Today was a memorial service for a man who was like a cousin to me. I was just thinking about him, the sad sad circumstances of his death and all of the kinships that I am a part of. This man Michael was a foster child from the age of 2 months, raised down the street from me with my cousin as his foster brother. He was 6 years my senior. I took my first motorcycle ride behind Micheal. While going out to house parties as a teenager, basically in places I had no business being I knew if he was there no one and I mean no one would mess with me. He was like a cousin, a brother, a protector and a friend. We grew up 5 houses from each other and as an adult he lived across the street from the house of his childhood until drug abuse and a prison sentence took him away from there. After 20 years of losing touch it was brought to my attention that he had slipped into a diabetic coma and last week his family turned off the life support.

This coming so close to the anniversary of my oldest brother’s death is making me introspective. The people who are my family are mostly not. Because I am adopted and just recently met the family of my birth, I have many many people in my life who are my kin, by heart because before last year the only blood kin I had were my children. A friend of mine once said that for him friends were special because you could pick your friends and not your family. For me I picked the friends I wanted to be family.

RIP Stroda
to read the article of how he died click on the link


http://www.contracostatim...atimes.com

Honey, I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

Gay people, I believe, tend to know the value of bloodless kin Doesn't it seem like the longer you live, the more lucid you feel about death and its relationship to life?

I'm so glad you had this connection, to this man and this person, and I wish you so much peace and love as you remember him and the time you shared together. I love you very very much Lisa

While I don't think anything will come of his death, this really should raise the issue of prisoner's healthcare. Too many people dying unnecessarily because there aren't enough resources for the incarcerated

Our deepest sympathy

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I love you too baby

you are right the older I get and the more people I lose makes me realize that connection. When my aunt died back in March my oldest daughter posted on her facebook that she felt like her childhood was dying one person at a time. She was around all of my childhood people, friends, cousins, aunts and uncles. Because of the circumstances of her birth she has some of the same connections that me and my brother's have because she spent time with the same people in the same neighborhood, and everyone knew her. So my loss is her loss too. Yet another perspective that I share with her because I had her so young and when I was alone.

Sheriff's office defends arrest of inmate who died in custody
By Robert Salonga
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 05/14/2009 03:50:16 PM PDT
Updated: 05/14/2009 08:24:33 PM PDT


The Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office is defending the arrest of a man who fell into a diabetic coma while in custody and later died, following claims by his family that he was wrongfully detained and did not receive needed medical attention.

Michael Stroda, 50, of Bay Point, was arrested April 11 while visiting his girlfriend at West County Jail in Richmond because ex-felons are barred from jail property. He was found unresponsive in a cell at County Jail in Martinez the next day, and he was unconscious for a month before he died Monday at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center.

Friends and relatives say that Stroda, who was convicted of drug offenses in the early 1990s, was cleared by deputies for the visit and that he did not get the medical care he needed for his diabetes following his arrest. His son has retained high-profile attorney John Burris, known for taking cases involving accusations of police misconduct, to explore their claims.

The sheriff's office contends that even though Stroda should have been familiar with jail rules, signs are posted throughout the county's jail facilities detailing the prohibition of ex-felons.

"It's posted all over the building when you enter it," said sheriff's Capt. Daniel Terry, whose division is overseeing the investigation of Stroda's death. "He was obviously aware that he was an ex-felon, and once he was there he was lawfully arrested."

Terry also disputed the family's argument that once Stroda was arrested — after he had already entered the jail and was in the midst of a visit with girlfriend Erika Johnson — he did not get medical attention for his diabetes. Johnson told the Times that both she and Stroda told deputies repeatedly that he needed to go to the jail system's medical ward in Martinez so that he could get insulin.

"We were aware he had medical issues, and those issues were addressed," Terry said. He declined further comment on Stroda's treatment.

Family members also argue that Stroda had visited his son in jail on previous occasions without any complication, and Johnson said she had notified jail officials of his April 11 visit by submitting his name on a visitor's list. While Terry did not comment specifically on the purported previous visits, he noted that the paperwork alone did not absolve Stroda from abiding by the jail prohibitions regarding visits by felons.

"All (the visitors list) does is make us aware who that person wants to visit," he said. "It doesn't mean they're allowed to visit."

Stroda was remembered by family as a man who had turned his life around after a checkered past and had turned his focus to family life and buying and restoring old cars.

A memorial for Stroda is scheduled for Monday morning at First Baptist Church in Pittsburg.

I can understand the concerns about someone being a "felon" but this sounds like a no tolerance type approach, which we all know gets totally out of hand in many circumstances. I hope he didn't knowingly suffer

Mach said:

thanks mach

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I am sure he suffered. It takes a while to lose consciousness, and when you need your insulin you are very aware of the symptoms before you finally lose lucidity. I have gotten a few calls today about this and the lawyer contacted Michael's son who is in Prison for a drug stint (15-20, ) about representation in a wrongful death suit, he is the same attorney representing the family of Oscar Grant the young man shot and killed by the BART officer. There are witnesses saying that Micheal was telling the guards he was sick, but no one says that anyone helped him or brought him anything. I have been told that the lawyer has already gotten statements from the inmates who heard all of this.
that being said, me, my sister, my cousin, and his cousin are just sick about this, knowing that whatever money is won in the suit won't do Michael any good. But hopefully it will make the Coco county get their shit together.

If you want to talk or need a shoulder you can IM me

luv4u said:

thanks girl

butterfli25 said:

Went to see my grandmother in the nursing home where she is receiving her physical therapy and she expressed not necessarily her fears of death but balancing coming to terms and making peace with her mortality and still desiring to be part of this life. And all this while my 2 year old niece was running around in her young body with boundless energy and a full life ahead of her. Hearing my grandmother, seeing my niece, feeling what I felt and connecting made me feel like I was on drugs in a lucid dream like a super awareness.



You have no idea how hard I identify with her The biggest reason I am so connected to my mom is because I have been with her the longest of anybody in the house and I remember parts of the past that none of the other kids do. Some deaths simply don't hit my younger siblings the way they do me because they never really knew some of those people.

I am so glad you have each other to share that experience with

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I completely agree.

Sorry for your loss, butterfli.

butterfli25 said:

That is sickening and horrible. Makes my stomach turn, and terrifies me that if any of my loved ones find themselves in prison, they could find themselves suffering the same fate.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

PsychoNeverHands said:

Most have automatic reactions that people shouldn't be in jail in the first place but innocent people do go to jail sometimes.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Innocent or not, it has nothing to do with your right to medical care.

Do they think that all the free people who end up in hospitals are "innocent"? Please. Any one of them could be a wifebeater or a child molester. So someone got caught with drugs, that means they should be subjected to inhumane treatment?

It saddens me so deeply. I'm not yelling at you, Richard, just angry at the utter lack of compassion for other human beings once we've put them into certain mental categories ("inmate," "criminal," "Muslim," etc.)

PsychoNeverHands said:

oh it's not my argument and I think it's full of shit too but it's the one thing you can maybe get someone to think about when they start up with their inhuman cries for the degraded treatement even of prisoners.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Yeah, I know.

PsychoNeverHands said:

It's OK to yell. I'll be in good company then

thanks everyone.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:[quote]

butterfli25 said:

that is really profound, the correlation between your grandmother and her perspective and the activity of your young niece.

I am so sorry, butter.

I'm sorry to hear that.



Sounds like there was plenty of beauty in the connection you had while he was here though.