(Aug. 4, 2015) With respect to the question of why police decided to confront 25-year-old Ezell Ford in South Los Angeles on Aug. 11, 2014, when we ask broader questions, the root cause of police involvement in incidents like this one becomes obvious.
Why do four times the number of people with mental illness receive treatment in jail or prison than in proper treatment facilities?
Why can people with severe mental illness expect to live 25 fewer years than others? Why do up to two-thirds of people with mental illness have a co-morbid medical disorder?
With any other medical illness, a person is given treatment based on symptoms. In California, people with mental illness must become gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others to be compelled to get treatment, assuring danger and that many deteriorate to the point they are on the street, end up in prison, are victimized or die.
California law needs to be changed. Waiting for danger is waiting too long.
BRIAN JACOBS
NAMI ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
Read this column and the original article.
(Photo: Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times)
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