Police Shooting of a Mentally Ill Woman

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/opinion/police-shooting-of-a-mentally-ill-woman.html

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To the Editor:

Re “De Blasio Calls Police Shooting ‘Unacceptable’ ” (front page, Oct. 20):

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York was responding to the shooting death of Deborah Danner by the police. Ms. Danner had schizophrenia. While popular culture and political discourse often link mental illness with the perpetuation of violence, the reality is that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violent crime.

Police officers need training to recognize symptoms of mental illness and choose emergency rooms over jail cells. When police departments are aware of a psychiatric diagnosis, officers should be alerted in advance.

While communication between medical professionals and law enforcement is complicated by privacy rights, we must confront this issue especially when police interactions are foreseeable.

Failing to do so ensures that more people like Ms. Danner will be incarcerated or killed because of their mental illness.

JEREMY D. KIDD

New York

The writer is a chief resident in psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center.