Does Mental Illness Change How The Public Views A Police Shooting?

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womanusa

FROM MY FILES FRIDAY: I’d already decided to reprint this blog when news broke yesterday about a woman who attempted to drive into the White House grounds and then directed her speeding car toward the U.S. Capitol. Although she was unarmed, she certaintly can be seen in news footage driving dangerously. Cars can be deadly weapons and the point of this blog is not to debate whether the officers who shot her used unnecessary force. {After last month’s shootings at the Washington Naval Yard, the police have been on high alert.} But I noticed that within hours after the woman was fatally shot, stories started to circulate that she had a mental illness. At this writing, that hasn’t been confirmed, but if it is, will the public view her death differently? I think so.

FATAL SHOOTINGS AND MENTAL ILLNESS: BLAMING THE VICTIM, first published April 22, 2013.

If a schoolchild overturns a desk during an epileptic seizure and it hits a classmate and breaks that student’s foot, no one demands that the child with epilepsy be put into juvenile detention and punished. However, if that schoolchild has a mental illness and accidentally overturns a desk, injuring someone, that child is sent before a juvenile court judge for punishment because of  his/her actions.

This observation came from Summit County Juvenile Court Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio who spoke last Friday during a Mental Health and Criminal Justice Symposium held in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I gave the symposium’s keynote address.

Judge Teodosio’s point was that our society views mental illnesses differently from other physical illnesses and frequently holds persons with severe mental illnesses responsible for getting sick.

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Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart: Making Mental Illness A Priority

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Sixty Minutes aired a segment Sunday about schizophrenia and how our jails and prisons are becoming mental asylums. It included footage from inside the Cook County Jail and an interview with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

I met Sheriff Dart more than a year ago when I spoke in Chicago and he assured me that he was determined to focus attention on the plight of severely mentally ill inmates being housed in his jail.  

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Let’s Remember the Navy Yard Shooter Asked For Help Before Picking Up A Gun

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shooter

One of the most important pieces of information that we have learned about Aaron Alexis — one that is being largely overlooked — is that he tried repeatedly to get help before he murdered twelve people at the Washington Navy Yard.

This  was not an instance of someone “snapping” without warning, as I heard one TV pundit claim a few hours after the shootings. 

An investigation by The Washington Post reveals that Alexis’s erratic and violent behavior was “ignored, overlooked or dismissed for nine years by the police, the military, the Department of Veterans Affairs and his own employer.”  There were plenty of times when someone should have helped Alexis.

No one did.

During my travels, I have noticed that  many individuals sought help on their own or were  willing to accept help if a family member or friend encouraged them to seek it during their so-called “first break” from reality.

Either our system didn’t respond or they were so traumatized by what happened that they never wanted to go back.  While this is not always the case, it happens more often than we wish to admit.

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New Documentary Exposes Global Mental Health Problems: Stigma, Few Services

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Five minute interview with Dr. Delaney Ruston is worth watching.

One of the most realistic and  gut-wrenching films ever made about mental illness and families is Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia by Dr. Delaney Ruston. So I was eager to see Dr. Ruston’s new documentary, Hidden Pictures: A Personal Journey Into Global Mental Health.

 I was not disappointed. Dr. Ruston looks at mental health globally and paints a disturbing picture. One of the myths that she quickly dispels is that individuals who live in developing countries face less stigma and actually do better than their counter-parts in the U.S.. She also criticizes aid agencies for not focusing on mental health.

Her film is being pitched as one of the first documentaries about global mental health and it reveals that we have a long way to go if we want to rid the world of stigma and help people with mental disorders get meaningful help and treatment.

Despite the problems in our system, after watching this film, I felt grateful.

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Jail Conditions Are Bad In Virginia: What About Your State?

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prisons

The conditions that I found on the ninth floor of the Miami Dade Detention Center were shocking, but does Virginia treat its prisoners with mental illnesses any better? How about your state?

     If you’ve read CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, you know that inmates in Miami’s C wing were housed under what jail officials admitted were “medieval” conditions. Stripped naked, as many as five or six men were held in two man cells that were bone chilling cold because of a design flaw. Often the water didn’t work, so thirsty prisoners drank from toilets. The day I accompanied the jail’s part-time psychiatrist on his rounds, he spoke to each prisoner an average of 12.5 seconds.

So how do jails in my own state compare?

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FROM MY FILES: Remembering Vicky Armel, A Fallen Officer

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FROM MY FILES FRIDAY: The senseless  murders at the Navy Yard reminded me of another horrific shooting that deeply touched my family’s life. Seven years ago, Master Police Officer Michael Garbarino and Detective Vicky Armel were fatally shot by Michael Kennedy, a young man with untreated mental illness. They were the first Fairfax County Police officers kiilled in the line of duty in the department’s 67-year history. Here’s a slightly edited reprint of an article that I wrote for The Washington Post. 

Thank You, Detective
Vicky Armel Took Up for My Son When the System Wouldn’t

By Pete Earley
Friday, May 12, 2006 

Fairfax County Police Detective Vicky O. Armel, who was murdered Monday during a shooting rampage by a troubled teenager, had helped people with severe mental illnesses. I know because she helped my son.

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