Monday, October 17, 2011

Watch List!

On the evening of August 6, 1998 two Special Agents of the US Capitol Police (Threat Investigation Unit) forcibly entered my home, after frisking me for weapons, and proceeded to interrogate me about an allegation made by a DC employee that, earlier in the day, at the height of an enraged argument, I had threatened to kill two federal officers at point-blank range, execution style in the Capitol rotunda. Later investigation by Agent Steven Horan disclosed that said allegation was mistakenly based on a letter I had written to my psychiatrist (Stephen Quint, MD, July 27, 1998) and copied to a DC agency that factually summarized Mr. Race's violence-risk determination (an act of defamation); my supervisor's homicide-risk determination (an act of defamation); as well as the DC Corporation Counsel's determination that my coworkers had formed a reasonable apprehension that I might commit an armed, mass homicide (an act of defamation). Though I was exonerated of making unlawful threats, Officer Horan photo ID'd me to all federal officers assigned to the U.S. Capitol Building as a protective measure.

On August 7, 1998 Agent Horan advised me that the federal government (unbeknownst to me) had previously placed my name on a national registry of potential terrorists because of a letter I had written in 1996 to a local psychiatric facility (Center for Mental Health), inquiring into out-patient services. Said letter elaborated Mr. Race's violence-risk determination (an act of defamation) as well as my supervisor's homicide-risk determination (an act of defamation).

The following is the text of the hysterical letter, dated June 27, 1996, I had sent to the Center for Mental Health, which made its way to a national registry of potentially violent offenders.  Although the letter refers to a presidential security threat, the U.S. Secret Service did not contact me about the letter.  In fact, no state or federal law enforcement agency contacted me about the letter at the time I sent it; the first time I learned that the letter had raised law enforcement concerns was via S.A. Horan at U.S. Capitol Police headquarters on Friday August 7, 1998, more than two years later.

I had written the letter to establish that the George Washington University Medical Center, and specifically, my treating psychiatrist Dimitrios Georgopoulos (or Stuart Sotsky, M.D., director of out-patient care), had done nothing to help me locate alternative psychiatric care upon the termination of my association with GW as of June 30, 1996.  I was attempting to prove that Dr. Georgopoulos's diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia in February 1996, four months earlier, was not sincere and genuine; GW did not form a good faith belief that I suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

The letter is manifestly self-serving and disingenuous since as of June 27, 1996, I had already registered with the D.C. Department of Mental Health Services to begin psychiatric treatment at the P Street Clinic run by Stephen D. Quint, M.D.  In fact, my records indicate that I met with a social worker (Marjorie Heydt) at the P Street Clinic that very day, June 27, 1996.

Why did S.A. Horan show me the letter at all?  I had the suspicion that he had hopes that I would find the letter embarrassing and deny that I had written the letter.  Such a denial would constitute the act of lying to a federal officer, a prosecutable offence.  In effect, I formed the belief that S.A. Horan's action in showing me the letter in the hopes that I would deny writing it constituted an attempt at entrapment.

So much the better for me!  Now I know that my name is listed on a national registry of potentially violent offenders.  Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, an employer may refuse to hire a disabled person if that individual "pose[s] a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace."   The listing of my name on a national registry of potentially violent offenders is my meal ticket to permanent disability benefits!!
_____________________________

June 27, 1996
3801 Connecticut Ave., NW
#136
Washington, DC  20008-4530

Beth Smith
Center for Mental Health
4250 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Dear Beth:

Please help me.  My situation is gravely desperate. They say I could kill, and kill brutally.  Beth, who do I turn to for help?  Please help me, Beth.  Please help me.  Christie Robertson says I could kill, and kill violently--pump somebody full of bullets, splatter somebody's brains all over the street, pop somebody's guts all over.  PLEASE HELP ME.

WHO DO I TURN TO?  WHO DO I TURN TO?

I've been under investigation as a potential threat to the President of the United States.  Please, Please Help me.

I desperately need psychiatric counseling.  Dennis Race, an attorney manager at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, says I need counseling.  He says I could commit an act of violence at any time.  Violence, Beth, violence--that's what Dennis says.  You can talk to Dennis at 202 887-4028.

Remember those brains, remember those guts.  Please, please, please please, please, please HELP ME.

The George Washington University Medical Center has thrown me out onto the street.  I desperately need help.  Dr. Stuart Sotsky has thrown me out onto the street.  PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

Dennis Race apparently agrees that I could kill violently and brutally.  Oh, those brains, Oh, those guts, oh, that blood.

PLEASE HELP ME.  PLEASE HELP ME.  PLEASE HELP ME.  PLEASE HELP ME.  PLEASE HELP ME.  PLEASE HELP ME.  PLEASE HELP ME.  PLEASE HELP ME.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

4 comments:

My Daily Struggles said...

"And the Oscar for Best Actor goes to . . ."

My Daily Struggles said...

The letter to Beth Smith is actually a parody of the following section of Lord Byron's dramatic poem Manfred:

Hear me, hear me—
Astarte! my belovèd! speak to me:
I have so much endured, so much endure—
Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me
Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made
To torture thus each other, though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
Say that thou loath’st me not, that I do bear
This punishment for both, that thou wilt be
One of the blessèd, and that I shall die;
For hitherto all hateful things conspire
To bind me in existence—in a life
Which makes me shrink from immortality—
A future like the past. I cannot rest.
I know not what I ask, nor what I seek;
I feel but what thou art—and what I am;
And I would hear yet once before I perish
The voice which was my music—Speak to me!
For I have call’d on thee in the still night,
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush’d boughs,
And woke the mountain wolves, and made the caves
Acquainted with thy vainly echo’d name.
Which answer’d me—many things answer’d me—
Spirits and men—but thou wert silent all.
Yet speak to me! I have outwatch’d the stars,
And gazed o’er heaven in vain in search of thee,
Speak to me! I have wander’d o’er the earth,
And never found thy likeness—Speak to me!
Look on the fiends around—they feel for me:
I fear them not, and feel for thee alone.
Speak to me! though it be in wrath;—but say—
I reck not what—but let me hear thee once—
This once—once more!

My Daily Struggles said...

It's all for show, people!

My Daily Struggles said...

The 50th Annual Tony Awards was broadcast by CBS from the Majestic Theatre on June 2, 1996. Nathan Lane was the host.

The opening number was "The Show Must Go On" performed by Liza Minnelli and Bernadette Peters, with Tony Award Alumni.

Presenters included: Bea Arthur, Edward Albee, Christine Baranski, Harry Belafonte, Matthew Broderick, Diahann Carroll, Hume Cronyn, Nanette Fabray, Robert Goulet, Gregory Hines, Uta Hagen, James Earl Jones, John Lithgow, Liza Minnelli, Patricia Neal, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bernadette Peters, John Rubinstein, Jane Seymour, Ron Silver, Lily Tomlin, Ben Vereen, Eli Wallach, Ray Walston, Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

Musicals represented:

* A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ("Comedy Tonight" - Nathan Lane and Company);
* The King and I ("Shall We Dance?" - Lou Diamond Phillips, Donna Murphy, and children);
* Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk ("Taxi"/"Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk" - Savion Glover and Company);
* Big ("Fun" - Daniel Jenkins and Company);
* State Fair ("All I Owe I-Oh-Way"-John Davidson, Andrea McArdle, and Company);
* Rent ("Seasons of Love"/"La Vie Boheme" - Anthony Rapp, Taye Diggs, Adam Pascal, Idina Menzel and Company);
* Chronicle of a Death Foretold;
* Swinging on a Star ("Swinging on a Star" - Company)