(July 23, 2014) Police encounters with people with severe mental illness are the subject of USA Today’s latest article in a series on the human and financial costs of abandoning the seriously ill (“Mental illness cases swamp criminal justice system,” July 21). Excerpted below:
Inside a cluttered downtown apartment that she shares with a cat, the 57-year-old woman is in the midst of a near-meltdown.
“There's three of them,” she tells two police officers, referring to “these predators who won't leave me alone. Those sons of bitches won't let me go.“
The police have been here before — 61 times, in fact, in the past 17 months — and the only intruders to be found are the ones apparently stalking the woman's troubled psyche.
During these episodes, she always summons the police because they are the closest thing she has to family. And no matter what, they always come.
"I didn't have any choice but to go to Jimmy,'' she said, waving the glowing end of her lighted cigarette in the direction of Officer Jimmy Winters. “I'm sorry I'm such a pain in the ass.''
In the shadow of enormous wealth, where tourists flock to view the iconic mansions along Bellevue Avenue, about 40% of all calls to police involve people who are mentally ill or have behavioral problems. It is, as Newport Chief Gary Silva described it, an "alarming'' number. Yet it only begins to assess how an overwhelmed criminal justice system has become the de facto caretaker of Americans who are mentally ill and emotionally disturbed.
From police departments and prisons to courthouses and jails, the care of those who are mentally ill weighs heaviest on law enforcement authorities, many of whom readily acknowledge that they lack both resources and expertise to deal with the crushing responsibility.
Read the entire article in USA Today.
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