Arizona State Mental Health System Killed Boys

PHOENIX (Wire Services) December 26, 2009 — One year ago this week, two little boys went to their neighborhood park in southwest Phoenix. Christmas was coming and they were no doubt counting the long hours until the magic would begin.

It was 12:57 p.m. on Dec. 23, 2008, that a neighbor's security camera picked up the boys as they walked toward the park. A minute later, a man in a white T-shirt and denim shorts followed. He was wearing a red Diamondbacks cap backward on his head and, in his hand, a baseball bat. Four minutes later, he returned the way he had come, the bat still in his hand.

A neighbor found the boys in the playground sand, near the slide. They'd been beaten with a bat or something similar.

The story of 10-year-old Edwin Pellecier and his 7-year-old cousin, Jesse Ramirez, wrenched the heart of this city. The boys were inseparable in life and in death. They died within hours of one another on the day after Christmas. Ten days later, their mothers - sisters - clutched teddy bears as they followed their sons' small white caskets down the aisle of the Tucson church where they had been baptized.

"What can I say?" the Rev. Patrick Crino, rector of St. Augustine's Cathedral, said that day to the hundreds who gathered for the funeral. "What can any of us say?"

There isn't anything to say, really. Except that our supposed mental-health system killed Edwin and Jesse. It was right there along with Joe Gallegos as he wielded that baseball bat.

Four months before Edwin and Jesse died, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ordered that Gallegos submit to psychiatric treatment through Magellan Health Services. But state records dug up after the tragedy showed that a patient believed to be Gallegos was never given a psychiatric assessment by the clinic assigned to treat him, had no documented treatment plan and didn't meet monthly with his case manager and his doctor, as required.

Gallegos slipped right through Magellan's fingers despite a court order that he be monitored, despite the fact that we're paying the for-profit company a half a billion dollars a year to care for the seriously mentally ill in Maricopa County.

DHS vowed an investigation and so did state legislators. "This is not going to be swept under the rug," Sen. Carolyn Allen, chairwoman of the Healthcare and Medical Liability Reform Committee, told me at the time. "It's not."

But it has been. Have you read about major reforms? Have you ever even seen anyone from Magellan admit that they screwed up?

One year later, here's what we know about why Edwin and Jesse died. We know that Phoenix police were twice called about Gallegos in July 2008, and both times, Magellan's crisis-intervention team was called. We know that he was hospitalized the second time and that on Aug. 12, 2008, a judge ordered him into treatment for a year.

We know, from a DHS report, that there was no initial treatment plan in Gallegos' file and that he didn't receive the minimum monthly visits required by the judge. And we know that he was never again seen after being released from the hospital a second time, on Oct. 14, 2008.

Seventy-three days later, two little boys were dead.

It could be asked, why didn't the family do something? Eli Gallegos, Joe's brother, told me this week that the family tried repeatedly to get help for his brother. Twice, they had him committed, he said, and both times he was released.

"When I sent him to the hospital, they just gave him back to me," Eli said. "What was I supposed to do with him?"

In January, I plan to sit down with Eli to talk in detail about what happened. Until then, he asks a great question, one we ought to demand an answer to in 2010.

"How many more people," he asked, "have got to die for the state to do something?"

This week, Christmas week, will always be tough for those who loved Edwin and Jesse.

Josie Ramirez, Jesse's great-aunt, wrote a note this week to the boys, whose organs were donated so that something good, at least, would come from all of this, "It's been a year since you've been gone and it still hurts so much. Your deaths were senseless, but your lives were a blessing. In life you touched so many people, you both were so loving, caring and full of life. In your deaths, the hearts of those that loved you so much still ache, but we all know that you still continue to live on in the lives that survive by your generous beings. Your hearts still beat, your lungs still breathe, and your eyes still see. We know that these strangers and their families are very thankful for your being, just as we are. The holidays will never be the same, but we know you are both in heaven, celebrating our Lord's birthday together."

Joe Gallegos has been deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial.