police and mental illness
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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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Chicago Oversight Board Finds Fatal Police Shooting of Quintonio LeGrier, Bettie Jones Unjustified
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, a Chicago oversight board, has found that the December 2015 police-involved shooting deaths of a 19-year-old college student and a 55-year-old grandmother were unjustified. According to the Chicago Tribune, the board underlined that there was no evidence to support Officer Robert Rialmo’s claims that the student, Quintonio LeGrier, approached…
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Autopsy Shows Pregnant, Mentally Ill Woman Charleena Lyles Shot 7 Times by Police
Recently, Damon Young of VSB wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece about why black folk should never, ever, ever, ever, ever call the police. And though—as black folk are wont to do—Young used humor to explicate a tragic reality, it is cases like Charleena Lyles’ that drive this home. Lyles was a 30-year-old black woman and mother…
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Watch: Police Kill Another Person With Mental Illness, This Time in Ind.
Editor’s note: Warning: The video contains graphic content. On Tuesday, Ricky Ard was fatally shot multiple times by an Indiana police officer. The incident occurred outside a federal courthouse in Evansville after he smashed windows with a baseball bat. The Vanderburgh County coroner reported that Ard was in the midst of a schizophrenic episode and…
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NYC Cop Who Killed Dwayne Jeune Shot Another Mentally Ill Man Last Year: Report
The officer who shot and killed 32-year-old Dwayne Jeune on Monday reportedly shot another man in mental distress late last year. On Monday the New York City Police Department identified Officer Miguel Gonzalez of the 67th Precinct in the borough of Brooklyn as the cop who pumped five bullets into Jeune after his mother called…
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NYPD Guns Down Yet Another Black Person in Mental Distress, This Time in Brooklyn, NY
This story is becoming frighteningly more common and ever more distressing. A person calls 911 to help a loved one in a mental-health crisis, and said loved one is then shot and killed by police. Sometimes the person is “armed” with a bat or a knife, sometimes not. This sad tale was told once again…
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Video Shows Fontana, Calif., Cops Fatally Shooting Legally Blind and Mentally Ill Man
Surveillance video from a convenience store shows police in Fontana, Calif., cornering and fatally shooting a legally blind and mentally ill man they say was armed with a rock and a knife. According to the Los Angeles Times, the recording of the Nov. 22, 2015, incident was made public by attorneys for the man’s family…
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NYC Pays $1,500,000 to Family of Man Who Screamed ‘I Can’t Breathe’ and Died in Police Custody
Four years before Eric Garner died after an altercation with New York City police officers on Staten Island, N.Y., another man also died in the same neighborhood, his last words eerily echoing Garner’s: “I can’t breathe.” The New York Daily News reports that New York City has agreed to pay $1.5 million to Stanley Streeter’s fiancee…
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Emotionally Disturbed NYC Man Dies After Police Use Taser on Him
An emotionally disturbed Bronx, N.Y., man was killed after a New York police sergeant used a Taser on him, police confirmed Wednesday, the New York Times reports. The man threatened a neighbor with a knife and police responded to a 911 call about the armed man, who was “acting violently” in a basement apartment, according to…