The shooting of Emil Rivers in Independence has once again brought to the fore the subject of police and mentally ill persons. As you saw in that video, it was a standoff, but the only intervention the police used was the constantly escalating threat of shooting the armed, mentally ill man.
The ComPol today said that the department has failed the officers by not properly preparing them to de-escalate situations where someone with a mental disability is acting aggressively. He said that they are working on it.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I believe that as a department, we are failing our officers to some extent in not providing the relevant training and relevant tools to be able to address mental health issues. Mental health is becoming more and more a reality in our society and you'll find that even people who may not have a history with mental health would suddenly develop a mental health issue."
"And so I think that as a department, we must do more to sensitize our officers in terms of how to deal with mental health issues as well as to give them the right tools to be able to address when the matter reaches a stage where force needs to be used."
"Regretfully that the only thing available to the offices is their firearm with lethal ammunition in it. I wish and I am hoping that we will change that very shortly. I'm in discussion with my senior command to see what we can do to change that."
"We want to make sure that we equip every police station with shotgun, with rubber bullets. And instead of using lethal weapons in these circumstances, we can use the rubber bullets to be able to de-escalate situations where it reaches that level."
"So it is something that we have to work on. We are in process. I will discuss it minister, as well as the minister of human development to see what we can do. And perhaps we can also look at introducing teasers.
We don't have laws that governs the use of tasers. So we might have to go to the AG and see how we can include tasers into the police act as a part of weapons that police officers can use while in the line of duty."
"So there's a lot that we can learn from the River's incident. And I hope that we learn the lessons and moving forward that we do better in how we handle issues of mental issues where persons suffer some mental disability."
