The First Rule

Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: if someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: the fights are bare knuckle. No shirt, no shoes, no weapons. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight.

The movie Fight Club changed my life like nothing else.  Everyone has that one piece of art that moves them.  It could be anything.  A painting, photograph, song, movie, book or anything else that moves you.  Mine is Fight Club, really the book at the movie.  I first saw the teaser trailer for it when I saw the first of the Star Wars prequels.  I had no idea what the movie was about, but I thought it looked cool.  In the fall when Fight Club was released, I took a girl to see it as a first date.  I wanted to see the movie, she agreed since it had a shirtless Brad Pitt.  Everyone won.  She decided to stop dating me shortly thereafter.

But, the movie blew me away.  Even though it’s now 10 years old, the themes of the movie are still fresh today.  I’ve never seen or read anything that just hits home on being a male and growing up in this time frame.  About twice a year I either watch the movie or read the book, and I always get something new out of it.

The workers at the Corpus Christi State School obviously didn’t conduct their fight club with the same rules that Tyler Durden did.  Four workers are set to start trial tomorrow.  Two more are scheduled for trial sometime later this year.  The crimes they are accused of are pretty bad as well:

In March, Corpus Christi police announced the discovery of what they called a “fight club” case at the Corpus Christi center. Nearly 20 videos, dating to 2007, found on a cell phone turned in to police showed staff members forcing residents into late-night bouts, kicking to egg them on.

Which brings me to an issue I had never thought about before I became an attorney.  Care of the mentally disabled, or whatever the correct term these days is.  This had never come up on my radar because it never had any impact on my life.  Other than the short attention span of anyone raised on Nintendo, I don’t have any kind of mental disability, nor does anyone in my family.  Sure, there were kids at school or were and they were even in some of my classes, but I never thought about what was going to happen to them after school and they aged out.  That probably isn’t very sensitive, but in my defense, I was 18 and thought I knew it all.

Now that I’m a little older and realize the older I get, the less I actually know, this has been an issue I come across on a semi-regular basis; clients with some kind of developmental disability.  They’ve run the gamut from ones that are just a little slow to ones that are off their rocker.  But the common denominator is that there isn’t a whole lot being done to help them.

I want to help, but I don’t know how.  I make motions to get clients examined when I think there is a need to.  I’ve been fortunate that some of the judges where I practice have an interest in trying to help those with disabilities rather than just locking them up.  The problem for getting help is (like every other problem) money.  The people I’m talking about were 99% of the time going to be indigent.  People who have disabilities and a family with money are already being taken care of.  So it’s up to the government to foot the bill in a time when county coffers are shrinking.  Heck, even when things are good, I have a hard time believing there’s a ton of money set aside for treating mentally disabled people.  And Texas doesn’t seem to have the best track record lately.

In May, the Legislature approved a $112 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over widespread mistreatment found at the state’s 13 residential facilities for people with developmental disabilities, now known as state supported living centers. The agency’s civil rights investigation found at least 53 deaths from September 2007 to September 2008 stemming from what it considered preventable conditions.

As part of the settlement, the state plans to hire 1,000 more staff members for the facilities.

Last month, Gov. Rick Perry signed legislation aimed at improving oversight of the facilities that house nearly 5,000 Texans, including installation of video cameras in common areas.

Laura Albrecht, a spokeswoman for the Department of Aging and Disability Services, said that the agency continues making unannounced visits to the Corpus Christi facility and that cameras are being installed. She said the settlement with the Justice Department was “a big step that will certainly bring improvements and changes to the system.”

So how does someone with no real dog in the fight get involved?  Write my state reps, find some lobby group?  Any ideas on getting involved and trying to help change conditions would be appreciated.