So ‘no one else suffers’
Steven Barrier died in police custody; family’s lawsuit pushes for reforms
STAMFORD — A person with untreated mental illness is 16 times more likely to die during a police encounter. If that individual happens to be a Black man, he is three times more likely to die than a white peer.
That’s according to a study from the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center and research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, respectively.
At the intersection of those two statistics sits the case of Steven Barrier, a 23-year-old Black man with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other disorders who died after suffering a heart attack while in police custody on Oct. 23, 2019 — the day of his 23rd birthday.
Police were called by a family member when Barrier began experiencing a psychotic episode a night earlier, his family said. Though Barrier ran from police initially, he was arrested hours later upon returning home.
Barrier’s mother Valerie Jaddo said she watched helplessly as police officers physically overpowered her son, who she said was in “desperate need of medical attention,” and dragged him away in handcuffs.
That was the last time she saw Barrier alive.
Since that day, Jaddo has been fighting to ensure no one battling mental illness suffers the same fate as her son.
The only way to guarantee that, Jaddo claims, is to limit police involvement in the first place.
A model for the nation
As a part of a “wrongful death” lawsuit filed against Stamford, its police department and four individual officers last month, Jaddo and her co-plaintiff, the Connecticut Legal Rights Project (CLRP), are demanding multiple reforms aimed at aiding and protecting people like Barrier, who are undergoing mental health crises.
These proposed reforms, they hope, will provide a model of justice for people experiencing mental health crises not only in Stamford, but across the entire state and even nationally.
“We cannot bring Steven back, but we hope that the injunctive relief we are calling for will ensure that no one else suffers the kind of mistreatment at the hands of the, in this case, Stamford Police Department, and hopefully this case will set an example for other towns and other police departments nationally,” said attorney Alan Fuchsberg, who is overseeing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks the city to pay for the creation and maintenance of a “a community-based mutual aid, peer-led system” in Stamford that provides 24/7 availability to individuals dealing with mental health issues in the city.
Under the proposal, Stamford would need to provide this organization with a “centrally located” spot in Stamford that is “readily reachable by public transit ... where people can seek respite.”
The concept is not foreign to Stamford officials.
In fact, a city-led incident review panel — formed in the wake of the Barrier tragedy to ensure police are better equipped to deal with mental health situations — concluded that a “safe house”-type environment could be helpful for individuals to temporarily shelter when experiencing mental distress.
Kathy Flaherty, executive director for CLRP, said this peer-respite center would be managed by people with first-hand lived experience of extreme emotional distress and psychiatric disability, and it would provide confidential, individualized, non-medical support that would “respect the dignity and autonomy of all program participants.”
The goal, she said, is to treat those suffering from mental health conditions who would “otherwise be vulnerable to mistreatment and arrest, with care and connection, not coercion and control.”
When Barrier experienced mental health episodes, the family usually called one of three resources: the state’s 211 number, a helpline that connects people with human services and other resources; or urgent mental health centers like CT Renaissance or the F.S. Dubois Center.
“When the crisis intervention center team comes, they talk to Steven and request his cooperation to accompany them to the hospital. They talk to Steven nicely, respectfully, and calm him down. They don’t use force,” his mother said.
But those mental health professionals weren’t available on that fateful night. Barrier’s final episode — much like others he experienced — happened in the evening, when those resources weren’t unavailable, and the only alternative was calling 911.
That lack of availability may have cost Steven his life, Jaddo said.
The problem, Flaherty said, is police responding to psych calls have different priories. Their mantra of “take control quickly and get a hold of the situation by any means necessary” often runs counter to what people experiencing mental health crises actually need at the time, she said.
“This is not just a Stamford problem. This is not just a Connecticut problem. This is a United States of America problem. We need, and we deserve better,” Flaherty said.
Instead of de-escalating the issue and speaking calmly to these individuals, Flaherty said police officers will try to assert their authority, inadvertently exacerbating the situation.
“I would hope that police recognize that when we are saying that we don’t want you responding to these calls, it’s because this is not what they do best. Society has been asking them to do this thing that they really aren’t trained for,” she said. “It’s really unfair that we have placed this responsibility on police in the first place.”
To remedy this, Flaherty has asked Stamford to fund a community-led mental health response team that would replace police as primary responders to psychiatric emergencies. The difference such a team would make in mental health emergencies could be a matter of life or death for people like Barrier, she said.
City, police officials say they’re making changes
City officials, however, believe police are still capable of handling mental health crises, provided the correct training and resources.
Stamford Police Chief Tim Shaw said the police department has already begun instituting some of the recommendations made by the city-organized incident review panel that recommended the “safe house.”
Since the Barrier incident, police have started responding to mental health calls “in a different manner,” Shaw said. This includes letting Emergency Medical Services act as the primary contact with the person experiencing the episode, instead of police, who have been delegated to a more background role, Shaw said.
“We all know that when police show up, sometimes it can heighten their feelings of anxiety and things like that, so we don’t go on those calls anymore,” he said.
The chief said police are still in the area in case of emergency, but now they act as more of a last resort.
The department is also in the process of hiring a fulltime social worker who will be embedded inside the department to assist officers on mental health calls. Shaw said this individual will act in a manner similar to what the CLRP is asking for with their mental health response team. This liaison will be responsible for follow-up calls, where they will try to link individuals with available resources throughout the community.
“We’re hoping that they can be that bridge we’re talking about, that in the future they can go out on calls with officers and give families the resources they need,” Shaw said.
The department is also making a push to get all of its officers crisis intervention training. Shaw said the department currently has 100 officers certified but hopes that number will double by the end of the year.
Stamford Mayor David Martin called the department’s recent initiatives “a step in the right direction” toward ensuring “better outcomes for people.”
“We’re taking the steps that we think will be constructive and will be positive,” Martin said. “I’m moving down this line that I think is a responsible one that is good for all our citizens, especially the ones and their families that have this type of situation.”
The solution or the problem?
But some, like Jaddo and the CLRP, believe the police industry just isn’t equipped for the job. The solution, they claim, can only be found outside of the police force.
“I don’t think asking the police to figure out how to do this better is a viable solution,” said Claudine Fox, public policy and advocacy director for American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.
Since 2001, Connecticut police officers have used deadly force and killed over 80 people, Fox said. She said while “it’s difficult to quantify,” from what the ACLU-CT has seen “a large proportion of those people were either in mental health crisis or under the influence of substances.”
There is a pattern, she said, of those people being “met with some kind of violence.”
Fox said this sort of “handcuffs-and-guns” methodology is not only ineffective, but actively harmful to the individuals experiencing these crises.
Instead of continuing to use police for these incidents, Fox supports the idea of a mobile crisis unit of trained public health professionals medical that would respond to situations where people are dealing with a mental health crisis.
“Police aren’t trained to be mental health care workers. These people need help, and they don’t need people showing up in this idea of de-escalating around locking someone up or the threat of violence,” she said. “Oftentimes, if people are in some kind of crisis, or are not in their normal state, small things can trigger a person, and having someone who is actually trained in de-escalation and bringing a person back down to their center or bringing them back to what is actually happening in the present is a better method.”