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Dear Arizona House and Senate Members:
Free speech is one of the most important American rights. Even if you disagree with elected official it should be your right to criticize them, or support them. Same for free speech about the war in Iraq. Doesn't matter if you think the Iraq war is bringing democracy to the world, or hate the war and think it is turning America into a police state and that the USA is a world bully you should be able to freely speak your mind about it. Everybody including Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, Communists, Socialist and all other political parties should have the right of free speech. Even idiots and jerks should have the right of free speech. Even if a person is a racist or sexist pig they should have the right to talk about their stupid beliefs. And people of all beliefs including Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Hindus should also have the right of free speech. I was very surprised to find out the Arizona Mental Health System is being used by the Secret Service to jail political dissenters who disagree with President Bush. And that Arizona laws allow the information about people who have been jailed in the mental health system, by the Secret Service for political reasons to be kept secret. Jailing people in Arizona Mental Institutions for being political dissenters is WRONG. Keeping the records secret of these people jailed in mental institutions for being political dissenters is also wrong! I hope you will do something to try to stop this horrible practice. Back in May of 2004, a republican telephone solicitor called Kevin Walsh and asked the Walsh family to support and re-elect George W. Bush to four more years in the White House as President of the United States. Kevin Walsh, an anti-war activist used his free speech to tell the phone solicitor that he "wished Bush were dead". Although it was stupid to say that, it was not a crime and it was perfectly legal form of free speech. The telephone solicitor overreacted and reported the incident to the Secret Service. The Secret Service did not have enough evidence to arrest Kevin for threatening the President so instead they asked the Phoenix Police to arrest Kevin and have him jailed not for any crimes he had committed, but because said that Mr. Walsh needed mental health treatment. That is odd. How does Secret Service Special Agent Ray Lebeau who has never met or talked to Kevin Walsh come up with the plan that Mr. Walsh needs to be locked in the Maricopa County Psych ward because he needs mental health treatment? Probably because Mr. Walsh said that, "he wished the President were dead." And maybe because Mr. Walsh is an anti-war activist, and perhaps because Mr. Walsh is a communist, and perhaps because Mr. Walsh is a gun owner with a concealed weapons permit, and perhaps because Mr. Walsh is a bigot. I bet all of the reason combined just terrified the Agent Lebeau about Mr. Walsh. But not of them should have been used to allow Agent Lebeau to arrest Mr. Walsh. The Phoenix Police arrested Kevin Walsh on Monday, June 21 of 2004 and jailed him in the Maricopa County Psych Ward at the request of Secret Service Agent Ray Lebeau. If Kevin Walsh had threatened the President, the Secret Service would have arrested Mr. Walsh and charged him with a crime in a federal court. They didn't. Instead, the Secret Service asked the Phoenix Police to arrest Mr. Walsh in jail him in the Maricopa County Psyc ward, not for any crimes Mr. Walsh was accused of committing, but because Secret Service Agent Ray Lebeau said that Mr. Walsh needed "mental treatment". Ten days later on July 1, 2004 at Desert Vista Mental Health Center in Mesa Mr. Walsh had a mental health hearing at the request of Secret Service Agent Ray Lebeau. Mr. Lebeau testified that Kevin was a danger to society and the mental health court ordered Kevin to be jailed for medical treatment for 180 days. Kevin's mental health hearing was open to the public. However, per Arizona law the transcripts of the trial and the results of the trial are secret and not open to the public. Therefore, it is impossible to find out what the Secret Service is accusing Kevin of doing or find out what evidence the court used to convict Kevin of "being crazy." This is scary. The Secret Service is using the Arizona mental health system to jail its enemies and we can't even get court records of why they are jailed. The only public records we have about the jailing of Kevin Walsh are the police reports from when Secret Service Agent requested the Phoenix Police to arrest Mr. Walsh. In an article written by Bryon Wells in the Mesa Tribune or Arizona Tribune he asked the Secret Service to comment on the case and Chuck Woolford, a spokesman for the Secret Service, declined to comment, saying the agency never confirms or denies ongoing investigations. Nine months after Kevin's arrest I filed a Federal Freedom of Information Request with the Secret Service. The Secret Service refused to provide any information in response to the Freedom of Information Request. I have written Desert Vista Hospital and the Maricopa Medical Courts asking for Kevin records thru the US Post Office several months ago but they never responded to my requests. From the mediations they are forcing Kevin Walsh to take which are risperidone and lithium carbonate so I suspect they are accusing Kevin of being schizophrenic because those drugs are used to treat schizophrenics. The last thing that happened also seems to indicate the Kevin Walsh was just jailed in a mental institution by the Secret Service as a ploy to use the doctors to question him. After being jailed at Desert Vista Hospital for about four months the Secret Service subpoenaed Kevin?s mental health records in what looked like an attempt by the Secret Service to have the doctors get him to confess to crimes he was accused of during his mental health treatment. Of course Kevin has denied threatening the President all along and the information the Secret Service got from the subpoena didn't get any evidence that could be used to charge Kevin with a crime in a federal court. A few days after the Secret Service had the subpoenaed data Kevin was released from the mental health system which also makes it look like the whole incident was a sham used by the Secret Service to get the mental health workers question their suspect. The fact that they are probably accusing Kevin of having the illness of schizophrenic is another indication that Kevin is being jailed for political reasons. Schizophrenia is not an illness that you can use a blood test or other chemical test to verify that a person has the "schizophrenia virus". Nope there are not any tests to verify you have schizophrenia. What happens is a doctor talks to the patient for a period of time and says "you know I think the person has schizophrenia". It is totally subjective. Twenty doctors could talk to the person and half of them say the person is schizo, and half say the person is not schizo. To jail a person in the Arizona Mental health system for being schizo all you have to do is get one doctor to say "the guy is schizo" and get the judge to agree with that doctor and order the guy jailed. While other doctors may argue that the guy isn't schizo there is no way to prove it, or force the judge to let the guy out. And for that reason schizophrenia is often used to label people as crazy when you want to jail them for being political dissenters. Many people when they hear the word schizophrenia they think it is a illness that people who run around murdering every person they see with an ax. That is a common misnomer that is wrong. Mental health experts will tell you that less then 1 percent of the people who have schizophrenia are dangerous to others. In fact that a person with schizophrenia is more likely to be withdrawn and keep to themselves rather then be violent. Again this raise suspicions that Kevin was classified as a schizophrenia and declared dangerous to let the Secret Service jail him as a political prisoner rather then because he is really dangerous to people. This seems rather unlike since if Kevin was really schizophrenia, most schizophrenia people are not a danger to anyone. I hope that you will do something to expose the fact the Arizona government is allowing the Secret Service to use the mental health system to jail political prisoners. While Kevin Walsh is the only person I know who is being jailed as a political prisoner by the Secret Service I suspect that since the Secret Service is doing it to Kevin they are also doing it to other people. I also hope you will do something to get the laws changed so that when people are jailed for "being crazy" that the information is not secret as it is now and so the public can see what is going on. This is the only way to prevent abuse of the system. Kevin Walsh also has a few weird views that will make him unpopular among many people. Even though he has those weird views it is still wrong to jail him for his political views about President Bush. Some of Kevin's weird views are 1) he is an atheist 2) he is a communist 3) he is a bigot 4) he is against the Iraq war 5) he is a gun owner and has a concealed weapons permit. Since Kevin has been released from the mental health system he has been held in the Maricopa County Jail on charges that he resisted arrest when he was initially arrested by the Phoenix Police for the Secret Service. Kevin can be contacted at either: Kevin Walshor at his home Kevin WalshThanks ********************
FREE KEVIN WALSH home Page Kevin Walsh was a political prisoner who was jailed in a mental hospital by the Secret Service for his anti-Bush statements. Kevin Walsh has committed no crimes and the Secret Service has no evidence to charge Kevin Walsh with any crimes. |