Police Shooting of Mentally Ill

* I had the misfortune of reading your Nov. 9 editorial, “Cops and the Mentally Ill.” I am used to the anti-law enforcement (particularly LAPD) tone of most of your articles and editorials. Your trivialization of the potential for injury inflicted by someone armed with a screwdriver is typical. The call for “more training” toes the party line. What I did not expect, and what I take great offense to, is the assertion that “a mentally ill person here can’t get at least as much consideration as a mountain lion.” Not only is this statement false, it is disgusting! Although I do not work for the Los Angeles Police Department, I have been a police officer in Southern California for over 17 years. I can recall several situations where I and other officers have successfully resolved cases involving mentally ill persons without the use of deadly force (or in most cases without any force at all).

Implying that the police view the mentally ill as something less than an animal is not only an affront to those of us who must deal with the problems presented by these situations on a daily basis, it is shoddy, inflammatory journalism as well.

SGT. LEE A. STEITZ

Oceanside Police Department

* A person dying on the streets seems like everyday news since we closed the state hospitals. But the number of shootings recounted by The Times (Nov. 7-8) goes beyond the pale: It has become open season on the mentally ill.

It’s true cops never intended on becoming street corner psychiatrists: Our broken mental health system foisted the job on them. Like it or not, however, LAPD must learn how to deal with the situation in a compassionate, humane and nonlethal manner. This will take focused dedication on the part of the chief to train--and retrain--the people he supervises.

As that occurs, the real solution lies in the mental health system devising better treatment structures, so people with mental illness do not live and die as targets for the wayward law enforcement bullet.

CARLA JACOBS

Board Member, National Alliance

for the Mentally Ill

Long Beach