In the spotlight

Unreasonable Police Behavior Impacts Racial Minorities and People with Mental Disabilities Alike

Updated: 12:35 pm, Wed Jan 21, 2015

Recent incidents involving the use of deadly force by police officers toward African American males have sparked renewed national furor over police behavior toward minority populations. The issue of profiling by police officers is not racially bound; however, as there have been numerous instances of individuals with mental and/or developmental disabilities facing similarly aggressive confrontations with law enforcement. According to a KQED report of San Francisco officer-involved shootings, more than half the people killed by police between 2005 and 2013 had a mental illness.[1] Given such an alarming statistic, it is evident that law enforcement has yet to satisfactorily address situations involving individuals with mental illness.

In 2010, 43-year old Michael Lee was killed by a San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) officer following a noise complaint for loud music. Mr. Lee had a history of mental illness, and he was known to have difficulty following directions.[2] A year later, an SFPD officer shot Randal Dunklin, a wheelchair-bound man with mental health issues. Dunklin had become angry after he was denied mental health services at a San Francisco behavioral health services office and was shot by SFPD just outside the behavioral health services building.[3]

Both situations involved individuals whose mental disabilities were significant factors in their interactions with the police, yet neither situation involved police officers who appropriately addressed the needs of the individuals with mental and/or developmental disabilities.

For individuals with a mental and/or developmental disability who also classify as a racial minority, the risk of a discriminative police encounter may be even greater. As an African American woman with bipolar disorder, the story of Marlene Pinnock aligns with this very notion. Pinnock was punched and beaten by a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer in July 2014 after walking along a Southern California freeway.[4] The officer’s actions later prompted the CHP chief’s acknowledgement of inadequate officer mental health training, exhibiting another example of delayed action impelled by devastating events.

Violence by law enforcement authorities has ensued nationwide, with tragedy as the common denominator in each incident. Rash police behavior has taken numerous lives, including that of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio last month. Rice, a 12-year-old African American who had been holding a toy gun, was shot just two seconds after police arrived on the scene.[5] Had someone with a mental and/or developmental disability been in the same situation, he or she likely would not have been able to think or react appropriately to police orders before being shot. Two seconds leaves little time for any person to respond to police instruction, let alone an individual with developmental delays or a psychiatric disability that could add heightened stress or confusion to the situation. For a police officer to default to his or her gun before assessing a crisis situation demonstrates the dire need for training and education to reform such deadly response mechanisms.

In San Francisco, it was not until after the 2011 Dunklin shooting that SFPD implemented a Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) Program in an attempt to reduce the slew of fatal police encounters amongst individuals with mental illness. First created and employed within the Memphis Police Department in 1988, CIT strives to train officers to respond to crises involving individuals with mental health issues.[6] CIT statistics also cite fewer arrests of individuals with mental illness, fewer injuries to the police, and a decrease in the use of force during crisis events as added benefits of the program.[7] Nationwide, only 15 percent of law enforcement agencies have a CIT program.[8] Currently hovering around the 18 percent officer-involvement mark, SFPD aims to ultimately have 20 to 25 percent of its police force trained through the CIT program.[9]

Although CIT programs have gradually expanded both locally and nationwide, program implementation has not progressed rapidly enough to prevent recent police shootings of individuals with mental illness. On March 18, 2014, Errol Chang was shot and killed during a schizophrenic episode by Daly City SWAT officers.[10] Just months later, 18-year-old Yanira Serrano-Garcia was killed by a San Mateo sheriff’s deputy after her brother called to seek help when she refused to take her medication.[11] While Chang and Serrano-Garcia’s encounters with law enforcement officials in San Mateo County escalated with tragic results, perhaps individuals under similar circumstances will meet more favorable outcomes as a result of CIT development and expansion.