Canadian family says police knew of man's mental illness before they fatally shot him

From The Toronto Star:

Reyal Jardine-Douglas’s family called police to get him help.

Later on, after a confrontation with officers, he was dead.

The family of the 25-year-old Pickering man fatally shot by police on Sunday says he suffered from mental illness, including paranoia, and that they had called police to get him admitted to hospital.

In a statement released Tuesday through their lawyer, Jardine-Douglas’s family said they phoned 911 early Sunday afternoon from Lawrence Ave. E. and Victoria Park Ave. to get him help. “He was not exhibiting any violent behaviours at the time,” the statement noted.

The family told 911 that Jardine-Douglas had boarded a southbound Victoria Park bus, informing the dispatcher of his mental state “on more than one occasion.” The family’s lawyer, Glenn Stuart, said they believed that message had been communicated to the attending officers.

Jardine-Douglas was shot by an officer after he fled from the bus when it was pulled over by police at about 3:10 p.m.

Witnesses said police cruisers boxed in the bus and a man bolted through the rear as officers boarded through the front door. According to one witness, three shots were fired in a confrontation.

A knife was recovered at the scene.

The revelation has reignited criticism of the police three weeks before a coroner’s inquest opens into a similar police shooting two years ago.

On Feb. 16, 2008, 28-year-old Byron Debassige, who had schizophrenia, was shot dead by police in Oriole Park after he stole lemons from a local grocery store armed with a 10-centimetre knife.

Officers were cleared of wrongdoing by the Special Investigations Unit, which said Debassige “advanced” toward them and ignored repeated commands to drop the knife. But Debassige’s family and Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto say the officers needlessly escalated the situation.

The incident paralleled a June 2004 case, when police shot O’Brien Christopher-Reid, 26, who suffered paranoid delusions, after he refused to drop a knife when confronted in Edwards Gardens. An inquest cleared officers of wrongdoing, but recommended police receive further training on dealing with the mentally ill and de-escalation techniques.

“It’s an ongoing problem,” said lawyer Marshall Swadron, chair of Toronto’s Mental Health Legal Committee. “There’s always an inquest pending or a shooting happening.”

In 1997, Toronto police fatally shot Edmund Yu, a 35-year-old man with schizophrenia who was wielding a hammer on a Spadina Ave. bus.

A subsequent coroner’s inquest probed the police department’s approach to dealing with mental illness and led to improved officer training, the creation of a mobile task force and the reinstatement of its crisis resolution course.

That inquest came less than five years after an inquest made similar recommendations to improve training following the 1988 police shooting death of Lester Donaldson, who also suffered from schizophrenia.

“I’m worried that the investment in training is not changing police attitudes,” Swadron said. “The question is how to de-escalate these kinds of situations instead of causing these kinds of disastrous consequences, which seem almost regular.”

Spurred by the rash of police shooting deaths of people with mental illness in the ’80s and ’90s, Toronto officers now undergo mandatory training at the Ontario Police College to learn how to deal with such calls. But Swadron remains unconvinced it has helped.

“We obviously have some more lessons to learn.”