals are inappropriately confined in situations not conducive to productive and progressive treatment," said Sean C. Parker, president of the association. "It's a human rights issue. It's a disabilities issue. These are individuals who have no way of speaking for themselves."
At least 65 men and women are being restrained against their will at Cedarcrest Hospital in Newington and in Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, the group claims. About 60 others are being ill-served because they have been released out onto the street, to nursing homes or other facilities without proper supervision.
The state Attorney General's Office said that the mental health department "provides appropriate care to the relatively small number of persons who have suffered traumatic brain injuries."
Associated Press reports were used compiling this column.
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