ABC is reporting the story of Iman Morales, a man who was experiencing a mental health crisis and was tasered to death rather than helped. Apparently his mother called the police for help after he wandered naked out onto a fire escape. The police showed up and after Morales ‘poked’ one of the police officers with a florescent light bulb, they tasered him. Unfortunately, after an hour of trying to convince the man to come down, the police had ‘forgotten’ to put precautionary inflatable foam or netting down to break Morales’s fall. Morales suffered extreme head trauma from landing on the sidewalk and died.

Here is the disturbing NY Post video (potentially triggering content):

And ABC news has video up on their site.

Outside of the fact that I think that the police acted reprehensibly, I can only say that I think it’s well past time that the U.S. as a nation figure out alternative ways to handle crisis moments with mentally disabled people. I’ve heard prison officials say that the safest place for mentally disabled people these days is prison because of the lack of resources family and loved ones have access to. Far too often, the ‘resources’ mentally ill people have are aging and sick parents who can’t do strenuous things like prevent a full grown son from climbing out onto a ledge.

But if prison/police officials are treating mentally ill people the way Iman Morales was treated (and there’s no evidence to me that they aren’t) is it that difficult to imagine why elderly parents are taking their chances?

It’s a national disgrace that those who need help simply aren’t getting it, and it’s even worse that the only solution to sickness is to imprison the sick.

Mental illness is not a crime, and we need to stop believing that the same methods used to punish criminals can keep mentally ill people safe.