The Death of Joe S Farmer
The Death of Joe S. Farmer,
The Fruit of Birmingham Injustice
Deborah Vaughn, Vice President for Public Relations of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, said at a Community Affairs Committee of Operation New Birmingham Race Relations Round Table reporting on her trip to Philadelphia, PA with a group of Birmingham leaders who traveled there to discover why that city was rated number one in America in eliminating homelessness, that “Philadelphia has three things that Birmingham does not have, first; they have a plan, Birmingham does not have a plan, second; they have political and business leaders that have a strong personal and public commitment to addressing the needs of the homeless, Birmingham does not have this leadership, third; Philadelphia treats homeless persons as human beings, Birmingham does not.”
Joe S. Farmer, a homeless, mentally ill Breen Beret, Special Forces Viet Nam veteran, has suffered massively over the last months because of Birmingham’s hatred of the homeless that Deborah so clearly described. I, along with many others have struggled as advocates for Joe and we have failed in the face of a void of resources and compassion here in Birmingham. This is nothing new, I have battled this hate of the homeless as pastor of Church of the Reconciler in downtown Birmingham for 12 years and the time is now for radical change!
Here is Joe Farmer’s story. It is the story of hundreds, if not thousands of others. It must not happen again. It is the story of the fruit of suffering and pain that a blind callous systemic injustice produces for the homeless poor.
Wednesday morning, January 4, 2006, I arrived at Church of the Reconciler at 7:30 AM. The homeless volunteers and homeless members of the church that make our Life Recovery Center for the Homeless a reality greeted me with a chorus of concern, “Joe’s gone and he’s been hurt. His blood, a lot of blood is on the ground where he used to stay.” I stepped around the corner of the church building and there on the concrete walkway where Joe often sat and slept to catch some warmth of the winter sun and to be out of the wind were two large deep red bloodstains. One was four feet long and six to eight inches wide, the other a foot and a half long, the same width. It reminded me of what the slaughter of a huge dove might look like because sticking to the blood was a cover of light downy feathers. I learned later that the feathers had come from Joe’s jacket that the paramedics had to cut off of his body to brace his head and neck for transport to the hospital.
I was heartbroken and grief stricken, the day before I had been by the church on my way home from a trip to Montgomery over the New Years holiday and had noticed that Joe was gone. I thought our hopes were fulfilled and the County Sheriff had picked him up and carried him to UAB Hospital for the mental health evaluation and treatment he so desperately needed. The week before Christmas I had filled an addendum to the pick up order that Jo Sherer had filled many weeks before with the Mental Health Division of the Probate Court of Jefferson County. The staff in the Mental Health Division said they would give the pick up order to the judge after New Years Day.
Now I stood in the face of the chain of one more blasted hope in our struggle to get Joe the help he needed. I was now in the midst of the reality of our worst fears. Joe had been brutally assaulted. We did not know where he was or if he was dead or alive.
Jo Sherer had filled the documents with the Mental Health Division of the Probate Court to have him picked up because Joe Farmer was clearly psychotic. He was a threat to his own well being. He was immobile. He was refusing shelter in freezing weather. He refused shelter in heavy rain. He was not eating properly. He was urinating and defecating on himself. Joe Farmer was a very sick man. His illness was clearly identifiable to all who saw him. The staff at the probate court indicated to Jo Sherer that a six-month waiting period was required before a pick up order would be issued. We new he would be dead before then.
Joe Farmer was also a threat to the health and well being of others. He was camping in the doorway of Church of the Reconciler. The wet filthy blankets filled with urine and feces, under which he hoped to find shelter, were surrounded by rotting food. I joined with volunteers at the church and we cleaned the area daily. In spite of our efforts this situation was clearly a health threat to all who entered the church.
JBS, Jefferson Blunt Shelby Mental Health, was my next hope. I called them four times in a period of four days and left messages with their intake staff. No one returned my call.
With the failed response of JBS I thought the police was my next best hope. If we could get him arrested and in jail I hoped we could then get him over to UAB for the evaluation and treatment he needed. Joe was suffering. Even with the blankets and food provided by the Street Outreach Staff at the Old Firehouse Shelter, the round the clock care of members of the homeless community and the supportive care he received from Church of the Reconciler his situation was unacceptable and deteriorating. I would arrive at the church at 7:30 AM in 20-degree weather. He would be uncovered, his stained pants were soaking wet and steaming from his own urine. He would be shaking from the cold. Something had to be done. Even though I am opposed to the Doorways Ordinance proposed by the city. I decided it was time to have Joe arrested for trespassing. I called the North Prescient. Told them my name and the need I had. They sent two patrol cars, one Officer in each car. They arrived in about 20 minutes. A car parked in front of and on each side of Joe as he lay against the church building next to the door. They got out of their cars with their thumbs in their back pockets. I extended my hand for a handshake prior to any discussion. They refused my greeting. I expressed my request that they arrest Joe for trespassing. They refused to arrest Joe. “He is not trespassing, he is on the sidewalk,” they said. I asked if there was a form or report that I could fill out with my trespassing charge. They responded, “Pastor we are not going to accept your trespassing charge.” They finished their comments by promising to send a Community Service Officer in about an hour to see what they could do about Joe. The two officers left. An hour passed, then it was several hours and still no Community Service Officer. After two in the afternoon I called the North Prescient again. They said the CSO was on a call and when she finished she would be there. I have not seen a CSO as of yet.
Later on that afternoon I called Ms. Teresa Thorn with CAP to discuss my concern about Joe and the police response. She suggested that I call the North Prescient and ask to speak to a day supervisor, explain the situation and see if they could me any support. I made the call the next day. After I identified my self and my concern, the officer that answered the phone said that a day supervisor was not in but they would have one call me as soon as they came in. The call was never returned, one more dead end.
My ongoing relationship with Joe was marked with a difficulty in communication. I was not able to hear his words or meanings well. Communication with mentally ill persons is difficult at best. I regularly offered to take him to shelters in the area and to take him to the hospital. Joe always refused my offers.
One day in our morning conversations Joe was able to communicate to me some information about his family in Redfield, Arkansas. He knew their phone number by heart. After he gave the number to me I called them. His sister in law communicated to me a long history of deep pain and guilt of a failed history of their struggle to care for Joe. Diane made me aware that Joe was a Viet Nam veteran, Special Forces Green Beret. She indicated that the VA Hospital System had all his information and history. Following our conversation she faxed the information to the V A Hospital here in Birmingham. I began to try to get Joe to the VA Hospital. Joe refused my daily offers to carry him to the VA. Then one Wednesday to my surprise, Joe accepted my offer. I was elated. I grabbed the cleanest blanket piled beside him threw it on the seat in my pickup truck. Got him in the truck by the hardest and we were on our way to the VA Emergency Room. I got him checked in the Emergency Room with the confirmed awareness of the file they had received from Diane Farmer. When Joe was called to the examination room I left the hospital to make another appointment. As I left Joe was complaining about his leg. Later that evening I received a call from a person at the VA wanting to know if we had shelter at the church for Joe. I said no. I also informed them that there was a pick up order for Joe with the Probate Court and that he needed to stay in the hospital. Surprised and deeply disappointed, I found Joe back in the church door the next morning. He had only been treated for his leg, which was broken. Discharged from the emergency with a soft cast on his left leg and two crutches, he was placed in a cab and delivered to the church door on another night with the temperature in the mid twenties. Much to my surprise I discovered in efforts to follow up and understand this incomprehensible event that the VA Hospital in Birmingham does not have any mental health beds.
Later that week I arrived at church to discover that during the night before Joe had been shot by paint ball guns. The blue ruptured balls of white paint were lying all around Joe and there were 5 or 6 paint marks on the curb in front of Joe and about the same number on the church wall beside him on both sides and above where he laid. White paint marks were on Joe’s clothes. It was a result of this escalating violence toward Joe that I filled the addendum to the pick up order with the Mental Health Division of the Probate Court that I mentioned above. We were deeply concerned that this mentally ill man would suffer further harm. Our worst fears were a reality.
The word off of the street that morning was that Joe had received a severe head injury, was bleeding heavily and in shock and was picked up by the Birmingham Fire and Rescue around six or six thirty AM. I tried to find Joe. I called the Coroner’s office. He was not there under his name or as an unidentified person that fit his description. I called the North Prescient and they had no information about him. I called the #6 Fire Station and the person on duty did not know any thing about Joe being picked up or where he might have been carried. I called UAB Hospital, Cooper Green and the VA Hospital with out any results. I called the Mental Health Division Staff at the Probate Court and advised them. They offered to help find Joe. We put the word out on the street, thinking he might have been treated and discharged again. No luck. The next morning the Probate Court called and said that there was a man fitting Joe’s description and injuries at UAB. They asked me to go by and make the identification. The person was Joe. He was in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at UAB on life support. The nurses there informed me that there was very little probability that Joe would live. I called the Probate Court to report what I had discovered. They asked me if a Birmingham Police Case Number had been assigned. I did not know and offered to find out.
I remembered what a homeless friend had shared with me several years before when I asked him what we could do to stop the violence on the street. He responded by saying that if someone killed me the city would not rest until somebody would be under the jail. But if somebody killed him there would not even be a report filled. He concluded that until that changed the violence would continue.
I called the North Prescient and ask the desk officer if there had been a report filed and a case number assigned. He did not know and referred me to the sergeant. The sergeant said that there was no case number and a report had not been filed. He transferred me to a CSO. She was on another phone call and promised to call me back. She called back and I explained the need for a case number and she said I would have to call the homicide desk to get a report filed and obtain a case number. I called the homicide desk and the desk officer transferred me to the homicide sergeant. I explained the background and asked to get a report filed and a get case number. The homicide sergeant said they did not do that and I would have to call the North Prescient to get that done. I was outraged at this runaround and fully expressed my feelings to the sergeant and after a few minutes said that he would send detectives to make the report. While I was waiting the two hours for them to arrive a homeless man came up in emotional distress and shared that he knew the man who had hurt Joe and would cooperate with the police. He said that he had shared this information with a narcotics officer and the police officer at the Firehouse. They had not requested a report or investigation. The homicide detectives filled out a report and gave me a case number. They called a technician to collect evidence. While they were there I overheard them saying to one another that they did not know why the paramedics did not request a police report.
This reminded me of the report a homeless man gave me the day after Joe was assaulted that he called a patrol car over to the site where Joe was assaulted and he got out of the car, looked things over and commented that this was a fresh incident but did not fill out a report.
The homicide detectives followed up on the lead from the homeless man and a suspect is in custody.
The life support was removed from Joe S. Farmer on January 10, 2006 at 4:30 PM. He died on January 11, 2006 at approximately 1:00 PM. His body was sent to the morgue at Cooper Green Hospital for an autopsy because he was a homicide case. His body was turned over to the Chaplain at Cooper Green for burial in the Jefferson County paupers field in Morris.
Mr. John Key of the Salvation Army who walked the journey with Joe alongside us was moved to seek a more honorable burial for Joe. He contacted the Veterans Administration and they offered him a burial plot in the National Cemetery at Fort Mitchell near Phoenix City Alabama with full military honors. Brown Rideout Funeral Home donated a metal casket. Bell Funeral Home in Fultondale donated the embalming for his body. The Salvation Army has donated a van to transport his body. And an Opelika undertaker has volunteered to meet the body at the cemetery. We are all grateful to God for Joe’s honorable burial.
However it leaves me with an uncomfortable eerie emptiness at how almost instantly the resources for his burial were given. When it was impossible to find the resources for Joe to live.
May God help us change this order.
R. Lawton Higgs, Sr.
January 12, 2006
The Fruit of Birmingham Injustice
Deborah Vaughn, Vice President for Public Relations of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, said at a Community Affairs Committee of Operation New Birmingham Race Relations Round Table reporting on her trip to Philadelphia, PA with a group of Birmingham leaders who traveled there to discover why that city was rated number one in America in eliminating homelessness, that “Philadelphia has three things that Birmingham does not have, first; they have a plan, Birmingham does not have a plan, second; they have political and business leaders that have a strong personal and public commitment to addressing the needs of the homeless, Birmingham does not have this leadership, third; Philadelphia treats homeless persons as human beings, Birmingham does not.”
Joe S. Farmer, a homeless, mentally ill Breen Beret, Special Forces Viet Nam veteran, has suffered massively over the last months because of Birmingham’s hatred of the homeless that Deborah so clearly described. I, along with many others have struggled as advocates for Joe and we have failed in the face of a void of resources and compassion here in Birmingham. This is nothing new, I have battled this hate of the homeless as pastor of Church of the Reconciler in downtown Birmingham for 12 years and the time is now for radical change!
Here is Joe Farmer’s story. It is the story of hundreds, if not thousands of others. It must not happen again. It is the story of the fruit of suffering and pain that a blind callous systemic injustice produces for the homeless poor.
Wednesday morning, January 4, 2006, I arrived at Church of the Reconciler at 7:30 AM. The homeless volunteers and homeless members of the church that make our Life Recovery Center for the Homeless a reality greeted me with a chorus of concern, “Joe’s gone and he’s been hurt. His blood, a lot of blood is on the ground where he used to stay.” I stepped around the corner of the church building and there on the concrete walkway where Joe often sat and slept to catch some warmth of the winter sun and to be out of the wind were two large deep red bloodstains. One was four feet long and six to eight inches wide, the other a foot and a half long, the same width. It reminded me of what the slaughter of a huge dove might look like because sticking to the blood was a cover of light downy feathers. I learned later that the feathers had come from Joe’s jacket that the paramedics had to cut off of his body to brace his head and neck for transport to the hospital.
I was heartbroken and grief stricken, the day before I had been by the church on my way home from a trip to Montgomery over the New Years holiday and had noticed that Joe was gone. I thought our hopes were fulfilled and the County Sheriff had picked him up and carried him to UAB Hospital for the mental health evaluation and treatment he so desperately needed. The week before Christmas I had filled an addendum to the pick up order that Jo Sherer had filled many weeks before with the Mental Health Division of the Probate Court of Jefferson County. The staff in the Mental Health Division said they would give the pick up order to the judge after New Years Day.
Now I stood in the face of the chain of one more blasted hope in our struggle to get Joe the help he needed. I was now in the midst of the reality of our worst fears. Joe had been brutally assaulted. We did not know where he was or if he was dead or alive.
Jo Sherer had filled the documents with the Mental Health Division of the Probate Court to have him picked up because Joe Farmer was clearly psychotic. He was a threat to his own well being. He was immobile. He was refusing shelter in freezing weather. He refused shelter in heavy rain. He was not eating properly. He was urinating and defecating on himself. Joe Farmer was a very sick man. His illness was clearly identifiable to all who saw him. The staff at the probate court indicated to Jo Sherer that a six-month waiting period was required before a pick up order would be issued. We new he would be dead before then.
Joe Farmer was also a threat to the health and well being of others. He was camping in the doorway of Church of the Reconciler. The wet filthy blankets filled with urine and feces, under which he hoped to find shelter, were surrounded by rotting food. I joined with volunteers at the church and we cleaned the area daily. In spite of our efforts this situation was clearly a health threat to all who entered the church.
JBS, Jefferson Blunt Shelby Mental Health, was my next hope. I called them four times in a period of four days and left messages with their intake staff. No one returned my call.
With the failed response of JBS I thought the police was my next best hope. If we could get him arrested and in jail I hoped we could then get him over to UAB for the evaluation and treatment he needed. Joe was suffering. Even with the blankets and food provided by the Street Outreach Staff at the Old Firehouse Shelter, the round the clock care of members of the homeless community and the supportive care he received from Church of the Reconciler his situation was unacceptable and deteriorating. I would arrive at the church at 7:30 AM in 20-degree weather. He would be uncovered, his stained pants were soaking wet and steaming from his own urine. He would be shaking from the cold. Something had to be done. Even though I am opposed to the Doorways Ordinance proposed by the city. I decided it was time to have Joe arrested for trespassing. I called the North Prescient. Told them my name and the need I had. They sent two patrol cars, one Officer in each car. They arrived in about 20 minutes. A car parked in front of and on each side of Joe as he lay against the church building next to the door. They got out of their cars with their thumbs in their back pockets. I extended my hand for a handshake prior to any discussion. They refused my greeting. I expressed my request that they arrest Joe for trespassing. They refused to arrest Joe. “He is not trespassing, he is on the sidewalk,” they said. I asked if there was a form or report that I could fill out with my trespassing charge. They responded, “Pastor we are not going to accept your trespassing charge.” They finished their comments by promising to send a Community Service Officer in about an hour to see what they could do about Joe. The two officers left. An hour passed, then it was several hours and still no Community Service Officer. After two in the afternoon I called the North Prescient again. They said the CSO was on a call and when she finished she would be there. I have not seen a CSO as of yet.
Later on that afternoon I called Ms. Teresa Thorn with CAP to discuss my concern about Joe and the police response. She suggested that I call the North Prescient and ask to speak to a day supervisor, explain the situation and see if they could me any support. I made the call the next day. After I identified my self and my concern, the officer that answered the phone said that a day supervisor was not in but they would have one call me as soon as they came in. The call was never returned, one more dead end.
My ongoing relationship with Joe was marked with a difficulty in communication. I was not able to hear his words or meanings well. Communication with mentally ill persons is difficult at best. I regularly offered to take him to shelters in the area and to take him to the hospital. Joe always refused my offers.
One day in our morning conversations Joe was able to communicate to me some information about his family in Redfield, Arkansas. He knew their phone number by heart. After he gave the number to me I called them. His sister in law communicated to me a long history of deep pain and guilt of a failed history of their struggle to care for Joe. Diane made me aware that Joe was a Viet Nam veteran, Special Forces Green Beret. She indicated that the VA Hospital System had all his information and history. Following our conversation she faxed the information to the V A Hospital here in Birmingham. I began to try to get Joe to the VA Hospital. Joe refused my daily offers to carry him to the VA. Then one Wednesday to my surprise, Joe accepted my offer. I was elated. I grabbed the cleanest blanket piled beside him threw it on the seat in my pickup truck. Got him in the truck by the hardest and we were on our way to the VA Emergency Room. I got him checked in the Emergency Room with the confirmed awareness of the file they had received from Diane Farmer. When Joe was called to the examination room I left the hospital to make another appointment. As I left Joe was complaining about his leg. Later that evening I received a call from a person at the VA wanting to know if we had shelter at the church for Joe. I said no. I also informed them that there was a pick up order for Joe with the Probate Court and that he needed to stay in the hospital. Surprised and deeply disappointed, I found Joe back in the church door the next morning. He had only been treated for his leg, which was broken. Discharged from the emergency with a soft cast on his left leg and two crutches, he was placed in a cab and delivered to the church door on another night with the temperature in the mid twenties. Much to my surprise I discovered in efforts to follow up and understand this incomprehensible event that the VA Hospital in Birmingham does not have any mental health beds.
Later that week I arrived at church to discover that during the night before Joe had been shot by paint ball guns. The blue ruptured balls of white paint were lying all around Joe and there were 5 or 6 paint marks on the curb in front of Joe and about the same number on the church wall beside him on both sides and above where he laid. White paint marks were on Joe’s clothes. It was a result of this escalating violence toward Joe that I filled the addendum to the pick up order with the Mental Health Division of the Probate Court that I mentioned above. We were deeply concerned that this mentally ill man would suffer further harm. Our worst fears were a reality.
The word off of the street that morning was that Joe had received a severe head injury, was bleeding heavily and in shock and was picked up by the Birmingham Fire and Rescue around six or six thirty AM. I tried to find Joe. I called the Coroner’s office. He was not there under his name or as an unidentified person that fit his description. I called the North Prescient and they had no information about him. I called the #6 Fire Station and the person on duty did not know any thing about Joe being picked up or where he might have been carried. I called UAB Hospital, Cooper Green and the VA Hospital with out any results. I called the Mental Health Division Staff at the Probate Court and advised them. They offered to help find Joe. We put the word out on the street, thinking he might have been treated and discharged again. No luck. The next morning the Probate Court called and said that there was a man fitting Joe’s description and injuries at UAB. They asked me to go by and make the identification. The person was Joe. He was in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at UAB on life support. The nurses there informed me that there was very little probability that Joe would live. I called the Probate Court to report what I had discovered. They asked me if a Birmingham Police Case Number had been assigned. I did not know and offered to find out.
I remembered what a homeless friend had shared with me several years before when I asked him what we could do to stop the violence on the street. He responded by saying that if someone killed me the city would not rest until somebody would be under the jail. But if somebody killed him there would not even be a report filled. He concluded that until that changed the violence would continue.
I called the North Prescient and ask the desk officer if there had been a report filed and a case number assigned. He did not know and referred me to the sergeant. The sergeant said that there was no case number and a report had not been filed. He transferred me to a CSO. She was on another phone call and promised to call me back. She called back and I explained the need for a case number and she said I would have to call the homicide desk to get a report filed and obtain a case number. I called the homicide desk and the desk officer transferred me to the homicide sergeant. I explained the background and asked to get a report filed and a get case number. The homicide sergeant said they did not do that and I would have to call the North Prescient to get that done. I was outraged at this runaround and fully expressed my feelings to the sergeant and after a few minutes said that he would send detectives to make the report. While I was waiting the two hours for them to arrive a homeless man came up in emotional distress and shared that he knew the man who had hurt Joe and would cooperate with the police. He said that he had shared this information with a narcotics officer and the police officer at the Firehouse. They had not requested a report or investigation. The homicide detectives filled out a report and gave me a case number. They called a technician to collect evidence. While they were there I overheard them saying to one another that they did not know why the paramedics did not request a police report.
This reminded me of the report a homeless man gave me the day after Joe was assaulted that he called a patrol car over to the site where Joe was assaulted and he got out of the car, looked things over and commented that this was a fresh incident but did not fill out a report.
The homicide detectives followed up on the lead from the homeless man and a suspect is in custody.
The life support was removed from Joe S. Farmer on January 10, 2006 at 4:30 PM. He died on January 11, 2006 at approximately 1:00 PM. His body was sent to the morgue at Cooper Green Hospital for an autopsy because he was a homicide case. His body was turned over to the Chaplain at Cooper Green for burial in the Jefferson County paupers field in Morris.
Mr. John Key of the Salvation Army who walked the journey with Joe alongside us was moved to seek a more honorable burial for Joe. He contacted the Veterans Administration and they offered him a burial plot in the National Cemetery at Fort Mitchell near Phoenix City Alabama with full military honors. Brown Rideout Funeral Home donated a metal casket. Bell Funeral Home in Fultondale donated the embalming for his body. The Salvation Army has donated a van to transport his body. And an Opelika undertaker has volunteered to meet the body at the cemetery. We are all grateful to God for Joe’s honorable burial.
However it leaves me with an uncomfortable eerie emptiness at how almost instantly the resources for his burial were given. When it was impossible to find the resources for Joe to live.
May God help us change this order.
R. Lawton Higgs, Sr.
January 12, 2006
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