Report: Since 2010, one third of police killings in Cincinnati involved mentally ill
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that at least six of the 18 people killed by police in that city since 2010 have had a history of severe mental illness.
The report is the latest in a series of investigations into police killings of the mentally ill nationwide. In June 2015, the Washington Post found that a quarter of the 462 people they identified as having been shot and killed by police across the country in the first six months of that year were “in the throes of mental or emotional crisis.” And later that year the Treatment Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization that aims to improve the lives of the mentally ill, issued a report saying that between 1980 and 2008, one-in-four fatal police encounters in the country involved someone with a severe mental illness.
Police agencies have long struggled with how to safely and effectively handle calls to assist mentally ill individuals. Across the country, some departments have instituted “Crisis Intervention Teams,” which are comprised of officers who receive specific training in understanding mental illness, de-escalation, and other techniques to keep what can be fraught encounters from becoming fatal.
“The way we deal with people with mental illness has changed dramatically for the better since I started my career,” Sgt. Eric Franz of the Cincinnati Police Department told Crimesider. “We’ve come a long way. Now, the goal is to de-escalate. As a beat guy, we all take pride in being able to de-escalate.”
But John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, told Crimesider that it isn’t fair or productive to place all the burden on police to train for difficult encounters with sick citizens. Snook points out that mental illness is a medical issue: “The reality is that we can’t let people get to this crisis stage to begin with. If someone is in crisis, at a certain point, it doesn’t matter how well trained you are.”
The Enquirer also reported that the number of fatal shootings involving Cincinnati police officers since 2010 is on the rise in comparison to the previous decade.
The Cincinnati Enquirer’s investigation found that the average rate per year of police-involved shootings in Cincinnati since 2010 is double that of the 2000s, when there were 12 total deaths. So far this decade, 18 people have died.
Chief Eliot Isaac expressed “alarm” over the statistics, but declined to speculate on why the number of fatal police shootings has increased.
“There’s nothing I can pinpoint right now that can explain it...but I am open to further analysis,” Isaac said.