Victim’s sis says cop shooting will deter mental health calls
Families of people with mental health problems could be afraid to call 911 for help after police shot and killed a South End man they say had attacked medics, the man’s sister said yesterday.
“It’s going to put fear in people’s eyes to call for help because at the end of the day, you may not have your loved one that you’re trying to help,” said Tina Coleman, sister of Terrence Coleman, who was killed early Sunday morning. “When their loved one is in a mentally distressed situation they’re not going to call 911, because what if the cops come?”
Police and EMTs responded to a Shawmut Avenue home early Sunday morning after Terrence Coleman’s mother called 911, saying her paranoid schizophrenic son was acting irrationally. Police say Coleman attacked the medics with a knife before attacking police, who shot him. The incident is under investigation by the district attorney’s office. Police Commissioner William B. Evans has said the officers had no choice.
But Coleman’s family has hotly denied that he attacked police and EMTs with a knife. Tina Coleman said the family has not contacted a lawyer or considered a lawsuit while they are trying to cope with her brother’s death.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said police receive mental health training but the shooting underscores the need for more preventative treatment from mental health services.
“An officer is not a clinical social worker, they have training but again it’s a situation that seems to have gone beyond that,” Walsh said. “I think if the mom had a number to call where a professional could go over and help them, that would be a more appropriate place for that to happen.”
Boston police have partnered with a mental health clinician who responds to 911 calls in some areas of the city, according to June Binney, the director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Massachusetts. BPD did not respond to questions about whether the clinician was at the scene of Sunday’s call or working in that area.
Police told the Herald that officers and EMTs removed Coleman from his house after he had threatened to harm himself and his mother with knives in 2006. Tina Coleman said the family had called police about her brother “many” times. In 2006, she said, police took him to the hospital, where he was first diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
“The police came before they found out he was sick, he came out breathing and he came back breathing,” Tina Coleman said. “This time it just didn’t go that way.”