After A Man Dies, His Family Says The Mental Health System Failed Him

Frank Campos was an artist, a tutor and a son.

But Campos, like so many other Californians, struggled with mental illness. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his mid-20s. He died tragically two years ago when, while being driven from the Kaiser Mental Health Center to a new care facility, he jumped out of the back seat of an SUV and onto the freeway. He was hit by a truck and died at the scene.

The problems with mental health care

Campos’ family believes this didn’t have to happen and that the mental health care system in Los Angeles County failed him. They aren’t the only ones who say there are complicated issues with the care that patients like Campos receive.

My colleague Robert Garrova takes a deep dive into what happened to Frank Campos and examines the structural issues within the mental health care system in our state. These problems include the lack of psychiatric beds for the number of patients that need them and the financial concerns that often force hospitals to release patients too soon.

Campos’ family say they are sharing his story in case it can help others. The family’s attorney filed a wrongful death lawsuit in April 2022. The family is seeking damages from the institutions they feel didn’t do right by their son.

“I feel that I had more resources to work with than the average person and the system still failed me,” Frank's mother Kathrynne Campos-Gil told Robert.

Read the rest of the story here.

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Enjoy Haute French Cuisine In 19th Century L.A.

Pico House, 1875. Designed by Ezra F. Kysor and built by Governor Pio Pico, this structure initially served as a lavish 80-room hotel.

(Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library Collection)

Are you ready for a dinner event of a lifetime? Get dressed in your finest, fanciest clothes and hop in my yellow DeLorean lowrider coupe for this week’s L.A. history trip. Hadley Meares is taking us to the Commercial Restaurant during the tail end of the 19th century to enjoy some haute French cuisine in Chinatown.

Wait…what Aaricka? We’re going to Chinatown to chow down some European food? Well, before Chinatown was Chinatown, it was a French colony. Some French and Swiss immigrants began to settle in that area of L.A. starting in the 1830s.

By the 1920s, the French takeover came to an end as the community scattered throughout the city. But for a time in the Gilded Age, this place put L.A. on the map.

Read Meares' story and meet some famous French chefs who made L.A. their home and an influential spot in the late 1800s, like Benjamin Flott, also known as “the father of haute cuisine” and Victor Dol, the co-founder of the American Fishing Company.