In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the catalyst
of mounting frustrations and rage regarding the excessive force police officers
use with black individuals, another targeted population is emerging in the
light as well. For decades it has been widely known that blacks are singled
out, mistreated, mistrusted, and grossly mishandled whenever police become involved
in any given situation. But sometimes the color of your skin is insignificant,
even completely forgotten when one crucial factor is introduced into the
equation: mental illness. For years mentally disturbed individuals have been
killed at the hands of police, some violent, some not so violent, some wielding
weapons, some just seeking help. But in a situation that requires, nay, begs
for patience and compassion, the police find little time for anything more than
pulling a trigger.
On July 6th in Lakewood California, a man named
John Berry was disturbed and required psychiatric intervention. He had
previously been diagnosed with Schizophrenia, a condition which had been
managed by medication, but his brother, Chris, stated he may have gone off his
medication prior to or when he was terminated from his job. With his car parked
on the front lawn, appearing disheveled and sleep deprived, Chris recognized
his brother needed help. A federal police officer who works with psychiatric
facilities, Chris immediately contacted the PET, or the Psychiatric Evaluation
Team, in hopes that they would respond, evaluate his brother, and get him the
care he desperately needed. However, the emergency response team allegedly
reported that the sheriff’s department needed to go first and assess the
situation to ensure it was safe for them to come and complete the evaluation. Bear in mind, John never threatened himself or
anyone else in the exchanges he had with others on this day.
The sheriff’s department arrived as John was attempting to
leave the house. Chris walked alongside his brother’s car as he slowly rolled down the
road, trying to coax him out of the driver’s seat. One officer pulled in front
of John’s car and blocked him with his cruiser. Many other officers arrived and
within a short time frame of approximately 5 minutes, the situation escalated
out of control. With several police officers shouting orders and demands, John
looked about bewildered, his hands locked on the steering wheel, petrified of
the circus that suddenly enveloped him. He repeatedly asked “what did I do?
What’s wrong? What did I do wrong?”
Having no luck in the few moments the officers attempted to verbally
draw him from his vehicle, they began beating him with their batons. John
was then tasered four times, and one officer leaned in through the passenger’s
seat window and pepper-sprayed him. In the confusion of it all, somehow the car
was placed in reverse, and shot backwards. Chris, who witnessed the entire
incident, maintains he saw his brother with his hands gripping the steering
wheel, never moving. He believes that in the struggle where the officer sprayed
him, the officer may have bumped the car’s shift into reverse himself, and John’s
foot may have struck the gas pedal.
What happens next is contradicted between the parties
involved. The sheriff’s department stated that in reversing the vehicle, a
police officer standing behind the car was pinned between that vehicle and another
police cruiser, crushing his legs. Chris reported that he saw an officer bumped
by the car, then fall back on his rear end, before rising quickly to his feet
and walking away. Whatever occurred, the officers took this sudden movement as
a threat and immediately opened fire, shooting John multiple times through the
windshield of his car.
Where to begin with all the things that went wrong in this
scenario? First off, I will admit some ignorance when it comes to PET policy;
in the times I’ve called out the PET, they have never requested that law enforcement
must respond first. Then again, I’ve never called for someone potentially
having a psychotic break; most of my clients were suicidal. However, whatever
policy may be, I can’t imagine why a clinician could not accompany a law
enforcement officer to the scene to ensure safety and continue with the
evaluation, or, in this circumstance, provide some much needed guidance to the
department in handling mentally ill individuals.
Secondly, where in any handbook of worldly common sense
would someone get the idea that screaming at a mentally disturbed individual is
going to result in the desired outcome? In the brief training I received
working in group homes with mentally ill teenagers, even we were exposed to the
most basic approaches of crisis intervention and de-escalation. The rules are
simple: speak slowly in a calm voice, give short clear directions, have only
one person designated to speak, allowing the speaker to build rapport with that
individual and avoiding overwhelming them with multiple people talking at once,
and remain a short distance away from the individual so they do not feel
threatened. The approach shown by these officers was pretty much the exact
opposite of the aforementioned guidelines: initially, Chris had asked officers
to allow him to talk to his brother, and calm him, in hopes that he might get
him to cooperate, but they refused, ordering Chris to stay back. They
surrounded John and multiple officers collectively barked orders at him,
causing confusion and panic; they immediately encroached upon his space,
getting in his face, yelling, grabbing him, beating on him, and spraying him,
which may have frustrated him, clearly frightened him, and resulted in the car accelerating
backwards, however it may have ended up in reverse.
Third, I’ve personally dealt with restraints of mentally ill
individuals in complicated situations and surroundings, and yet for the life of
me, in the short video of the incident provided by a witness, I could not
comprehend why five officers could not pull this man out of his vehicle after
he has been weakened by four tasers, batons, and blinded by pepper spray. John
was a 31 year old man who judging by photos could not have weighed more than
180 pounds. Officers could have easily ejected him from the car by pulling his
arms and legs before reaching for their weapons. And yet, no effort was ever
made to grab him, to remove him, to immobilize him, it was simply to beat him,
blind him, and electrocute him before shooting him to death.
Lastly, the incident of the officer supposedly getting pinned
between the two vehicles. While reports are conflicting, let’s just say for the
sake of argument that the officer was pinned. Chris had pointed out that John
was in a newer model BMW which is adorned with the fancy Start/Stop button
rather than a key ignition you have to turn. Why, if the officers were
concerned about John driving off, didn’t they just push the damn button when
they were leaning into the car to pepper spray him? And why was that officer
standing behind a vehicle with a running engine and a mentally ill man at the
wheel? Why hadn’t someone pinned the back of the car with a cruiser like they
did the front of the car to avoid any movement at all? But, in spite of the
sake of argument, I don’t truly believe this man, writhing with a face full of
pepper-spray, backed up his car intentionally, and if he did, it was not to
harm a police officer.
The officers in this situation reacted as though they were
apprehending a wanted serial killer rather than a sick man who needed their
assistance and protection. Not once was he afforded a kind word, a reassuring
gesture, or any genuine offer of help. John never reacted violently, never
swung at officers or tried to attack them; terrified, he simply clutched the
steering wheel and refused to let go, and what started as a call for help ended
with a call to the coroner. To watch the video, click here. Warning, the video is disturbing.
But sadly John is not the first in this situation. In
Denver, a mother contacted police when her mentally ill son was having an
episode. Suffering from Schizophrenia as well, Paul Castaway was waving a knife
around, threatening to harm himself and at one point holding a knife to his
mother’s throat. Though his mother sustained a small cut, she stated he was
only trying to scare her, and she believed he never truly intended to harm her.
He immediately turned the weapon on himself. His mother called the authorities
and reported that she needed help with her son. She had called police on Paul many
times before, and she maintains they were well informed of his history. The
police arrived and found Paul with a knife to his throat. Minutes later he was
dead. The police report reads that he was violent, he had “stabbed his mother
in the throat” and came “dangerously close” to police with the knife, which resulted
in them shooting him to death. Surveillance video of the incident shows he
never approached police with the weapon and never lowered it from his own neck
before being killed. Not once did a police officer with any crisis intervention
training attempt to talk Paul down and de-escalate him. Again, barked orders,
noncompliance, and guns.
In another tragic incident where an individual sought police
help, 17 year old Kristiana Coignard entered a Texas police station with a
knife, asking to speak to an officer. One officer arrived in the lobby, and
spent a total of 19 seconds attempting to “de-escalate” her before lunging at
her to grab the weapon from her. Prior to this, she did not make any
threatening gesture to the police officer or gave any indication that she
intended to harm him. They struggled off and on for approximately 3 more minutes as he
held her in various restraints, pinned in the crevice of a bench seat, throwing
her to the floor and jumping on top of her, multiple times appearing to have the situation under control. Finally he rose to his feet without having obtained the knife, and drew his weapon on her. She did not move, but he did not try to take the weapon from her. He held her at gun point as two other officers joined him.
Kristiana climbed to her feet, agitated and distressed, and moments later rushed toward the
officer who had fought with her as he shot her multiple times, killing her.
Granted she posed a threat to his safety at this point, however if he had initially
responded more appropriately, utilizing the alleged 40 hours of crisis
intervention training he had reportedly received at his precinct, perhaps he
could have safely retrieved the knife and she would still be alive, getting
psychiatric treatment. Or, if he had taken the knife from her during any one of those moments during the restraint, he probably would've been okay there too. See the video here.
What is most concerning currently is police dealing with the
autistic population, individuals who, if low functioning enough, can appear to
be under the influence, rocking themselves back and forth, defiant, unable to process
directions being given, disturbed, avoiding eye contact, flapping their hands,
hitting themselves, and can act out erratically if frightened, stressed,
over-stimulated, or simply confronted by someone they don’t know. They may not
respond to verbal commands, they may repeat commands given instead of following
them, they may recoil at being touched and may even strike the person invading
their personal space. Their unusual behaviors can elicit an aggressive response
from an officer, which can in turn become a violent situation for both. Some
departments have taken the initiative in training their officers, but as I told
my brother-in-law, an officer with the Orange County police department, each
person with autism is different, each responds to directives and commands in a
different way. While training can be helpful, working with autism requires
an individualized approach, an exorbitant amount of patience, and understanding to learn how to effectively
communicate with each of them and ultimately help them.
So police all over America are getting trigger happy in many
situations that never need to become violent if they not only receive
appropriate training, but utilize it. In the case of John Berry, a talk show
host stated that this needed to be an example to follow, a lesson for police
officers to learn from, but what she got wrong is that this is not the first,
and likely will not be the last. The mentally ill are not criminals. Though one
mental health trainer was confronted with comments such as “I’m a cop, not a
social worker” and people mockingly calling this delicate approach to
individuals with mental disorders “hug-a-thug”, the reality is these officers
were vested with the power and the trust of the community to protect all who
needed it, including those who need protection from themselves. If you can’t
handle that, give me a badge. I’ve worked with, provided crisis intervention,
de-escalated, and physically restrained aggressively autistic individuals and psychologically
disturbed teens, both of whom physically assaulted me on numerous occasions,
and I’ve worked in the seething cesspool of mental illness that is the Los
Angeles ghetto. I have not injured or killed one person yet. Take note,
officers.
