Organizational stupidity is the worst kind of stupidity. Take for example the story below.
I cite the relative passage that made me nervous:
But the hospital, which has a history of inmate escapes, failed to tell its neighbors that Hartman, 49, is a killer, kidnapper and robber who had a penchant for attacking good Samaritans offering him help.
Now, there are not many good Samaritans out there, but there are a few. And each and every one of them in the Denver area, or indeed, throughout Colorado for that matter, could be in danger.
The article raises the following questions.
1. What is a killer, kidnapper and robber with mental health issues doing at a halfway house that doesn't have bars or guards?
2. Why can people continue to escape from this institution, since most of the people who do escape have actually assaulted and even killed people.
3. Why wasn't the public told he was a killer and to stay away from him -- particularly if he had a history of harming people who tried to help him?
Public not told escapee a killer - The Denver Post
The Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo has no fence or guard station to keep patients from walking off the grounds.
After Mark Hartman bolted last week from Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, this halfway house dutifully informed the public that the inmate was missing and wanted.
But the hospital, which has a history of inmate escapes, failed to tell its neighbors that Hartman, 49, is a killer, kidnapper and robber who had a penchant for attacking good Samaritans offering him help.
The only reference on the notice about Hartman's criminal background recounted his most recent offenses: escape, contraband possession in prison and an unspecified parole violation. Nothing was included about the time Hartman, who remains at large, shot a man in the face and burned his corpse during a cross- country crime spree.
State Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, said Tuesday that failing to report the most troubling part of Hartman's criminal background is a lapse that could affect how aggressively law enforcement attempts to arrest Hartman, who escaped Thursday. Furthermore, she said, it doesn't send an adequate alarm to citizens.
"It's concerning to me that the appropriate level of care wasn't taken," McFadyen said. "It certainly isn't appropriate. It sounds like we need a review of the hospital's notification policy."
Rep. Dianne Primavera, a Broomfield Democrat and chairwoman of the Legislative Audit Committee, said McFadyen told her Tuesday that she intends to formally request an audit of the hospital's escape-notification policy.
"I think this is a public-safety issue," Primavera said. "I think it is something we should look into."
The failure to tell the full story about Hartman's violent past was perplexing to a former investigator with the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office.
"He was very dangerous," said John Lauck, who has since retired as an investigator. "Anybody who has done something that he has done has the potential of doing it again. If I lived in Pueblo, I'd sure want to know if somebody had walked away from a
Mark Hartman is still at large after escape. halfway house and is a killer."
Institute spokeswoman Eunice Wolther said the hospital releases notices about walkaways or escapees in the interest of public safety. The notice explains that when forensic patients are without medications, they can be dangerous.
Wolther said she didn't intentionally withhold information about Hartman's past. She simply didn't know.
"I can only tell you why he's here," Wolther said. "As far as his background, I don't know his history."
She said Hartman was committed to the hospital in July 2007 after being found not guilty by reason of impaired mental condition for the comparatively benign crimes cited on the public warning.
That release doesn't mention prior convictions or commitments and Hartman has bounced in and out of prison and the state hospital since 1983, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
Lauck wondered whether the hospital didn't release Hartman's more serious convictions because someone wanted to hide the fact that they made the decision that it was safe to put him in a halfway house.
"If somebody evaluated him, they had to conclude he is not a threat or he wouldn't be in a halfway house," he said.
Lauck said he'll never forget Hartman's case because of how senseless it was.
In early January 1983, Hartman, then 24, was hitchhiking when he caught a ride with a former Navy seaman, L.D. Gipson, who was on a trip from Texas to California, Lauck said.
Hartman tricked Gipson into letting him have his keys at a gas station and Hartman stole the car, he said.
Hartman picked up a passenger, Susan Brown, and the two drove to Golden, where the pastor of North Golden Baptist Church allowed them to sleep overnight, Lauck said.
On Jan. 25, 1983, the pair broke into the church and stole checks and money from the church's business office, Lauck said.
Later that day, the couple met security officer Lawrence Gale at a Golden bar. They told him about their financial hard-luck story, and he went to their room at the Holiday Inn in Golden, Lauck said.
A hotel worker later found blood in the room. The next day in a remote area, Douglas County sheriff's deputies discovered a corpse that had been badly burned. The body was Gale's.
Hartman and Brown set out for Gale's mobile home in Thornton — apparently to burglarize it — but entered his neighbor's residence by mistake, Lauck said. They threatened the neighbor, a woman, with a gun and tied her up. They were burglarizing the home when police arrived, Lauck said.
It took Lauck and other investigators a month to find the murder scene on a remote gravel road in Jefferson County. Bullets found in the road indicated Gale had been shot execution style while he was lying on the ground.
Both Hartman and Brown were convicted of second-degree murder. Hartman was sentenced to 36 years in prison. In 1990, Hartman was charged with possession of contraband and was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was sent to the state hospital for a term of one day to life. Since then, he has been in and out of the state hospital.
"He was very callous, cold-blooded," Lauck said of Hartman. "Twenty-five years ago, he didn't have any compunction about killing someone. If he is on the run, he could fall back on old ways to get out of Dodge."
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