Lawyer: Cop who killed Texas woman knew she was mentally ill

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


John L. Mone and Jake Bleiberg, Associated Press Updated 8:09 pm CDT, Thursday, May 16, 2019

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston-area police officer knew his neighbor suffered from mental illness and should have offered assistance when that was apparent, but instead he fatally shot the 44-year-old woman, a lawyer for the victim's family said Thursday.

Pamela Turner had struggled with paranoid schizophrenia since her diagnosis in 2005, and may have been in crisis the night she was killed, attorney Ben Crump said during a press conference.

Turner was shot by a Baytown police officer Monday night in the parking lot of her apartment complex following a struggle that a bystander captured on video. The city's police have said the Hispanic officer shot the African American woman during an attempted arrest after she shocked him with his Taser.

Late Thursday afternoon, police identified the officer as Juan Delacruz. The 11-year veteran is on paid administrative leave.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Lawyer-Cop-who-shot-Texas-woman-knew-she-was-13851108.php

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Pamela Turner.

Rest in Peace

[shenmue]

1. ...

[marble falls]

2. Why are cops sent to deal with the mentally ill?

[Jedi Guy]

3. Some departments have crisis units for that exact purpose.

The department I worked for as a dispatcher had what we just called "crisis" (I forget the proper name for it). They were essentially a cross between cops and mental health workers, as they had the full training of both. So they could identify probable mental illness issues and respond appropriately.

Unfortunately not all police departments have such arrangements. Given the prevalence of mental illness and the lack of support for mentally ill people, they really should, though.

[ROB-ROX]

4. THE COP IS A KILLER

This person had cop training and 11 years of cop experience. It is time to EXECUTE cops who MURDER. Only when the herd eliminates the ROTTEN eggs who are cop will justice be done. This case is open and shut. The cop was WRONG. The cop murdered a woman. This cop is a MURDER......HANG THE BASTARD....

[sarisataka]

9. Do we need a trial?

Since it is an open and shut case? Or should the brown skinned cop be hauled to a tree and justice served?
I believe Texas has precedent for that...

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Christ, he was her NEIGHBOR? This is fucking SHAMEFUL.

[dalton99a]

10. Yep, he knew she was mentally ill

[atreides1]

6. Could someone explain something?

How was she able to turn the taser on him, if he had already deployed it on her? Where in this short period of time did he have time to reload his taser?

Personally I think the cop is lying, not that it matters, all he did was shoot an unarmed black woman, which appears to be a right of passage for Texas area law enforcement, some of them at least!!!

[forgotmylogin]

7. There are non-projectile tasers.

You're thinking of the ones with the two curly wires with sharp tines that stick into the skin at a distance (which is what police normally use.)

There are personal consumer tasers that just require contact with skin. If this were his neighbor, perhaps he was using his own personal one? That's one of the downsides of tasers and pepper spray - they can be turned against the owner.

[MosheFeingold]

8. Not sure "mentally ill" means much

They can be as dangerous as anyone else, often more so, in that they don't have a logical reason for their actions.

Full disclosure: I was a briefly a beat cop way back in the 1950s (starting in the late 1940s) before going to law school.

I dealt with the mentally ill a fair amount, but not like now. Then, we'd confront them once -- and it was off to an insane asylum -- which were, at the time, extremely grim places -- prison was better. But they were off the streets.

I think we've got two really bad things going on: (1) lack of proper funding for insane asylums to make them humane (they will never be good) places and (2) bad law that puts people that are dangerous to themselves or others back on the street. No politician fights #2 because they'd have to pay for #1.

I'd also note that, back then, a prerequisite to being a beat cop was being a big -- no, huge -- guy. I could use less-dangerous force simply by physically restraining (or, yes, if needed, beating the crap out of*) a dangerous person -- now, a small guy (or lady) has to shoot them.


* yeah, that's bad. It's also better than getting shot. There are no easy resolutions here.

[JonLP24]

13. They are more likely to be victims as she is in this case

I've had similar symptoms so I have a lot of sympathy for her.

[Honeycombe8]

11. She did assault him with a taser...

the reason for it (whether mentally ill or some other reason) is really not relevant. If he didn't have a taser, then he'd respond with whatever weapon he had on him. If he had a taser, an inquiry should be conducted as to why he didn't use his taser.

I wonder if she lives with relatives, since she's mentally ill. Why was she out there at night like that, since she's mentally ill? The officer was trying to arrest her for outstanding warrants. I wonder what those warrants were for, and why she didn't let herself be arrested. The police's job is to arrest people who have broken the law. None of us has a right at the time of arrest to resist arrest. The time to deal with it is later. But resisting arrest is a crime. If she was too mentally ill to know that, she shouldn't have been on her own.

There will be an inquiry, as there should be, to ferret out the facts. That article is full of statements by the family, none of whom was there, and who aren't objective, of course.