In the wake of the violent deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, as well as the decisions of two independent grand juries to indict neither Officer Darren Wilson nor Daniel Pantaleo, the country has begun a long overdue conversation about the relationship between police and black Americans.

People across the country have taken to the streets in protest, as well as to Twitter and Facebook with the common hashtag, #alllivesmatter.  Some people have taken offense at the slogan, believing instead that #blacklivesmatter was more fitting. While both statements are obviously true, the latter ignores violence committed by police against individuals of other groups. One group in particular, one that transcends race and culture, has suffered similarly for many years now: individuals living with mental illness.

In a case largely ignored by the mainstream media, Robert Ethan Saylor, a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome, was attending a movie with his caregiver in January 2013. He enjoyed the movie so much, he tried to return to the theater for the next showing but did not pay for a second ticket. The manager called the police for help, and despite the protests of Saylor’s caregiver, three sheriff’s deputies grabbed him in a chokehold. While forcing him onto the ground, the officers fractured his throat cartilage, killing him by asphyxiation. A grand jury failed to indict any of the officers responsible for the murder.

Just a few months after Saylor’s death, a similar tragedy failed to make headlines. Keith Vidal was an 18-year-old kid from North Carolina. He had battled schizophrenia for most of his life, and during one particularly bad episode, his parents called the police, asking for help in restraining their son and giving him his medication. 

The first two officers on the scene made some progress in calming him down. But then, a third officer arrived, tasered the boy and shot him while on the ground. Vidal was dead within 70 seconds of the arrival of the third officer.  

These are far from isolated incidents. According to the Portland Press Herald and the Maine Sunday Telegram, nationwide more than half of all Americans shot by police have a mental illness. In comparison, only 18 percent of Americans are believed to have a mental illness, and only four percent have a serious one, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. When it comes to the sufferings of those with mental illness, police brutality is merely the tip of the iceberg. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, as many as 40 percent of people with mental illness will go through the criminal justice system at some point in their lives, and estimates of the proportion of inmates with mental illness are as high as 50 percent in some states, although the number is highly dependent on the available number of mental health professionals. Overall, the numbers paint a depressing portrait of the American justice system’s treatment of people with mental illness. 

While the discussion on racism among American police officers certainly should not be swept under the rug, the need to address violence against mentally ill people by the police is equally pressing. There exists a clear pattern in police violence: that it is targeted at those who are either unwilling or unable to comply with police demands—hardly a capital offense—and the use of lethal force is arbitrary with little to no thought attached to it. 

The solution is twofold. Practically, police officers must receive more training in de-escalating situations. These tragedies have a pattern of officers increasing the tension in a situation instead of reducing it. More philosophically, we as a society need to adopt a less militaristic view of a police force. Officers often go into these situations seeing themselves as good guys going against the bad guys, an especially dangerous mindset when dealing with persons with mental illness. Rather than seeing the person as an enemy, an officer must understand that the person is neither in control of nor legally responsible for their actions and must be treated with more caution. One successful approach has been crisis intervention training, a holistic approach designed to not only teach officers to exercise restraint in incidents involving people with mental illness, but also engages the police with mental health professionals and their clients. Studies have already shown that officers with CIT training are more likely to engage with suspects nonviolently, and more likely to refer them to mental health services than to arrest them.

The tragedies of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, as well as those of Saylor and Vidal, teach us that police training is inadequate when it comes to these types of scenarios and that police choose to use violent or even lethal force too expediently. Individuals with mental illness, who often lack the ability to communicate effectively with police or to respond appropriately to stressful situations, unfortunately pay the price for this propensity to violence. 

The police are paid, trained and sworn to protect and serve the citizens of this country. While the vast majority do, the violent actions of the few cannot go unnoticed, and they bring disgrace upon the entire profession. There are too many fresh graves to allow this sort of barbarity to continue. 

—Alexander Mitchell ’17 is the treasurer of Brandeis Students for Disability Activism.