A Brooklyn woman, who lost her job and apartment days before meeting her death in the waiting room of Kings County Hospital, was mourned by a crowd of angry protestors, who assembled outside the medical facility for a vigil in memory of Esmin Elizabeth Green.
Carrying commemorative placards, and wearing t-shirts, bearing the phrases, “Zero Tolerance for Torture” and “Stop Forced Mental Health Treatment,” rallyers from The Opal Project made their voices heard in front of the Clarkson Avenue hospital where Green, 49, perished in the Psychiatric care Emergency Room, June 19, as workers and staff members allegedly ignored her convulsions and eventual death.
The rally was one of several taking place around the world for the pretty mother of six from Jamaica, whose death was captured by a hospital surveillance camera, which showed her trembling on the floor of the Psychiatric Emergency Room and then expiring as staffers walked around her for an hour or more.
The grim depiction has led to the firing of six hospital staff employees, and led Green’s family to file a $25 million negligence suit against the Health and Hospitals Corporation-run hospital, plus demand for a criminal investigation into her death.
“What my brothers and sisters and I want is that the persons responsible should be behind bars,” Green’s daughter, Trecia Harrison told reporters.
Added Opal Project spokesperson Lauren J. Tenney, “Unlike Ms. Green, we survived with our lives. However, our liberty, our health and our futures continue to be under the threat of the therapeutic state.”
Green’s death inspired Windsor Terrace artist Dawn Petrlik to sculpt the installation, “The Lonely Death of Esmin Green,” which was on display at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition in Red Hook, 499 Van Brunt Street, until Green’s family requested that it be removed, said a Coalition worker.