'The entire episode, beyond being a tragedy, is an indictment of a current system of crisis intervention bereft of problems,' the author writes. 'It has unleashed a storm of questions that our local leaders need to answer.'
On Sunday, Aug. 27, an officer of the JCPD killed my neighbor.
And the result? My neighbor exited his home, motionless on a stretcher carried down the stairs. His ultimate fate was not shared with his family until hours later in the afternoon when we learned about it from an eruption of their fury and sorrow on the street. What best practice called for the deployment of such a disproportionate force? If a single man committing no crime, alone, inside his own home warranted a dozen officers with rifles and body shields, what is the city expending on actual criminals engaged in actual violence on the streets? How cost effective is this doctrine of overwhelming force? Is this why our taxes are so high?
The city already allocated the funds to establish a community crisis response center of trained mental health professionals last year, so to echo the impassioned words of Councilman Gilmore, what’s the holdup? The money is already there, why are we still without a service that we clearly desperately need?
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