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Starting off this bright foggy day in Key West cheer, I emailed Jerry Weinstock, M.D., Psychiatry yesterday, if you already read the Citizen article, scroll down to Jerry’s reply and his and my ensuing discussion.
Check out this article in today’s Key West Citizen about former city commissioner Harry Bethel’s son. Maybe you should call Harry and offer to help his son with his mental health problems, including not speaking up for himself and not taking responsibility for his own actions. I. too, need your good services, helping me grok why come Bethel’s son, who was acting a hell of a lot more dangerous and crazy than Charles Eimers acted, was not beaten up and killed by the cops?
Saturday, February 28, 2015
FKAA employee jailed after near crash
BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com
A Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority employee was arrested Wednesday after police said he nearly crashed into a squad car while drunk behind the wheel.
Robert Bethel, 33, drove his sports utility vehicle through a red light at Kennedy Drive and Flagler Avenue at about 3:45 p.m. Wednesday, while at the same time a Key West police officer was making a left-hand turn from Flagler.
“I swerved to the right as the vehicle ran the light and entered the intersection, almost crashing into me,” wrote Officer Kathyann Wanciak in her incident report.
Bethel is accused of drunken driving and resisting arrest by refusing to get out of his silver 2008 Honda SUV, police reported.
But police erred, Bethel’s father said Friday.
Speaking on behalf of his son, former city commissioner Harry Bethel said his son was having a diabetic episode and had just left a counseling session that left him in tears.
There was no alcohol involved, he said, admitting his son ran the red light but only because of a medical condition.
“We’re fighting this,” Harry Bethel said, adding that police didn’t read his son his Miranda warning and that deputies at the jail ignored his request for an attorney.
While police described Robert Bethel as having slurred speech, and being red-faced and glassy eyed, in two incident reports released Friday, there was no mention of the smell of alcohol or any alcoholic cans or bottles in the car.
Wanciak’s report is classified as an “alcohol/liquor related offense.”
Police said Bethel repeatedly said, “no,” when told about field sobriety tests, and when asked to get out of the vehicle.
He was “gripping the steering wheel” and would not let go, Wanciak wrote in her report. “I had to pry his finger off the wheel and I was finally able to get hold of his arm.”
Officers said they were forced to remove Bethel from the vehicle.
“Bethel continually locked his arms to the front of his body,” Officer Gary Celcer reported, adding it took three officers to get him to put his hands behind his back.
Bethel refused to take a breath test or perform field sobriety tests, police said.
Celcer said he had met Bethel before and knew he was diabetic, so he had a paramedic check his blood sugar.
Bethel said he had a doctor’s prescription for hydrocodone “but said he had not taken any today,” Celcer reported.
Bethel had slurred speech, police said, and “fumbled” through his car’s interior but couldn’t find his registration or proof of insurance, police said.
At one point, Wanciak said, “Bethel fumbled through his [SUV’s] owners manual for quite a while” trying to find the documents.
Bethel faces misdemeanor charges and was also cited for a red-light violation.
He was released on his own recognizance from the Stock Island jail at about 2:45 p.m. Thursday, sheriff’s office jail records showed.
Bethel also has been a member of the volunteer tree commission since 2011. He was absent at the panel’s January and February meetings but attended the December one, according to the minutes.
Bethel, a 2000 graduate of Key West High School, is a GIS (geographic information system) technical support specialist at the aqueduct, where he has worked since 1998 when he helped install computers, according to his resume filed at city hall.
Bethel remains an employee of the aqueduct but has been on unpaid leave since Jan. 13, the Executive Director Kirk Zuelch said Friday.
“I don’t know when he will be back,” Zuelch said.
Bethel’s father worked at the aqueduct for 19 years, retiring in 2009 as director of the Customer Service Department.
gfilosa@keysnews.com
Jerry replied yesterday morning:
I haven’t read it yet and will not till later—Saturday I have to swim early-
Sloan -if he didn’t have the proper insulin level whose responsibility is that;
Bethel is so neurotic -the father—— who knows what mess his son is in.???
Sounds serious —-emotionally —in need of assistance -professional help—Jerry.
I wrote:
Enjoy your swim. If you feel inclined, add to your thoughts after you’ve had time to read the Citizen article. I used it in my post today, and added a few cheery darts :-). Darts elsewhere in today’s pin the tale on the donkey contest.
pin the tale on liberty and justice for all … Key West police academy and justice center
Jerry replied yesterday afternoon:
Sloan: The police harassed a good friend of ours who has been
our favorite server at the Rusty Anchor for infinity-was harassed unmercifully
by the police at 2:00 in the morning—I mean abusively—riding his bike down Duval
which he does every morning —sleeps at 5:00 am reports to work at 5 : 00 PM;
They asked for the bill of sale for his bike which he had on him-carries in his wallet.
They registered disdain with that —disappointment - he is one of the most considerate
sensitive men I have had the privilege to know -he told us immediately -horribly upset;
POLICE just short of physical brutality -but emotionally he was a wreck.-
Bethel with such an apparently constricted father may have been acting out against him-at least partially;
[but putting others in severe danger -running a red light—-DANGEROUS ]—a father that is sporting a neurosis;
terrified of his own impulses -making a fool of himself—almost lethal….Harry needs help but will never ask for it.
Both father and son—obviously -one doesn’t have to be a Psychiatrist to diagnosis that —but what is the story ???
It s what makes Psychiatry fascinating and difficult-I just received my 50 year membership in the American Psychiatric Association-I don’t pay dues -so it is some kind of kindness or even honor -ahem !!
Hang loose Okay -we will probably go to Donnie Lee with him-he is friends with Jason Donnie’s son-John’s mom has a building named after her somewhere here -PARKER — some police are nice but there are bad ones we know !! Jerry
I replied today:
Morning, Jerry -
That’s a brutal story about your friend. Perhaps the blue paper would like to run with it as it develops. Naja Girard gets all of my daily ravings, but I’ll call and alert her to look at your report in today’s post at goodmorningkeywest.com.
Bless your heart, you cut dead to the chase in the Harry Bethel affairs. Harry’s son is screaming for help, and not the kind his father is attempting to provide.
Sloan
On second thought, do you want me to sit on what happened to your friend on his bicycle?
Jerry wrote:
SLOAN: I am reasonably certain John would be eager to relate
this newest inappropriate harassment; it could have been handled so
much differently without the almost PTSD component.
these are serious. ——Sincerely -Jerry
we will do whatever will do the most good and shed the most insight.
A vicious van dweller amigo had this tribute published recently in KONK Life (konklife.nex). I added pics of Michelangelo, a systems jumper, and then some. Only after it was obvious Michelangelo was too old and feeble and sick to respond to their harassment, did a number of Key West cops stop bothering him in his van at night when he was sleeping.
KONK LIFE EDITOR KD SAT, FEB 21 2015Another Little Piece Of Old Key West Passes
By Emil Imbro
Another icon of old Key West and a part of the rapidly disappearing “Greatest Generation” passed away on February 12th at Lower Keys Medical Center. Michelangelo and his old mustard yellow colored van were a fixture at Higgs Beach. This eloquent yet stubborn old man graced our island with his wit and iconic messages posted on his van for over 40 years.
One evening about 7 years ago, as we sat talking in his van, he pulled out a newspaper cartoon from the makeshift desk in his van of a GI sitting in his foxhole in winter and he said to me, “This is how I spent Christmas in 1944.” And he proceeded to tell me his life story.
Born in Brooklyn in 1921, the family moved to Philadelphia when he was 6. In 1942, at the age of 21 he went to war leaving behind a wife and young child. He became a combat medic and served with the 12th Armored Division.
The “Hellcats” as the division was known landed at Le Havre, France in November, 1944. They moved south and east across France into Germany and then Austria. In January of 1945 the battle at Herrlisheim, France became known as “Bloody Herrlisheim.” The 12th, outnumbered by well entrenched German forces, repeatedly thwarted the Germans attempt to break out and move south toward Strasbourg. The Germans dubbed them the “Suicide Division.”
Near the end of April 1945, the 12th began liberating Nazi death camps including Hurlag, Landsberg and Dachau. Michelangelo told me from memory what he saw as one of the first to enter. “The emaciated prisoners could say nothing. They cried as we opened the gates.” The 12th was credited with freeing more than 20,000 non-military prisoners and capturing over 72,000 Germans.
Sgt. Michelangelo Peluso, was discharged and returned to Philadelphia in December, 1945. He first went to work in construction where his job was spackling and painting walls. After trying his hand at plumbing and heating, he landed a job as a Manufacturing Engineer with Boeing Helicopter where he worked until he retired. He was married 42 years and raised a son and daughter.
In 1972, he came to Key West in a VW van and stayed for a month on Higgs Beach and fell in love with the island. He recalled being able to park and spend the night out on White Street pier as long as you were fishing. “When a cop would come out you would jump back to your fishing pole”, he said laughingly.
He returned each year until 2008, when heart valve replacement surgery weakened him and he could no longer return north in summers.
He became a fixture on Higgs Beach and in the community participating in all the holidays and parades. He would decorate his van in the Italian colors for Pasta in the Park around Columbus Day and in red, white and blue for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and of course Veterans Day. But beyond that, his wit and humor graced our island and he always had a message posted on his van for all to see. Most recently he displayed the message, “At Least I Know I Am Free.”
This eloquent old man with the neatly trimmed white beard is gone. But to all of us who knew him he has left us with two great lessons: Follow your dreams and find your own happiness. Rest in peace, my friend. It has been an honor to know you. Thank you for your service and for all the lives you touched.
A different vicious van dweller amigo systems jumper dropped this into my Facebook time line yesterday.
The only way to jump a system is to not play by its rules, ways. That also is the only chance of changing a system, by being something else. Chance. Systems are living organisms. As such, like any other living organism, an amoeba, a rat, a tiger, a religion, a political party, a crusade, it does all it can to remain alive, and it views any threat to what it is now as lethal and it does all it can to repel the threat, to the ultimate point of killing the threat, literally, or figuratively. Shunning is a way of killing a social threat, for example. Gandhi said it pretty well, Become the light you wish to see in the world. Jesus said, First take the beam out of your own eye. Trying to change a system has never worked, and it never will work. The only thing a person can change is him/herself, and that’s going up against the system which is that person. Gandhi jumped the system he confronted, and that got some results. Jesus jumped the system he confronted, and that got some results. But the systems they jumped continued as before, less the number of people who had made the jumps. This might seem weird, but the only way I know to really jump systems requires supernatural help, and I’m not speaking of religion, which is not supernatural but is man-made. I’m speaking of supernatural beings intervening in a person, in a person’s life, in social group, in a community. It’s happened before. It happens today, I see it, but most people do not see it. I’ve been at this a good while, and it looks to me that humanity is headed down the tube regardless of what it tries or doesn’t try, and each person should try to live as truly, honestly, compassionately and bravely as possible. Or, try something else. In the end, we all die, leave our bodies, are in another realm, and we see differently and then begins the next phase, which isn’t cast in stone, but is as variable as people are variable. Religion and politics and have missed the entire point. And they have lots of company.
Facebook systems jump launched by the Right Out of His Mind Reverend Gweko Phlocker, aka Gary Ek, aka Soundman from Hell (Norway):
A “Phlocking Bus” !
What turned out to be a very different kind of systems jump was launched by a Facebook friend, which I shared with my Facebook friends:
More strange in the sky
Just outside of Asheville at 4:30.
Alice Bashinsky, this was posted to my timeline, saying it happened yesterday in Asheville. Did you see it? Never saw anything like it before. Do I need another eye exam? 🙂
Just outside of Asheville at 4:30.
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
