‘I can’t imagine what they felt’: Sheriff joins Andrew Holland’s family at candlelight vigil
It was a sight that seemed unfathomable as little as a year ago.
Sharon and Carty Holland extended a hand to San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson to come up to the podium at the third annual candlelight vigil honoring the memory of their son, whose in-custody death they had blamed squarely on the sheriff.
“We found a way to move forward, both of us,” Sharon Holland said before applause from a crowd of more than 100 residents, mental health advocates, Sheriff’s Office command staff, and Behavioral Health administrators on a foggy Wednesday evening as the crowd gathered next to the County Jail.
“Hopefully, this is the beginning of a lot of work we still have to do, both in the community in the jail, but it’s a great start,” Parkinson said, drawing more applause from some residents who were among the crowds in emotionally charged protests against the Sheriff’s Office and county health workers in March 2018.
The Atascadero family’s son, Andrew, died Jan. 22, 2017, after jail custody staff and employees of the county health agency left him in a plastic restraint chair for nearly two days.
Andrew, 36, had suffered for more than a decade from schizophrenia and at the time of his death already spent more than a year in County Jail for what was originally a misdemeanor offense.
His death underscored dysfunction between local law enforcement, mental health agencies, and the court system, and highlighted the growing national “epidemic” of the mentally ill being caught in the carousel of the criminal justice system without proper treatment.
Andrew Holland’s death resulted in a $5 million settlement from the county to the Holland family, which they have spent on forming the Andrew Holland Foundation.
The foundation recently hired an executive director and has been invited to participate in mental health training the Sheriff’s Office has since required of all of its rank and file.
Wednesday’s vigil — the third since Andrew Holland’s death and the first to include any county personnel — began with Parkinson, at the Hollands’ request, leading a solemn walk from the San Luis Obispo County Jail’s Juvenile Services building past the Women’s Jail, before convening at the front steps of the sheriff’s administration building.
At the podium, Sharon Holland told the crowd that Parkinson and county staff were invited to this year’s memorial due to a newfound air of collaboration and what she said she sees as incremental local progress on improving services for people living with mental illness.
Sharon Holland has personally participated as a stakeholder in the Sheriff’s Office’s regular Crisis Intervention Training.
“It was an awesome experience,” she said. “We are honored to be able to do that.”
Though the Sheriff’s Office is on board with that program, Sharon Holland said the foundation is working to provide grant funding so that smaller police departments short on staffing and funding may also send officers to attend.
“I just want to tell Sharon and Carty, thank you,” Parkinson said to applause. “But I want to say, most importantly, is the courage for them to approach, and to want to heal, and to want to move forward.”
He continued: “I can’t imagine what they felt — certainly, I can imagine what they probably felt about me about what happened to Andrew — but for them to step forward after all that and extend a hand, and want to not only sit down and talk, but also move forward with making change.”
Parkinson called the mistreatment of the mentally ill an “epidemic,” and one that he said the county had “taken a blind eye to” long before Andrew’s death.
“And in many ways, we’ve criminalized people that don’t need to be criminalized,” he said.
Parkinson recalled a public meeting some time after Andrew Holland’s death in which Sharon and Carty spoke of the need not just to bring the county up to par in its mental health services, but to create a model that other counties could follow.
“We want to be the front runner, we want to set the example, we don’t want to be in this situation — we don’t want people in this situation — and we can do something about it,” he said.
Parkinson listed several initiatives and reforms the county has since put in place, from the hiring of a chief medical officer, to the contracting of a third party medical services provider at the jail, to the building of a new medical wing.
“In the last two years, we have made tremendous change, inside the jail, and outside the jail,” Parkinson said. “The concept is to keep people out of the criminal justice system and get them into the proper treatment that they need.”
He added: “And we can’t do that alone — we need the support of the foundation and of people like you.”
