(March 24, 2014) Jerome Murdough, a 56-year-old homeless man with mental illness, reportedly “baked to death” in a jail cell at Rikers Island that was at least 100 degrees last month.
What was Murdough’s offense? He was arrested for trespassing after he was discovered sleeping in the stairwell of a city housing project to escape the cold. Eight days after his arrest he was found dead in his jail cell. According to the autopsy, initial indications suggest extreme dehydration or heat stroke (“Mentally ill inmate 'basically baked to death' in Rikers cell,” Slate, March 19).
New York has a well-documented history of poor outcomes when people with mental illness encounter the police. Last year a police officer shot and killed 22-year-old Rexford Dasrath after he threatened law enforcement with a steak knife. The police said they repeatedly ordered Dasrath to drop the knife, at which point he lunged at one of the officers. It was later confirmed that Dasrath had a long history of mental health issues (“NY bill seeks police training on mentally ill,” Democrat & Chronicle, March 22).
Tragedies like these are not surprising. Only 5% of New York’s population is served by crisis intervention teams, which consist of police officers who respond to service calls involving mental illness.
But there is some good news from New York.
Last week the state proposed $2 million so that it can establish crisis intervention team training programs to help police officers assess mental illness and de-escalate confrontations with people who appear to be in a psychiatric crisis. The hope is that this training will result in using force less frequently and a better ability to link individuals in crisis with services rather than unnecessarily arresting them.
In a better world, people with untreated severe mental illness would get help before their symptoms resulted in law enforcement involvement. But until then, states that fail to use such uncontroversial tactics as law enforcement crisis intervention teams are failing people like Murdough and Dasrath and their communities.
To comment, visit our Facebook page.
Visit our blog archive to read all our recent posts.