Justice Dept. focuses on police treatment of mentally ill
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FILE – In this May 26, 2015 file photo, Vanita Gupta, the head of Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, speaks in Cleveland. Justice Department lawyers investigating police agencies for racial discrimination and excessive force are increasingly finding a different problem: officers’ interactions with the mentally ill. Tony Dejak-AP File
By ERIC TURNER, Associated Press
August 29, 2016
WASHINGTON–Justice Department lawyers investigating police agencies for claims of racial discrimination and excessive force are increasingly turning up a different problem: officers’ interactions with the mentally ill.
The latest example came in Baltimore, where a critical report on that department’s policies found that officers end up in unnecessarily violent confrontations with mentally disabled people who in many instances haven’t even committed crimes.
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