More On Sonoma County Police Shootings

I mentioned yesterday this incident in which police shot a mentally ill man who was threatening them with a knife, after less lethal weapons failed. Here's a bit more on the story from the January 4, 2008 Santa Rosa Press-Democrat:

A mentally ill man shot to death by Santa Rosa police yelled "slashing, slashing" and raised a large kitchen knife as he approached officers responding to a call for help, authorities said Thursday.

Family members identified the man as Jesse Hamilton, 24. He rented a room in a home near downtown with several other mental health patients.

Hamilton refused orders to drop the knife and a Taser stun gun had no effect on him, according to a statement by the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department, which is investigating the shooting. Hamilton was shot four times by one of three Santa Rosa police officers who responded early Wednesday afternoon to the call for help at the A Street home.

Hamilton died about 6½ hours later.

Investigators said the officers tried to defuse the situation by having a mental health worker contact Hamilton first.

"Unfortunately, as the events unfolded they didn't have a lot of time to react to it," Sheriff's Lt. Robert Giordano said. "He comes out of the door and the knife is up in a stabbing motion. And he's screaming as he's walking toward them."

Hamilton's family was disturbed by the shooting, the county's third involving law enforcement and mental patients in less than a year. Family members also expressed displeasure with a county decision to release him into a less restrictive treatment program.

"It didn't turn out right," said Hamilton's mother, Valerie Barber of Point Arena. "I don't know why so many mentally ill people are being shot to death these days. I kind of feel things needed to be done differently. I didn't think he was ready for that level of freedom."

I am disappointed that the article quotes the Sonoma County sheriff as thinking that cuts in mental health funding were the cause of the problem. Cuts in funding have been the result of deinstitutionalization--not the cause.

Here are a couple of articles about Jeremiah Chass's death after a psychotic break, which I also mentioned yesterday. This article suggests that the police did a less than perfect job, perhaps aggravated by a misperception that Chass was not a family member, but an outsider. (Chass was of mixed race, while his mother, stepfather, and younger half-brother, were all white.)