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| Natasha McKenna's death shows the need for restraint – not restraints | Natasha McKenna's death shows the need for restraint – not restraints |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| Related: Sheriff releases video of jail incident that led to Natasha McKenna's death | Related: Sheriff releases video of jail incident that led to Natasha McKenna's death |
| It is true that sometimes people with experiencing mental health crises can present a real danger to themselves and to others around them. Sometimes restraints are needed. | It is true that sometimes people with experiencing mental health crises can present a real danger to themselves and to others around them. Sometimes restraints are needed. |
| But so too, is restraint on the part of caregivers. So too is a certain type of attitude to the work and a clinical understanding of how people in crisis are likely to respond to displays of overwhelming force and demands for perfect compliance. There are mountains of evidence to suggest that stress – like the stress of being in jail, being forcibly restrained, and facing criminal charges – can trigger and exacerbate symptoms of mental illness, like schizophrenic episodes. | But so too, is restraint on the part of caregivers. So too is a certain type of attitude to the work and a clinical understanding of how people in crisis are likely to respond to displays of overwhelming force and demands for perfect compliance. There are mountains of evidence to suggest that stress – like the stress of being in jail, being forcibly restrained, and facing criminal charges – can trigger and exacerbate symptoms of mental illness, like schizophrenic episodes. |
| So when the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office released video of Natasha McKenna’s violent final hour in the county’s jail – a de facto holding site for people with severe mental health problems requiring legal interventions – I thought about my father’s stories. | So when the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office released video of Natasha McKenna’s violent final hour in the county’s jail – a de facto holding site for people with severe mental health problems requiring legal interventions – I thought about my father’s stories. |
| Growing up, my father worked at a residential home for at-risk boys, including those with mental health issues. He was a crisis intervention counselor, the calm and peaceful guy to whom kids in crisis could talk – and who had a battery of restraint holds in his repertoire, if the need arose. | Growing up, my father worked at a residential home for at-risk boys, including those with mental health issues. He was a crisis intervention counselor, the calm and peaceful guy to whom kids in crisis could talk – and who had a battery of restraint holds in his repertoire, if the need arose. |
| As I watched officers try to move McKenna, who was schizophrenic and had spent chunks of her final days in restraints, I saw none of the resourcefulness and humanity that I remembered from my dad. Instead I saw police officers apparently unable to understand how to talk to and interact with small, unarmed woman seemingly in the middle of a psychiatric episode – and who treated her as a body on whom to enforce the law rather than a person who needed help. | As I watched officers try to move McKenna, who was schizophrenic and had spent chunks of her final days in restraints, I saw none of the resourcefulness and humanity that I remembered from my dad. Instead I saw police officers apparently unable to understand how to talk to and interact with small, unarmed woman seemingly in the middle of a psychiatric episode – and who treated her as a body on whom to enforce the law rather than a person who needed help. |
| The video opens with a young deputy’s monologue about why McKenna is being moved, and why the officers are taking the precaution of wearing full Hazmat suits. “She’s been non-compliant with orders [and] she’s created a major biohazard incident in the cell”, he said to the camera. The footage then cuts to five jail officials wearing hazmat suits with tactical-looking helmets, one of whom was carrying a riot shield. Four officers in regular uniforms are also in the hallways around her holding cell. | The video opens with a young deputy’s monologue about why McKenna is being moved, and why the officers are taking the precaution of wearing full Hazmat suits. “She’s been non-compliant with orders [and] she’s created a major biohazard incident in the cell”, he said to the camera. The footage then cuts to five jail officials wearing hazmat suits with tactical-looking helmets, one of whom was carrying a riot shield. Four officers in regular uniforms are also in the hallways around her holding cell. |
| My father often recalls the time a student threw excrement, spit at him and physically threatened him. He was alone, and the boy was big, so he responded by pulling a gymmat from under him, rolling him up in it like a taquito, and sitting down, delicately, on the student – letting him know that when he was calm and ready to talk, he would be let out. | My father often recalls the time a student threw excrement, spit at him and physically threatened him. He was alone, and the boy was big, so he responded by pulling a gymmat from under him, rolling him up in it like a taquito, and sitting down, delicately, on the student – letting him know that when he was calm and ready to talk, he would be let out. |
| When the officers open the door to McKenna’s cell, she makes no aggressive, violent or sudden moves. She shuffles out – fully nude – and immediately, presciently, reminds the staff that, “you promised me that you wouldn’t kill me.” | When the officers open the door to McKenna’s cell, she makes no aggressive, violent or sudden moves. She shuffles out – fully nude – and immediately, presciently, reminds the staff that, “you promised me that you wouldn’t kill me.” |
| I thought about the many times students harbored the same mortal fears about my father, and how, rather than tackle them, he would show them his hands from at least an arm’s distance and calmly assure them that he was there to help. | I thought about the many times students harbored the same mortal fears about my father, and how, rather than tackle them, he would show them his hands from at least an arm’s distance and calmly assure them that he was there to help. |
| In response, the jailers trap McKenna between the shield and the door, taking her to the ground as the pleas begin for her to “stop resisting”. McKenna is handcuffed already, and there’s a strap running from the cuffs, through a slot in the door, and into one of the jailer’s hands, in full control of her upper body. | In response, the jailers trap McKenna between the shield and the door, taking her to the ground as the pleas begin for her to “stop resisting”. McKenna is handcuffed already, and there’s a strap running from the cuffs, through a slot in the door, and into one of the jailer’s hands, in full control of her upper body. |
| The Hazmat-clad officials pile on to McKenna and lament: “She’s not going to hold still!” Their escalation of force is seemingly connected to her lack of compliance – her failure to cede to their authority and demands – not to any threat she is presenting to their safety. | The Hazmat-clad officials pile on to McKenna and lament: “She’s not going to hold still!” Their escalation of force is seemingly connected to her lack of compliance – her failure to cede to their authority and demands – not to any threat she is presenting to their safety. |
| I thought about the boy who walked away from camp while other school officials berated him to “get back right now”, speaking only on sternness and consequences, and how each request returned only an earnest “fuck you!” How police arrived and offered to tase the boy, and how my father declined, instead shadowing him until he eventually decided he was ready to come back, without force or threat. | I thought about the boy who walked away from camp while other school officials berated him to “get back right now”, speaking only on sternness and consequences, and how each request returned only an earnest “fuck you!” How police arrived and offered to tase the boy, and how my father declined, instead shadowing him until he eventually decided he was ready to come back, without force or threat. |
| “Stop resisting”, thee Fairfax officers tell McKenna again and again, seemingly unaware that in a paranoid mental state, perfect stillness is not a reasonable or appropriate response to five bizarrely dressed strangers pinning you to the ground, binding your limbs and threatening electrocution. “If you keep resisting, you’re going to be tased”, they warn her as she gasps like she is fighting for her last breath. | “Stop resisting”, thee Fairfax officers tell McKenna again and again, seemingly unaware that in a paranoid mental state, perfect stillness is not a reasonable or appropriate response to five bizarrely dressed strangers pinning you to the ground, binding your limbs and threatening electrocution. “If you keep resisting, you’re going to be tased”, they warn her as she gasps like she is fighting for her last breath. |
| The jail officials went go on to shock McKenna four times with a Taser, to secure her in a restraint chair and, when she became unresponsive, to unsuccessfully administer CPR. | The jail officials went go on to shock McKenna four times with a Taser, to secure her in a restraint chair and, when she became unresponsive, to unsuccessfully administer CPR. |
| Watching this, I thought about how my father always treated people as humans who needed help, not a threat to be neutralized and managed. He did this work without a Taser, Hazmat suit, and with many students who were as teenage boys, quite a bit stronger and bigger than Natasha McKenna. He was able to do so because he never forgot that they were under his care and needed his help and his compassion. | Watching this, I thought about how my father always treated people as humans who needed help, not a threat to be neutralized and managed. He did this work without a Taser, Hazmat suit, and with many students who were as teenage boys, quite a bit stronger and bigger than Natasha McKenna. He was able to do so because he never forgot that they were under his care and needed his help and his compassion. |
| A jail isn’t the same thing as a boy’s home, and tactics may not always translate. But my father’s stories reminded me that, while the treatment of mentally ill people in crisis and in institutional settings won’t always be pretty, they can be abundantly more thoughtful and humane than what we see on this tape. |