WIDOW QUESTIONS HUSBAND'S DEATH IN CUSTODY

Amid the sadness over the death of her husband, Melanie Jackson is angry.
She wants answers.

Jackson would like someone to tell her why her husband, Dale, the man who
died Wednesday in the back of a police wagon, was allowed to leave St.
Francis Central Hospital following a bizarre incident in Uptown. It was
exactly like the psychotic episodes for which he had been involuntarily
committed three times recently while on crack cocaine binges.

"He was sick," she said. "My husband was not a bad person. He needed help.
He needed someone to help him."

And yesterday, Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht said why Jackson
would be allowed to leave the hospital would be an "important aspect of the
overall aspect of the case."

"It will certainly be reviewed and addressed at the time of the inquest,"
Wecht said last evening. "And it will be reviewed before then. It's very
important to deal with this question."

Jennifer May, a spokeswoman for St. Francis Health System, said, "Given all
the information that we have available to us, the caregivers did everything
necessary to treat this patient."

Dale Jackson was taken to St. Francis following an incident in Uptown
during which he threw himself at a moving car, tried to then leap in the
driver's side window, and then fought with police after attempting to leap
in their car. At one point, he grabbed an officer's groin.

He was pepper-sprayed and taken to St. Francis for treatment from the
spray, during which he was combative. A doctor examined him and determined
that he was OK, but also suggested that he have a mental health evaluation.

He refused all further treatment and was allowed to sign himself out,
police said.

Officers then put him in the back of a police wagon. When they arrived at
the Allegheny County Jail, Jackson was unresponsive. Paramedics were called
to the scene but were unable to revive him.

His wife says his actions Wednesday night were the result of the psychotic
episodes that happened during his on and off binges with crack cocaine. She
wants to know why he wasn't involuntarily committed, as he was three times
over the last eight or so months.

Jackson thinks her husband would have had a chance for survival were he not
allowed to leave the hospital. Wecht, who is waiting on toxicology and
tissue examination results to determine the cause and manner of death, has
surmised that Jackson may have died after suffering a cardiac arrhythmia --
irregular heartbeat -- due to cocaine usage.

He allowed that "there was no better place than the emergency room" to be
treated for this kind of attack.

Under Section 302 of the state's Mental Health Procedures Act, a person can
be involuntarily committed for evaluation and treatment by someone who
witnesses that person acting in a manner that could be dangerous to
themselves or others.

This can be done by police officers, two physicians, or by the county's
mental health delegate.

A physician would then give the person a mental health examination, and if
it showed the person was seriously mentally ill and in need of inpatient
care, they could be held against their will for up to five days.

A patient cannot be committed based on behavior from substance abuse alone.
There has to be an element of mental illness, according to the act.

Police bureau spokeswoman Michele Papakie said it was the officer's
discretion whether to make a 302 commitment with Jackson. She said he could
have been committed by a nurse at the jail if he had made it there. She
also said Jackson had committed a criminal act and needed to be arrested,
and that hospitals wouldn't take someone by involuntary commitment if they
are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"I don't want my husband to die in vain," Melanie Jackson said. "Someone
has to be responsible."

She said her husband had recently been diagnosed as schizophrenic and
evidencing bipolar disorder. His last binge started Tuesday after he
finished working his shift as a limousine driver. He was taken to St.
Francis after he was pulled over for suspicion of DUI just after midnight
Wednesday morning, but was just given a citation.

In February, she said he was involuntarily committed by police after he
broke down someone's door because he thought he was being chased. Jackson,
who had been shot in the early 1990s, often claimed he heard gun clicking
sounds when he was psychotic.

Earlier this year, he had an involuntary commitment at Mercy Hospital,
Melanie Jackson said, after he leaped off an overpass near the West End
following a harrowing struggle in a moving car with his wife. She was
driving him to a drug rehabilitation center when he suddenly grabbed the
wheel, claiming people were coming to get him. He tried to hide her under
the dashboard so she wouldn't be hurt by the imagined attacker.

When he wasn't on his binges, Melanie said, her husband was "like a big
teddy bear."

"He was so caring," she said. "He loved to work. He was a workaholic. He
wanted to make sure we all lived well. He never tried to hurt me or the
kids. He was just sick."

And he had empathy for others in his position.

He would try to help recovering addicts get jobs. One time he gave a
recovering addict food from his own refrigerator.

Jackson says people should have cared for him like that.

"He was so nice, so good to me," she said. "He always told me I was his savior."