Failure to treat, failure to protect
An investigation into how the failures of a mental health system can have deadly consequences.
In Chicago, there is no coherent system to identify and help a small subset of severely mentally ill, violent people who cycle through jail, prison and hospitals without regular treatment for their conditions. The first in a six-part investigation by the Sun-Times looks at past cases and what would be needed to prevent them from happening again.
ABOUT THE SERIES
A Chicago Sun-Times investigation into people with long-term, untreated mental illness who were accused of violence in downtown Chicago. The series explores the circumstances of the attacks, the victims and the gaps in a system intended to help people in crisis.
Stephanie Zimmermann is an award-winning investigative journalist who focuses on consumer issues, defined broadly to include credit and debt, insurance, food, housing, health, transportation, technology, unsafe products, scams/frauds and other issues that affect everyday people. Before joining the Sun-Times, Stephanie worked for the ABC News Investigative Unit and at news outlets in Florida and Illinois.
Frank Main began his newspaper career in 1987 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and worked in Louisiana and Kentucky, covering local politics and crime. He was on the ground for Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina, the Bosnia conflict, the first Gulf War and the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York.
When Anat Kimchi, a graduate student visiting Chicago from Maryland, was randomly attacked near Willis Tower, a bright light was extinguished, her family says. While they are closely following the trial of the man accused of killing Anat, they wanted to tell the Sun-Times about what the world lost when she was killed.
“There are no resources,” Corneal Westbrooks says, recalling his struggles with his younger brother Jawaun, now in prison for fatally stabbing a Chase bank employee in 2021.
Mariana was in downtown Chicago on a layover when Bruce Diamond, a man with a decades-long history of mental illness and criminal convictions, threw a heavy birch bark log at her head.
Many of the solutions to improved treatment are expensive and could be in peril if Medicaid funding is slashed by the Trump administration, experts say. One of the biggest problems with Illinois’ mental treatment system is a lack of coordination. But the costs of a system that fails people in need can be extremely high, too.
Mauro Galvan, who experiences severe mental illness, was a danger to himself and others, according to his relatives, who say the state should have done more to make sure he got into their hands after he was released from Elgin Mental Health Center on Oct. 29 and left on the sidewalk outside the Pacific Garden Mission at 1458 S. Canal St.
Mental health crisis resources
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
For additional resources and information visit the Chicago Department of Public Health, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and NAMI Chicago.
Additional mental health reporting
The Illinois cuts are part of $12 billion in grants that the federal Department of Health and Human Services canceled this week.
Too many people can’t afford the high out-of-pocket costs for mental health care. A proposal in the Legislature aims to fix that by getting mental health care professionals reimbursed adequately, two lawmakers with backgrounds in social work write.
The model uses technology to provide help from clinicians to those out in the field. It’s expanding in Cook County and to Florida.
“We hope that this will be more than a clinic,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said Wednesday at the Roseland East 115th Street Health Hub, but “a gathering space that will foster health and wellness.”
Strategies like avoiding “doomscrolling” on social media and setting boundaries on political conversations can help all of us navigate extreme political divisions, the head of NAMI Chicago writes.
The Chicago Department of Public Health is focused on training city workers and people who live in areas with the highest suicide rates.
