Sadly, here we go again.
Another person with a mental illness from Fairfax County, Virginia, where I live, died in an incident with the police on Friday. This time it was after he was shot with a Taser stun gun. 
The police responded at 12:41 a.m. to a report that a man was in “psychiatric distress.” When they arrived, he was naked and “uncooperative.” He ignored officers’ commands and became combative, the police said. At that point, an officer shot him with a Taser to bring him under control. The man stopped breathing and died.
After my son, Mike, was shot by police with a Taser, I received a number of emails from people who were angry about how frequently Tasers were being used, especially when the police encountered someone with a mental illness. Several of these folks said they believed the police relied too heavily on Tasers rather than using de-escalation techniques learned during Crisis Intervention Training classes. These techniques can be used to calm down some psychotic persons without force.
Part of the reason why the media reported this recent fatality is because another man died in January after being shot by the same police department with a Taser.
I’m not certain how I feel about Tasers.
Clearly, they can be deadly. However, when I was in Miami doing research for my book, I watched two CIT trained officers use Tasers to subdue a psychotic man armed with two knives. No one was hurt. The officers told me that before Tasers — this man would have been shot with a handgun. When I spoke to the man in jail, he told me that he was grateful that he had not been killed.
The reason why this most recent shooting frustrates me is not because it involved a Taser, but because it was the third incident in my “backyard” where a person with a mental disorder has been critically wounded or has died in an exchange with the police.
Last November, a 52-year-old man with bipolar disorder was shot to death by the Fairfax Police after he took flowers from outside a business and drove away. He didn’t stop or step-out of his truck at a red light as ordered – so a young officer opened fire, killing David Masters, who was unarmed.
In February, a 25-year-old man was severely wounded when his parents called the police for help because their son was having a crisis. Ian C. Smith is still in intense care.
Obviously, CIT training can reduce the number of violent and fatal incidents that happen when law enforcement officers are called on to deal with someone who is having a mental breakdown. I am a strong proponent of CIT and am looking forward to attending the International Crisis Intervention Training conference in San Antonio, Texas, this coming June where I will give a speech. But even with good CIT training, people still get hurt. A well-trained CIT officer was at the scene when Ian Smith was critically wounded.
Over the years, I have heard lots of statistics, such as “1,205 people die from smoking every day.”
I wonder how many persons with mental illnesses are wounded or die each year during encounters with the police?
I wonder how many officers are injured or die each year because of encounters with persons who are in the midst of a psychotic breakdown?
When I hear about an incident such as what happened Friday, I think of Mike. I also think about the dozens of parents I’ve met whose loved ones have been injured or died in similar encounters.
These incidents make me sad and angry because, I believe, if we had better laws and adequate mental health treatment in our communities, there would be fewer and fewer such stories.
Another person with a mental illness has died in my community for no other reason than he became ill.
That’s wrong and it is tragic, because it could and should have been prevented.
*****
I launched this blog in January and am having a wonderful time writing it. I look forward to posting my rants and raves, sharing information, and raising questions that I think need to be addressed. Because I am currently writing a new book for Simon and Schuster publishing, I’ve decided to cut back to one post per week, rather than three. Don’t worry, I still have much to say, but I have a deadline approaching that I can’t miss.
Several thousand of you read this blog each month. Thank you for helping make it worthwhile. More importantly, thank you for caring about mental health reform and my books. Together, we can make a difference and give a voice to persons seldom seen or heard.
About the author:
About the author: Pete Earley is the bestselling author of such books as The Hot House and Crazy. When he is not spending time with his family, he tours the globe advocating for mental health reform.
