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Woman brutalized on video at SLO County Mental Health

September 29, 2011

Valerie Lane following the assault at the hospital

EDITOR’S NOTE: See the video of the assault in the text and William Shirreffs’ criminal past at the bottom of this story.

By KAREN VELIE

If Valerie Lane had been a stray dog she would have received better protection from San Luis Obispo County. As it is, she is still suffering from a brutal attack that occurred more than two years ago at a San Luis Obispo County Mental Health facility, Lane’s attorney James McKiernan, said.

At San Luis Obispo County Animal Services, animals arriving from different homes are housed separately to determine if they have a “propensity for violence.” Even so, most animals are caged separately for the duration of their stay, Dr. Eric Anderson, animal services’ manager, said.

Lane was put in a chain link enclosure with a man who had a history of violence and who had been brought in by law enforcement officers.

There, she was attacked in an assault captured on a video camera. She suffered a gash to her head that required staples, an injured finger that still does not bend, bruised lungs, and a battered and cut face with eyes swollen shut, Lane said. Today, she is losing vision because of damage to the retina in her right eye. It is still primarily blood red because of a hematoma, a collection of blood outside of the blood vessels.

“I don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” Lane said weeping as she talked about the attack.  “You go in to try to protect yourself and this happens.  There is something wrong.”

Warning: This video depicts a disturbing violent assault. We are showing you the entire video but the assault does not start until about two and a half minutes into the recording.

Lane, 52, who suffers from severe migraines and depression, checked herself into the county facility. She had been experiencing a severe migraine and depression and called her therapist. Lane’s therapist told her to check herself into the mental health facility to protect herself.

On Sept. 4, 2009, Lane was spending her second day at mental health when she asked if she could smoke a cigarette. A staff member took her outside to a metal enclosure that consists of chain link walls and ceiling. The staff member lit Lane’s cigarette and left.

William Shirreffs’ bloody handcuffed hand

Lane sat on a bench weeping because of a severe migraine. A facility staffer brought in William Shirreffs, lit his cigarette and left.

Unlike Lane, Shirreffs, 59, had been involuntarily placed into SLO County Mental Health by law enforcement officers and was known at the time to have an extensive history of criminal convictions for violence, drugs, molestation of children, indecent exposure and theft, according to his criminal case information from Kern County Superior Court.

After a few minutes of silence while both smoked, Shirreffs put out his cigarette and asked Lane, “What is wrong?” Lane said.

Lane did not answer and Shirreffs began to hit her and after about a half minute, he stopped and stepped away.

A few minutes later, staff found Lane with blood running down her face. Her white T-shirt was splotched with the blood.

Emergency personnel transported her to French Hospital Medical Center where she was treated for her injuries before being released back to the mental health facility. Photos taken after the attack show Shirreffs’ bloody knuckles.

McKiernan filed a lawsuit against the county in which he asks for damages because of Lane’s ongoing physical and mental impairments. In his Sept. 11 filing, McKiernan lists a number of state laws that require seclusion for dangerous patients, minimal staff to patient ratios as well as health and safety codes that mandate that the facility develop and follow a safety plan designed to protect patients.

“It seems to me that the mental health intervention program itself needs intervention,” McKiernan said. “I am just proud she has the courage to take on the unmotivated, non-listening establishment to make it better for others during their worst moments of crisis.”

Attorney Greg Coates, on behalf of the county, replied to the lawsuit, arguing that the county is not liable for damages because liability only exists if minimal standards for personnel, equipment and facilities are not met.

County mental health officials refused to comment, citing law that makes it a crime to discuss a mental patient’s case.

“Even with the successful conclusion of this case she will be left with lifelong emotional and visual scars from the inexplicable and societal unacceptable incident,” McKiernan said. “Every citizen of the community should be outraged, embarrassed and scared for their loved ones.”

 

William Shirreffs’ criminal past

William Shirreffs shortly after his arrest for assault

William Shirreffs, 59, has an extensive history of criminal convictions for violence, drugs, molestation of children, indecent exposure and theft, according to his criminal case information from Kern County Superior Court.

In 2008, Shirreffs was sentenced to 100 days in jail for assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily harm. In the spring of 2009, the court sentenced Shirreffs to another 100 days, this time for battery of a police officer.

After an early release for good behavior in late 2009, Shirreffs again found himself back in court after another arrest for battery with serious bodily injury.

June 13, 2008 – assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily harm

January 7, 2009 – trespassing and refusing to leave property

April 14, 2009 – battery on a person

April 17, 2009 – battery against a police officer

June 30, 2009 – petty theft and possession of marijuana

October 19, 2009 – battery with serious bodily harm

May 15, 2010 – child molestation and indecent exposure

June 10, 2010 – possession of a controlled substance


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The county damn well is responsible, along with every county employee who locked that woman up with a violent criminal. People need to be fired, NOW. Then they need to held accountable, criminally and civilly. This goes beyond mindless negligence. This criminal negligence.


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How did you like how they left her alone, after they had seen the damage Shirreffs did to her, when she was still shaking uncontrollably and appeared to be in danger of falling off the bench, while they went to get gloves? They they made her WALK.


Un-fracking-believable


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I’m not sure that we can tell by that video if they handled her after care correctly. Perhaps when the nurse first ran out she wanted to make sure that the guy wasn’t hurting someone else and she seemed to be getting help. There was only two people. They needed to get gloves, all medical personal need to wear gloves when dealing with blood, they probably also needed to phone for more help/911 and get a first aid kit, I can see why they might have left her alone and it was only for a very brief time, they seemed genuinely concerned. I’m sort of playing devils advocate here by defending them because I really don’t know their side and I can see that their might be two sides to this.


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I bet you there are regulations that they must keep fresh gloves on their person at all time.


One of them could have both checked on the psychopath they let loose on Mrs. Lane AND picked up gloves for the both of them. Mrs. Lane should not have been left alone after the assault. That, IMO, is criminally negligent because they KNEW she was hurt and abandoned her anyway.


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How do you know that these people knew all that stuff about him? I can’t picture them walking around with gloves, this isn’t a hospital, a jail, or a prison. They might have a nurse somewhere behind the scenes. When you go to an psychiatrist’s office their staff doesn’t walk around with gloves and that’s what CMH is, it’s simply an understaffed under funded psychiatrist’s office.


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It is a facility where there are patients with mental problems. They “reside” there for a short period of time. In that situation, staff will be exposed to bodily fluids because mental patients aren’t always functioning as they should when it comes to such issues. In addition, they administer medications there, some by injections. I bet they have IV set-ups to use, too.


Any of these situations would expose staff who treated the patient, brought them food, or interacted them in any way, to the chance of being exposed to body fluids.


For many years I contracted with the SB County PHF where, like the SLO facility, they had patients on 72-hour holds. I was intensely involved with their medical records, and reviewed most of their dictated reports. I was in and out of that facility on a daily basis.


I don’t believe the SLO County MHF is that much different from the SB County MHF, not if they are accepting patients on 72-hour holds, because it would indicate they are the same level of facilities. This means they have the same requirements and regulations to meet.


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Then they are different than South County Mental health. That office is like a regular psychiatry office. They don’t hold patients, they certainly don’t perform any medical procedures or have things like IVs. The closest to that is that they MIGHT take blood pressure, weight and height measurements. But perhaps the SLO office might be different than their So. Co. office.


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I think they also have to be held accountable for leaving Mrs. Lane alone AFTER she was attacked, when she was shaking uncontrollably and looked like she was close to falling off the bench.


There had already been horrible results due to staff negligence…but instead of the staff getting it together and trying to address the problem (which was negligence), they simply applied MORE staff negligence to the situation.


I don’t think the staff knows what “negligence” means.


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People had better lose their jobs over this. I’m sick of reading stories about unethical, or corrupt, or incompetent government employees pulling inexcusable stuff like this, and not being held accountable for it.


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Who should be fired? The understaffed and under supported staff, or the people at the top who are responsible for keeping the place running? How about the general public who ignore the issue 99% of the time.


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Who should be fired? Let’s start with the idiot(s) responsible for placing a self-referred non-violent woman unsupervised in the same holding area with a involuntarily committed male with an “extensive history of criminal convictions for violence, drugs, molestation of children, indecent exposure and theft”.

It’s a problem of quality of staff, not quantity!


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according to Karen Velie on KVEC….


WILLIAM SHIRREFFS DID NOT SERVE ONE SECOND OF JAIL TIME NOR PAY ONE CENT IN FINES FOR THIS OBVIOUS VIDEO DOCUMENTED CRIME IN SAN LUIS OBISPO!


INSTEAD HE WAS SENT TO ARIZONA TO ANSWER TO OTHER CRIMES IN THAT STATE.


So one could speculate that he was ‘shipped’ out of state and not brought to justice here in hopes it would lessen any grounds for a law suit against SLO county.


ONCE AGAIN DA SHEA DOING WHAT HE DOES BEST… NOTHING!


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Maybe that’s not altogether a bad thing. I believe that jails run by Sheriff Arpaio in Mariposa County, AZ make our jail look like a picnic. As long as Shirreff is out there breaking rocks in the hot sun and sleeping in a tent, it doesn’t bother me too much that he’s not here.


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It appears likely that Shirreffs was shipped out of state because the county wanted to make it as difficult–and expensive–as possible to access him for information related to his assault of Lane.


We are about at the place where Ciudad Juarez is less corrupt than San Luis Obispo County.


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A good friend works in Santa Barbara County Mental Health, and this person has told me on numerous occasions that San Luis’s mental health department are basically a joke and exists in name only. I thought it was just inter-agency pride, but I’m beginning to think otherwise.


That said, I do not think it is the County’s job to ensure our mental health. They can help and guide, but people with mental health issues need the care of their family and friends. We, as a society, find it far too convenient to just ship them off to the government… like it’s out of sight, out of mind. Instead of funding a large department with facilities and overhead, why not just have a “public therapist” assigned (similar to the legal system). No, it will not be perfect, but why bother having so many people, building, equipment, etc. sitting there if at the end of the day, the job really is not being done?


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r0y, We need someplace to evaluate individuals who are picked up off the streets for acting strange. Like when they throw rocks at that police station and chase cars while barking at them.


Also we need someplace to evaluate and house and provide care for the mentally ill who commit criminal acts. This is where we probably sent the fellow that recently shot his mother, the guy with schizophrenia who shot the two sisters on Christmas eve, the woman that kidnapped the child in A-Town believing that she was a CIA agent. County Health Services isn’t necessarily free. People are financially evaluated and pay accordingly. Without these services we would have people doing all sorts of crazy things on the streets. Approximately 10% of the population suffers from some form of mental illness and require medication be it for anxiety all the way to paranoid schizophrenia.


The private hospitals aren’t going to house these people and prisons can house the violent patients and perhaps provide some form of care (medication only) but that leaves a whole lot of people with no place to go who need help. WE have to have some sort of funding to care for the mentally ill.


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P.S. When I say house the mentally ill. I mean hold them for up tp a few weeks to stabilize them before sending them home with medication that keeps their illness in check.


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Some need long-term, perhaps permanent, care. Ronald RayGun started us down the road of the insane idea of “outpatient treatment” of psychotic people. It was a failure, and the rest of society has paid the price for it.


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Then lock them up BY THEMSELVES. You don’t put them in a cage with people they will victimize.


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I didn’t think that this was a lock up type of facility, I’m not sure why they have that cage.


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oops I meant NOT a lock up facilty.


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TQ, if they accept 72-hour holds they have the ability to “lock up” patients.


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I disagree, r0y.


Ensuring people receive health care, including mental health care, makes it safer for the rest of us.


Besides, any group of people is only as strong as the weakest person. By ignoring the physical and mental health of the weakest of our herd, we encourage the weakening of the rest of the members of the herd.


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“That said, I do not think it is the County’s job to ensure our mental health. They can help and guide, but people with mental health issues need the care of their family and friends.”


What if their friends and family can’t help them? Homeless people use CMH, obviously their families can’t or won’t help them. Do we really want homeless bipolar or other people with mental health issues roaming the streets without their meds? Also, CMH provides care for foster children. Many foster children have mental health issues and need this service. Who should provide the foster kids mental health care?


“Instead of funding a large department with facilities and overhead, why not just have a “public therapist” assigned (similar to the legal system).”


What is the difference between public therapist and a Co. Mental Health therapist, that’s what they are. One correction, as far as I know they provide psychiatry not therapy.


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Someone asked where Shirreff is now? Is Sherriff at DuVaul’s campus for the upwardly mobile or has he been hired — because of his minor past offenses — as the new Provost at Cal Poly?


The way California handles their incarcerated is a crime … we need to reform the law to put them to work again… if we did that, we would have to release another 8000 of them on our streets…. they could ‘pay’ for themselves.


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“We were notified by public officials that he resides in Kern County now”


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Cal Poly has probably hired him to coach the women’s volleyball team.


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I am Ms. Lane’s daughter. I saw first hand that night and everyday since, the physical and emotional pain that this “incident” has caused. I live in the valley two hours away, and when i got the phone call that night ( not from the facility, even though I was listed as an emergency contact ) , I got in my car and rushed over there. I was thinking to myself that given the type of place that it was, accidents happen and staff did everything they could to prevent this from happening. However, to my SHOCK and OUTRAGE, I later found out that there was no staff out there at all! Really?! This was our first time ever watching the video as we were advised by the SLO county D.A.’s office that it was rather disturbing. Disturbing it was! I watched with much anxiety knowing that I would see exactly how Mr Shirreff’s hands caused the injuries that I saw inflicted on my mom when I had arrived that night. Yes, I will admit, it caused me to get physically ill watching it. BUT, for me, the most HEART WRENCHING part of the whole video was after the attack. The response time was absolutely ridiculous. My first question was where is the supervision? What was the point of surveillance cameras if nobody is watching them? I bet you they wish they didn’t have them now. They showed how incompentent that staff really was. Mr Shirreffs had time to do the attack, stop and walk in casually. When they FINALLY found her bleeding, crying and staggering, they acted if there was no sense of urgency. No rush at all, they took their sweet ass time! It breaks my heart to see her suffering when she was already. In conclusion, as much as it hurts to relive this horrible event, I am very proud of my mom to be brave enough to share this story as mortifying as this was for her and I truly hope that changes are made in that and every mental health facility so that these incidents do not happen again, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg with this story. By the way, for those of you asking where is now? We were notified by public officials that he resides in Kern County now.


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Ms. Lane’s daughter has agreed to be interviewed on my radio show today (Friday) at 4:35. News/Talk 920 AM KVEC.


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Deeply Saddened, no one should have to experience what your mother experienced, and no child should EVER have to be subjected to the trauma caused by having their life defiled by the incompetent, inhumane negligence of mental health professionals, who are supposed to be caring for the mother.


ITA with all of your statements about the outrageous lack of care of your mother, and negligence in monitoring the actions of a violent man who has a long history of violent actions against others.


That’s why he was put in the mental health facility–to keep him out of the public where he could injure others.


Instead, they put your mother in a cage, where she was very easily cornered and assaulted.


I was really disgusted over the fact that, after staff finally wandered in to check on her (and I’m wondering if it was secondary to observing blood on Shirreffs’ hand?), observed her shaking uncontrollably and clearly in shock, and then leaving her alone (where she nearly fell off the bench, so severe was her distress) while they went to go put on gloves.


One more thing–she should not still have red blood in her eye because that the eye is still bleeding. Has she had surgery for the retinal detachment? Are there holes in the retina?


I wish the best to you and your mother. If you have the time, give us a progress report from time to time.


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With the long history of violence, WHY? was this guy sent to this unit in the first place???

Perhaps that’s were the true negligence exists (since you keep talking about “negligence”).

So how many underpaid overworked nurses does it take to tackle a guy with a history like this guy?

How many staff members were on? How many should have been on? How well are they trained?

And (like the cops who dropped this guy off) how well are they paid? You want cheap. You don’t want to pay more in taxes, certainly not for the mentally ill. You get what you pay for. So, maybe

you are negligent for not coming out and demanding better services and more staff on this unit BEFORE this woman gets asaulted. HMMMMM?


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Yeah.. I’ve seen what public employees call underpaid and overworked, and frankly I tihnk it’s a crock. Since the cops and firemen are constantly telling us about the things they’re WILLING to do, why didn’t they keep custody of him or keep an eye on him? Oh that’s right, they had to go to a call they had to break up a party of poly students, or maybe they were late for one of those meetings i always seem them at, pulled alongside each other on the roadside having a chitchat.


Sorry, SO OVER the same B.S. cliche’s dribbling out of the mouths of people who provide no service or just plain harassment at high rates of pay. Screw ’em, screw ’em all.


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Thank you very much Che! Lets shoot em.


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Nice job on the radio this afternoon. I am sure it is hard to talk about.


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Its a management, supervision and lack of conscientious employees.

Most everybody wants change that will never happen.

Each crisis is/has been an opportunity to justify more $$$ to any problem.

Each investigation is streamed with loads of CYA.

It will happen again and again and again, never changes, never stops.


In private business you always have more than one resource.

When one breaches, the solution is SIMPLE you contract another in an open competitive bid- (versus the on going perpetual taxation by government).

Additionally if a private organization is negligent, the liability does should not fall on the taxpayers.


When “mentioned” about privatizing, NO public employee fear it because they know it won’t happen.

But when the heads of government and the public seriously considers a professionally run “PRIVATE” organization (and don’t think its not feasible” It can in fact be done), you have no more complacency or complaints because their salary and benefits in reality can disappear.


Privatizing can reduce government budget, taxation, spending, and I believe inflation a third to a half of the time projected. Displaced public employees can seek jobs in privatized companies, and if they are not conscientious on that job, its bye bye!


Where are my lovely thumbs down fans?

Truth hurts but BS is a sin too.

Lotta love, nothing but love for U


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If they want to cry that they can’t run it properly because of funding, start looking at waste. Let’s see, wasting taxpayers money on prosecuting Duval, mmj patients, judges ripping us off, and on and on and on. What a joke we have become because of the complete idiots in charge. Time to take the top five or ten people in every county gov’t department and throw them on the street for screwing us and start over.


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I agree. Our government is completely mismanaged. There is plenty of money and they will never have enough. There are layers upon layers of administration. No one is accountable and there is way too much greed. We need to throw out the Administrators and start over.


What irks the daylights out of me is people who keep insisting that we need to raise taxes and give them more money. Like I said, they will never have enough money. Every time they see extra money, they find someplace to spend it. There is always someone looking to expand their department, install a new program, create a position for a friend and cover up for someone that can’t do their stinking job.


Law suits are a joke, who cares, it’s the taxpayers money and nobody gets terminated. When push comes to shove, they get transferred. Our LE is a perfect example of that.


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This is so outrageous, my heart goes out to Ms. Lane. I’m glad she has chosen the McKiernan Law Firm to represent her. She will get justice & Jim will do a great job for her. County Mental Health has a “history” of being an inept group. All they know how to do is “over medicate patients” or simply put them in a taxi & send them on their way (to anywhere). People do NOT recieve proper care at SLO Mental Health because they hire “incompetant rejects” who cannot be hired elsewhere. I have first hand knowledge of this because I have a close personal friend who was sent away in a cab, only to die a few days later. They received NO treatment whatsoever… Very sad situation.


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RU4Real, Two years ago, a business associate of mine checked her 22 year old son into our local mental health facility claiming that he was suicidal. He agreed to sign himself in and they kept him for 36 hours. How do you stabilize a suicidal patient in 36 hours? This guy told them he wasn’t suicidal anymore and wanted to go home so they said he could go home. He went home and immediately committed suicide that night. His mother found him in the morning when she went to wake him. I agree, they are staffed with rejects.


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What a shame about your friend’s son. Unfortunately, the most likely time for someone to commit suicide is right when they start to feel ‘better’. Before, they don’t have the energy /motivation to carry it off but as they feel better, they actually have the energy to follow through. That’s the time period when they should be most closely watched. It’s a sad situation regardless.


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About prosecuting DuVaul for the homeless he gave shelter on his property….


Surely, with Adam Hill having an affair with the head of the local homeless agency, and voting for funding of the facility every time it comes up, the Board of Supervisors simply CANNOT allow homeless people to not turn a profit for Hill’s latest shack-up.


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I know that I sound like a broken record but I’ll bet this is at least in part due to cut backs. County mental health is in dire need of funding. They can’t keep shrinks and they are terribly understaffed. Just another sign of the times, the rich are getting richer and the poor are not only getting poorer, they’re also getting beat up. Now Co. Mental Health will get sued and even lose more money that they don’t have.


On another note, this poor woman already has issues and now this. This is such a shame, I feel horrible for this poor woman.


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Typo, I usually agree with you, but in this instance, IT IS NOT DUE TO CUT-BACKS. SLO Mental Health has a years old reputation of incompetance…it’s not because of the “economy”…


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How can you have run an entity such as County Mental heath effectively when their funding has been one of the first things cut when thing go south. When you mention that you know someone that that they simply shipped out without treating I believe you. I’m not saying that that’s the right thing to do, of course it’s terrible and inexcusable. But they really don’t have money. Up until quite recently I’ve had years of dealing with Co. Mental Health in So. County (and no I’m not a patient). The Shrinks are the worst. They have a new shrink every month (BTW the shrinks I know call themselves ‘shrinks’ so I think that’s PC). This month their one and only shrink couldn’t figure out why they fired him while he was talking about taking a pill that a friend sent him in the mail that made him high as kite before work and how the road signals on his way to work were wobbly. Then he babbled on and on about nonesense stuff (and yes govt. employees can get fired). For a short time prior to that they had a great doc but she told me that she was just doing them a favor by helping them out because they had no one to work, she has her own practice in No, County. She told me that they have a hard time finding competent shrinks because of what the county is willing to pay. She’s not the first one that’s told me that, this has been going on for a few years now. For the last few years they get private shrinks to come in basicly as a favor to help them because they can’t afford to hire competent shrinks. How can they properly care for someone like your friend when there’s no one there to help them and that is starting to happen. Yes the shrinks they hire shove pills down their client to get them out so they can move on to the next patient/victim, once again it’s because they can’t find good docs to work for cheap. Don’t get me wrong, I’m defending what they did to your friend.


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No “cutbacks” were responsible for what happened to this poor woman; it was incompetence, plain and simple. Whoever was responsible for putting an evil, violent pervert like William Shirreffs into close unsupervised contact with Ms. Lane should be fired at once.


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I don’t think we can say, one way or another, whether its due to cutbacks until we know what level of staffing they ended up with after the cutbacks.


If they don’t have enough staff to provide oversight of the violent patients, then these events are going to occur. If this lack of staff for oversight is secondary to budget cutbacks then, yes, it is due to budget cutbacks.


However, after the budget cutbacks, if they still had enough staff to provide oversight, and the available staff simply failed in their duties, then it’s negligence.


Either way, the injuries occurred while Mrs. Lane was in the care of County mental health, when she was left alone in a cage, with zero staff supervision, with a person with a long history of violent crimes. That’s just the facts of what happened.


Therefore, the County and State are responsible for making restitution to Mrs. Lane for her injuries, both physical and emotional.


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Mary’s right, we can’t say one way or the other with the info we have whether cutbacks played a role in this. This was just my guess because I see first hand and close up how understaffed and underfunded they are.


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