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Police Response to Threat by Person with Mental Illness

Ferdows Ather and Timothy Botello
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online March 2021, 49 (1) 118-121; DOI: https://doi.org/10.29158/JAAPL.210001L2-21
Ferdows Ather
Fellow in Forensic Psychiatry
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Timothy Botello
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  • police
  • schizophrenia
  • force
  • killed
  • disabilities

Police Use of Deadly Force in Response to Threat Made by Man with Mental Illness Does Not Violate the Fourth Amendment or the Americans with Disabilities Act

In King v. Hendricks Cnty. Comm'rs, 954 F.3d 981 (7th Cir. 2020), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals considered whether the District Court for the Southern District of Indiana's decision to grant summary judgment in favor of police was correct. Matthew King, father and representative of the estate of decedent Bradley King, asserted that the police violated the decedent's Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force; that the county failed to provide adequate training to police in how to de-escalate situations with persons with mental illness; and that the police violated the decedent's Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) rights. The court upheld the defendant's grant of summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment claim and ruled that the training and ADA claims failed.

Facts of the Case

Bradley King, a 29-year-old man with schizophrenia, was killed at his home in Hendricks, Indiana, by police performing a welfare check after he called 911 requesting help. No other eyewitnesses were available; the only testimony was from the deputies involved.

Deputies Jason Hays and Jeremy Thomas testified that, upon their arrival to the house, Mr. King came out and walked toward them, pulling a 10-inch knife out of his shorts pocket. Despite drawing their firearms and yelling at Mr. King to stop and drop his knife, Mr. King kept moving forward and started to run at Deputy Hays. When Mr. King was approximately eight feet away, Deputy Hays fired one shot at Mr. King, killing him.

Bradley King's father (petitioner) brought the three federal civil rights claims described above against Deputy Hays, the Hendricks County Commissioners, the Sheriff's Department, and the Sheriff. The lower court granted summary judgment for the defense on all three claims.

Ruling and Reasoning

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's summary judgment on all three of the petitioner's claims. Regarding the claim that the police's use of excessive force violated Mr. King's constitutional right against unreasonable seizure, the appeals court acknowledged that “the level of force that is constitutionally permissible in dealing with a mentally ill person … differs both in degree and in kind from the force that would be justified against a person who has committed a crime or who poses a threat to the community” (King, p 984 (quoting Gray v. Cummings, 917 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2019), p 11). Thus, the court agreed with the petitioner's assertion that officers should approach anyone suspected or known to have mental illness differently than those suspected of criminal activity. In the present case, Mr. King was reportedly known to police as having mental disabilities because they were involved with him during prior psychotic episodes.

The court also referred to a U.S. Supreme Court admonition that the “calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments … about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation” (King, p 984 (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), pp 396-7). The court explained: When addressing the use of deadly force, the court considers whether a reasonable officer in the circumstances would have probable cause to believe that the [person] poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others” (Sanzone v. Gray, 884 F.3d 736, 740 (7th Cir. 2018)). If the person of interest threatens the officer with a weapon, deadly force may be used, because the risk of serious physical harm to the officer has been shown. (Ibid.) This is so even if a less deadly alternative is available to the officers (Plakas v. Drinksi, 19 F.3d 1143, 1149 (7th Cir. 1994)). And this is so whether or not the targeted person suffers from a mental illness—the critical consideration is whether he or she poses an immediate threat to the officers or others (King, p 985).

Thus, given the evidence available in the case, the court said that Mr. King posed an imminent threat to the officers and deadly force was reasonable. The appeals court, however, did appreciate the challenge Mr. King faced in countering the officers' testimony (the only available eyewitness evidence in the case) and that, unfortunately, “the person most likely to rebut the officers' version of the events—the one killed—can't testify” (King, p 985 (quoting Cruz v. City of Anaheim, 765 F.3d 1076 (9th Cir. 2014), p 1079).

Finally, the court deliberated on the petitioner's third claim, that the police violated Mr. King's rights under Title II of the ADA, which states that “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity” (42 U.S.C. § 12132 (1990)). The petitioner claimed Mr. King's rights were violated by arguing that the police should have acted differently given Mr. King's mental illness.

In its decision, the appeals court separated this claim into two components. First, it addressed whether Title II applies to law enforcement investigations and arrests, Second, if it does apply, it addressed whether law enforcement violated Mr. King's Title II rights. With regard to the first question, the court acknowledged that other circuit courts were split on the matter but ultimately assumed, without deciding, that Title II did apply to the deputies' response to Mr. King. The appeals court also assumed that the county could be held vicariously liable under Title II for the deputies' actions using the “deliberate indifference standard” to judge their actions. Thus, for the petitioner's claim to succeed, he was required to “show that ‘but for’ [Mr. King's] disability, he would have been able to access the services or benefits desired” (King, p 989 (quoting Wis. Cmty. Servs., Inc. v. City of Milwaukee, 465 F.3d 737 (7th Cir. 2006), p 754).

The court stated that, because the police responded quickly to Mr. King's call and there were no available facts to contradict the deputies' testimony that their lives were in danger from Mr. King running at them with a knife, the deputies' response was not discriminatory given their response would have been identical even if Mr. King did not suffer from mental illness, and there was nothing they could have done in this specific scenario to accommodate for his mental illness. The court concluded that “if the decedent was denied access to medical services it was because of his violent, threatening behavior, not because he was mentally disabled” (King, p 989).

In conclusion, the Seventh Circuit unanimously concluded that the police officer's use of deadly force in response to Mr. King's threat to use a knife did not violate his rights under the Fourth Amendment or the ADA, regardless of the fact that Mr. King was mentally ill.

Discussion

With the recent social upheaval in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and others by police, there has been increased attention to events in which police utilize force in the commission of their duties. Encounters with people in mental health crisis are particularly challenging given the added complexity of such encounters and often limited police training in managing these situations.

In King, the court of appeals judged the reasonableness of the police officer's use of deadly force against Mr. King on the basis of what the court of appeals thought would be a reasonable police response to a person without mental illness. In doing so, however, the decision raises the question of why the law takes mental illness into account when someone is the perpetrator of deadly force (e.g., the insanity defense or sentence mitigation), but not when someone is the victim of deadly force. We might also consider whether, had Bradley King survived and been able to testify, the appeals court's treatment of his testimony would have been the same as that of the testimony of someone without mental illness.

Although the law may not require police to respond differently to individuals with mental illness who threaten them with a deadly weapon, some public agencies recognize a need to provide specialized emergency response services for those experiencing a mental health crisis. In Los Angeles County, requests for assistance managing a situation potentially involving mental health concerns are often triaged to teams specializing in mental health crises, such as the Department of Mental Health's Psychiatric Mobile Response Team (PMRT) or mental health clinicians directly integrated into the sheriff police force (Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team). As police departments are forced to re-evaluate their missions and funding (e.g., the City of Los Angeles recently announced a $150 million redirection of next year's police budget toward community initiatives), legislative bodies may consider how to support mental health programs in law enforcement to minimize risk of events like the killing of Bradley King from happening again.

  • © 2021 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
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Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online: 49 (1)
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
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1 Mar 2021
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Police Response to Threat by Person with Mental Illness
Ferdows Ather, Timothy Botello
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Mar 2021, 49 (1) 118-121; DOI: 10.29158/JAAPL.210001L2-21

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Police Response to Threat by Person with Mental Illness
Ferdows Ather, Timothy Botello
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Mar 2021, 49 (1) 118-121; DOI: 10.29158/JAAPL.210001L2-21
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