Police shootings: Why kill the mentally ill?
Walter Wallace Jr. didn’t have to die, said The Washington Post in an editorial. The mentally ill father of nine was holding a knife during a delusional episode when two city cops responded to his Philadelphia home last week. His mother and wife told police about his condition and pleaded for them not to kill him. Rather than giving Wallace, 27, some space and trying to talk to him, they drew their guns, shouted “Back up!” and when he advanced shot him 14 times. Wallace’s tragic death goes “to the heart of the debate over police use of lethal force.” Police aren’t trained to deal with mental illness, said Alex Vitale in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Their “coercive” tactics with emotionally disturbed people often make a bad situation worse. Statistics show that between 25 and 50 percent “of all people killed by police are experiencing a mental health crisis.” An Oregon-based program offers an alternative, dispatching mental health professionals when a case like Wallace’s comes in to 911. Out of the 24,000 such calls handled this way in 2019, police backup was requested in just 150 cases.
If people want better police training and more resources, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, they should demand them, instead of rioting and attacking cops. Philadelphia’s response after the George Floyd protests was to “defund” the police by $33 million. “The result is likely to be more tragedies like the one engulfing the city of brotherly love.” Funding was definitely a factor in this shooting, said Amir Vera in CNN .com. Philadelphia has purchased only 2,300 tasers for its 4,500 patrol officers, and neither of the cops dealing with Wallace had one. And get this: The city does have the technology to flag incoming 911 mental health calls, but the lone person trained to respond was off the day Wallace was killed.
Let’s not diminish racism’s role in this tragedy, said Liz Spikol in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
I’ve struggled with mental illness, and twice I’ve brandished a knife during meltdowns. I’ve thrown bottles at people. But I’m white, so my episodes “usually ended with a warm bed”—either at home or in a mental health facility. “For the friends and family of Walter Wallace Jr., I don’t think there will be a good night’s sleep for a long time.”