This account reflects the author’s firsthand experience. Institutional names are included for context. The Sandy Pruett Project does not make independent legal findings.
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My best friend had quit taking his meds when he was feeling upset over some personal issues. I found writings he wrote asking for help saying the voices were unbearable. A few months had now went by with him off his medication. Now it was at the point he did not think he needed meds, he ended up at Reno Behavioral health for some incidents that happened including being suicidal. The doctors said he was incompetent. When he went in he had pretty much become non verbal and was sucking his thumb and clinching on to a Winnie the Pooh bear. He was 33 years old and it was documented that he tested negative for drugs as his schizophrenia was not drug-related. The facility asked for a denial of rights so they could treat him. The judge said no. He was released withing a couple of weeks untreated.

He ended up on the streets and now beleaved his mother and father were not his real mom and dad. He got arrested for sleeping on a bench inside the city bus station. The jail would say he is not competent and a danger to himself and others. He was more a danger to himself and very vulnerable. He began thinking that he was doing a job in the jail and he was helping others as his blood and brain calculi were a cure for diseases and illnesses and he was helping others. The jail would realase him to the streets. His mother and I would search the streets everyday we would go to the shelters and we would get no information because of the HIPAA privacy.

My civil rights were taken away when I tried to find a missing person’s report. All the police would say is he knows where to get food if he needs it and shelter so we cannot file a missing person’s report even though nobody confirm with us where he was or if he was even alive. I cried everyday worried that he would commit suicide or something bad would happen to him.

He got arrested another time I don’t even remember what for the same shit. Ended up in jail released and ended up at St Mary’s Reno Behavioral Health in Reno. Still untreated after about 2 weeks the social worker told me that he would be released and he was ready to go now. He was still in psychosis and the social worker told me they release people in psychosis all the time that he had to go. I told her if she released him that I would stand in front of their hospital with signs and a picture of the lady that froze to death in a robe and one slipper because of the way they had discharged her.

I made friends with one of the techs that took care of him on the inside she would give us information of what was going on in there how they would take away his mattress from him and he would be curled up on the floor in the corner. He would not visit me at that time because he said that I had killed him in a previous life that I was in and he was like on his 12th life. After a few weeks I kept up on trying to visit he finally accepted my visit. He and I were always very close I was always pretty much his only and best friend for 6 years since I had met him. I gained his trust and began visiting every week.

The tech that took care of him that had given me information about him had gotten fired. Every week the social worker would call and say that they were releasing him and I would tell them the same thing no you’re not. The doctor had asked for denial of rights so that he could forcefully treat him with what he needed The judge said to put him on a 6-month hold but do not give him anything he don’t want. I don’t know what made her think that she was a doctor. So again he was still untreated. Now we’re coming up on a total time of almost a year without any medication and running out of time on the 6-month hold.

Everybody told his mother that if she got guardianship she could have him forcefully treated. She tried to get guardianship but was denied because the doctor would not fill out the paperwork properly. Now it got really close to the 6-month-old running out and the hospital did not know what to do because they knew they weren’t going to put anything past me as I had already written in to our channel for news and was in communication with a local newscaster.

So what the hospital decided to do was get a hold of his mother and say that their attorneys were going to pay to get her guardianship so she could have him forcefully treated. She got the guardianship made a phone call to the hospital and told them to treat him now with what the doctor thinks he needs well as it turned out they lied and manipulated her and said nope we cannot treat him because he still says no. I have recordings of everything that I’m telling you here and documentations.

The doctor said he needed 24-hour supervision. When it was time for him to go as the 6-month hold ended they let us to believe he was going to go into inpatient facility. They ubered him to a community facility in Reno. As his mother and I pulled up he came walking out. We immediately took him back inside and asked what the hell happened he was supposed to be staying there for treatment. He had agreed to a couple of injections during the course of the last 2 months maybe so he was getting a little better but he needed other meds and I believe that permanent damage had already been done.

We asked that they keep him they said that they could not. He acted out in a bad way and when they recognize that they called the judge and asked her to put another hold on him again this time still her answer was no they put him in an outpatient program that she designed which was their assisted outpatient treatment program. He had no business being in an outpatient program as we were told by other doctors. They stuck him in a downtown scumbag motel and suggested that his mother and I let him figure things out on his own all while a doctor had said he needed 24-hour supervision.

And that’s where he is to this day they go by they drop off cigarettes and that’s it. Christmas Day I talked him into going to Reno Behavioral Health because he was saying that it was time for this life to be over. I cannot take much more I am his only friend the only person that he trusts I deal with him every single day this is such a horrible situation that judge has ruined his life my life and his family’s life forever.
I want this story to go public I’m willing to come forward with all the proof and evidence of everything that I am stating here I don’t care who knows it and I will say it again and I have made it clear to many people and I have even asked community providers to pass on the message to the presiding judge that I hope she rots in hell for what she has done.

Signed,
Gary (last name omitted by editors)