Is the state sanctioning killing of the mentally ill by police?
Re
Seven arrested in Mississauga rally against SIU ruling, April 11
Let me see if I’ve got this straight …
The family of a mentally ill man phone a help line for support.
A unit of the Peel Police respond; they remove the family, leaving the man alone in his home.
They then Taser him, shoot him with rubber bullets and finally kill him with live ammunition.
In other words, a possibly suicidal man is once again dead for the crime of being in mental distress.
Equally disturbing, the SIU finds that this police use of force is legally acceptable and within police guidelines.
I would classify this travesty as a state sanctioned execution of a mentally ill man.
What other conclusion can be drawn?
Paul Price, Mississauga
Re Peel police had time to de-escalate situation, experts
say, April 11
This piece once again points out the desperate need to fund fully mental-health crisis teams and mental-health supports in general.
How many more such stories have to be told before something is done to eliminate the use of police as first-responders when a person is identified as being in a mental-health crisis?
As illustrated in Ejaz Choudry’s case, the police are not properly trained to deal with those who suffer from mental illness.
Their mere presence can often make things worse, as people in crisis perceive them as threats and will act to defend themselves (even with a bread knife which is seen as a lethal weapon, for some reason).
To their credit, not all police act confrontationally in such circumstances; some act with compassion and try to offer help. That is a human, not a militaristic response.
Police are not social workers, nor are they mental-health workers.
What happened to Choudry could happen to someone in your own family.
Just pray that your ill friend or relative encounters an understanding police officer, but better yet, a mental-health crisis worker and then gets the necessary help, not a volley of bullets.
Brigitte Lafferty, Guelph