(Jan. 16, 2014) The police officers who beat Kelly Thomas to death – a homeless man with untreated schizophrenia – were found not guilty Monday on all charges related to Thomas’s 2011 death (“Ex-officers found not guilty in beating death of Kelly Thomas,” CBS News, Jan. 14).
Among the lessons of this tragedy is its reminder that victims of violent episodes stemming from untreated severe mental illness are very often the victims of illness themselves.
Yet, Thomas’s death is just one of the many deadly encounters that have happened with people with untreated severe mental illness come into contact with law enforcement. Our Preventable Tragedies Database currently contains 900 reports of individuals with mental illness who were killed or injured by police officers.
If Kelly Thomas had received the treatment he needed for his schizophrenia, he may not have encountered law enforcement officers in the first place. But Orange County is among those in California who have not yet implemented Laura’s Law, the state’s assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) law, which would allow for mandatory outpatient treatment for people like Thomas.
Orange County - and the rest of the country - needs better mental health laws and policies if deadly encounters between law enforcement and people with severe mental illness are going to stop.
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