mental illness and policing
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California City Announces $4 Million Settlement in Case of Mentally Ill Black Man Shot by Police
On Friday, the city of Walnut Creek, Calif., announced a $4 million settlement in the federal lawsuit filed by the family of Miles Hall, a 23-year-old Black man fatally shot by the police while suffering a mental health crisis. CNN reports that on June 2 of last year, Walnut Creek Police received multiple calls regarding…
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Don't Call 911: America's Policing and Healthcare Systems Fail Black People With Mental Health Challenges
Kayla Moore. Ezell Ford. Deborah Danner. Marcus-David Peters. Pamela Turner. Each of these Black people were killed by police. They all dealt with mental health challenges. In this country, folks with mental health concerns are 16 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement. And as calls to defund and abolish America’s police grow…
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Texas Rangers Decline to Criminally Investigate Officers Who Paraded Black Man in Street Like Runaway Slave
No surprise here. If police are barely investigated, hardly charged, and scarcely convicted for killing black people—on video—why would they face any sort of consequence for parading a black man through the streets tied to a rope while on horseback? And so it goes. The Texas Rangers announced on Friday that the actions of two…
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Patrisse Cullors, Reform LA Jails Lead the Charge to Decriminalize Mental Health with #CancelMcCarthyContract Campaign
For years, activist and community organizer Patrisse Cullors has poured her passion for the people into cofounding movements and coalitions such as Black Lives Matter and Reform LA Jails. But with the announcement of her #CancelMcCarthyContract campaign comes one of her biggest challenges yet—the fight for the mental health and wellbeing of incarcerated individuals. As…
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Police Kill 29-Year-Old Black Man They Tried to Serve With ‘Mental Health Warrant’
Police have killed yet another black person in mental health distress, this time in State College, Pa. The most galling part of this tragedy, though, is that the officers were attempting to serve a “mental health warrant.” On Wednesday, State County borough police shot and killed 29-year-old Osaze Osagie in what Centre County Coroner Scott…
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LAPD Officers ‘Violated Policy’ in 2018 Shooting of a Black Man Inside a Crowded Mall
On a Tuesday evening in April 2018, a black man who appeared to be suffering from a mental health crisis ran through the crowded Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Mall in Los Angeles armed with a long kitchen knife. When commanded by police to drop the knife, he did not comply, so officers began shooting at…
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The Police Call Was Supposed to Be a Wellness Check on a Friend. So How Did Travis Jordan End Up Dead?
Travis Jordan, 36, had been living with his friend and co-worker Paul Johnson and his wife in the couple’s Minneapolis home. On Friday, Johnson became concerned about Jordan and called police. Jordan had been “having a lot of suicidal thoughts because, um, depression, anxiety, but he’s not taking any pills for that. Um, he’s just…