Tragically, this week we have another example of the consequences of calling for law enforcement support when a mentally ill person is involved. Lynn Eagle Feather, who called 911 when her son, Paul Castaway, threatened her with a knife, is mourning his death while the community is torn between the police report & what's being reported as captured on surveillance video.
The police claim the young man charged at them with his knife; the video shows him holding it to his own neck. The police claim he stabbed his mother in the neck; he hadn't, nor had she ever said he had.
People who endangered by someone who's mentally ill face a horrific choice - protecting yourself by calling 911 can result in the person being slain by police. And it's easy for police to tailor the facts to excuse their actions. Who knew the trailer park surveillance video would catch what actually happened? Paul's mother wasn't there - it was just him & the police who responded to her call.
It was just a couple months ago that The Atlantic published an article on the potentially lethal outcome of calling the police in to help with someone who's mentally ill. Just a month before that when a Florida mother called 911 for help with her mentally ill son outside in his underwear with a broom who heard the shots that killed him, in spite of her pleas, "Don't hurt my child."
I hear that experts say it is reasonable for a police officer to shoot - and they apparently only shoot to kill - someone holding a knife if they are less than 21 feet away & Paul Castaway was six feet from the police. But if they were closing in on him, rather than him lunging at them, then the shortened distance was their doing, wasn't it? And there is a heap of difference between a man lunging at police with a knife & holding it to his own neck.
Endanger yourself ~or~ call 911 & put a loved one at risk? A troubling choice.
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