Once upon a time, you could be pretty much as strange as you wanted to be in public and people generally left you alone. Police might accost you to move along, but you never had to fear for your life from the police just for being homeless, weird, or acting erratically. Sure, they might take you in and lock you up for a day or two, but inevitably they’d either release you back to the streets, or to a psychiatric facility for an evaluation.
You worried about where your next meal was going to come from. You worried about what you’d do at night when the freezing temperatures set in. You worried whether you’d have enough will to survive yet another day.
The one thing you generally did not worry about was being shot by the police because of your odd behavior.
The times, they have changed. Now, more than half of police shootings, according to one recent investigation, involve people who are mentally ill.
Worse yet — no one seems to care.
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I am so deeply disappointed in this blog post. This blog almost lost a very faithful reader until I realized that more than one author writes for this page. I’ll just be sure to check before I start reading next time.
I wrote about my own thoughts here: http://johnson54.blogspot.com/2012/12/this-may-be-controversial.html
I won’t be upset if no one reads it, but I didn’t want to leave anything inflammatory on someone else’s page. Better to do it on my own.
Well, I’m not really sure what you’re disappointed in or how sharing scientific data perpetuates some sort of stigma. This blog entry is specifically disseminating the results of a data analysis. Do you disagree with the data analysis? The data? If so, you have other data to support your view?
(All reader and even our contributor comments are moderated. It means no spam appears in our blog comments. Sorry if you believed that meant something more insidious.)
Dr Grohol
I’ve been following this disturbing trend for some time. Currently, the best ongoing covrage of these ongoing tragedies is at MHA Portland’s website.
http://www.mentalhealthportland.org/
Thankfully, courts are holding police and jails accountable for some of these deaths, even requiring CIT. Alas this does not help the dead or even many survivors.
But the real culprit is the current style of police training. When officers follow training protocols, they’re exonerated. But these protocols need to change with respect to use of force, mandatory de-escalation, and other aspects of today’s police service. Everyone needs to be safe.
Paul, you nailed it…Police Training. What a sad commentary on our society.
Nowadays, everyone appears to be quick to jump to conclusions…w/o considering all the facts.
I live in Portland, OR, where, as your piece notes, there have been multiple incidents involving police violence against people with mental illness. Our police situation was so dire that the DOJ actually did investigate. They’ve started to implement CIT training, but not nearly enough. It’s heartbreaking and shameful.
I agree with the previous comments regarding CIT training. I also feel that Elderly gal hit on a huge point — people are too quick to judge these days. People look at you for two seconds and have a whole list of inaccurate things about you in mind already. For anyone dealing with a mental illness especially, feeling this constant judgment is not good, or safe.
Yeah, you would think tasers would be used more often, the shooting statistics are disturbing.
I suffer from mental illnesses and am getting threatened to be put behind bars then to get proper treatment. I need help!!! Please someone help before I become answer number for the system.