June 27, 2016
It was January 14th, 2015; my daughter’s second birthday. My mind and body had slipped into a state of depression and steeped within it so long that I felt beyond worthless - I felt hurtful. In my mind, my presence had a negative impact on everyone and everything around me: my children, my husband, my students, my extended family. I was poison. I was tired. And I wanted it all to be over.
While there was much that led up to the climax of the story, it was the climax that was the most important. I raged. I raged, I locked myself in the bathroom door, kicked a hole in the linen closet and threatened to swallow enough pills to take me out of this world. I pinned myself up against the door; my husband told me that if I did not open the door, he would call the police. I told him to go ahead.
The police came as did the local EMTs. By the time they got there, I was out of the bathroom and much calmer, though shudders and sobs still spilled out of me. The police officer was a woman, and and spoke gently to me. Encouraged me. Both the police officer and the EMT asked if I was willing to go to the hospital voluntarily, and I was, but for whatever reason, I wanted to ride with the officer, not in the ambulance.
She had to handcuff me and press my head down to get me into the back of the car. She stayed with me in the emergency room until I was admitted. A few months later, in August, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Type II after a second hospitalization. I have an illness similar to Adam Pean, Jason Harrison, and Keith Vidal, each of whom had a very different interaction with the police.
Image from reedforhope.org
Adam Pean is a man keenly aware of his mental illness. In the story he told to NPR’s This American Life, he described moments of severe mania, during which he lost touch with reality. Even in his state of psychosis, he still had a pressing need to get to the hospital. And he did make it there. According to Pean, he told the nurses and physicians attending to him that he had bipolar disorder and that he was having a manic episode.
Things got worse for Pean as the hospital failed to respond to his assertions and intervene with medications. Pean continued to live in his delusion, dancing around and refusing to have his gown fastened. It was at that moment that two guards came in and shot Adam Pean.
You can listen to Pean's story by visiting:
Another man, 38-year-old Jason Harrison, was shot to death by two police officers in Dallas after his mother notified the police of his son’s crisis. In the video of the event, Harrison’s mother comes out of the door first, explaining to the police that he is bipolar and schizophrenic. Harrison then comes to the door holding a screwdriver in his hands. The same video does not show Harrison behaving in a threatening way, rather, he is twisting it around in his hand. He is asked to drop the screwdriver by the police, and when he does not, he is shot.
What is the connection between these two men and how is it different from my experience? I am a white female; Pean and Harrison are black males. The police officers who shot Harrison appear to have had an entire array of weaponry at their disposal: baton, taser, pepper spray, etc. It is confusing that two men with those items could not take down a man with a screwdriver without killing him.
Initially, I felt that perhaps this went beyond mental illness and into racially driven police brutality. In a conversation with a peer concerning Jason Harrison, I asked “Did they not have a taser?” His answer was chillingly sardonic: “Not for black people.” I wondered if these two men been white women like myself, perhaps things would have ended differently for them.
This leads to the question of police training. Yes, these gentleman had mental illness, and yes the police need to be trained to handle these cases differently. In an article for North Carolina Public Radio, Joanne Silberner details the necessity of education for police department and how important it is that police officers refrain from using deadly force with citizens who are mentally ill. The parents of Keith Vidal have proposed legislation that would mandate that police take Crisis Intervention Training. In many counties of many states, Megan Pauly points out "most law enforcement agencies can't afford to train everyone" in CIT, and so, those areas where police are trained to help those in crises are spotty.
Each of these stories have one thing in common: there was a intentional attempt either on behalf of the individual, in Pean's case, or on behalf of the parents in the Harrison and Vidal cases, to seek help. Vidal and Harrison had parents who sought help from police officers, with deadly results. Until there is a vast overhaul in the education of the police force, the actions of those living with mental illness will continue to be deemed threatening and criminal.
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