Mentally ill and black: the most lethal combination in America
by digby
This is an awful video and don’t watch it if you don’t like seeing people killed before your eyes:
The family of Jason Harrison released video Monday of Dallas police shooting dead their 38-year-old son just seconds after police arrived at the family’s front door. Harrison’s mother had called the police in June for help getting her mentally ill son to the hospital, as he was off his medication and experiencing a crisis.
The video shows two officers knocking on the door, as Harrison’s mother calmly answers and walks out, telling the officers that her son is “bipolar schizo.” Harrison stands in the doorway carrying a small screwdriver no larger than the size of his hand. Cops raise their guns and tell Harrison to “drop that for me” as Harrison appears to take a few steps forward and his mother screams “Jay” repeatedly.
Police fire several shots as Harrison drops to the ground. The mother shouts out in agony, “Oh! you killed my child!” Between the time officers first knock on the door and the time Harrison is on the ground, less than 20 seconds have elapsed.
I guess there’s simply no way the police could have used a different strategy here. None at all. They knew he was mentally ill before they marched up to the front door and knocked on it. The mother came out the door saying he was bipolar schizo. So the only thing they could reasonably do was just stand in the middle of the sidewalk and shoot him. They certainly couldn’t have taken any precautions at the door. Or called for mental health back-up before approaching. Or backed up themselves to try to assess whether this mentally ill man was actually trying to kill them with the small screw driver in his hand or whether he was just coming through the door. Sure, mentally ill people often have a hard time following orders when they’re being shouted at them but that’s obviously their problem.
Police are trained to have a hair trigger in all situations evidently. Even when the victim is unarmed — naked even:
Bridget Anderson says she had been planning to go to Anthony Hill’s place Monday evening to cook together and celebrate their three-year anniversary. Instead, she got a call that he had been shot dead by police.
A police officer responding to reports of a suspicious person knocking on doors and crawling on the ground naked at an apartment complex just outside Atlanta fatally shot the 27-year-old Hill. Officer Robert Olsen shot Hill twice when the man began running toward him and didn’t stop when ordered, DeKalb County Chief of Police Cedric Alexander told reporters Monday.
This is what tasers were supposed to be used for — as substitutes for lethal force when dealing with potentially dangerous situations that should not call for gunfire. But most police believe tasers are there to punish people who are already in custody for being non-compliant or to shut people up who are asking too many questions. They believe that lethal force is perfectly justified in all situations where they could conceivably claim they felt afraid. So basically the taser has done nothing to prevent gun deaths and basically just serves as a legal torture device.
Studies show that it’s likely half the people killed by police are mentally ill. And it’s not as if police aren’t aware of better strategies out there to deal with the mentally ill. Apparently, they just couldn’t be bothered.
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