N.H. Court Questions Law To Report Mental Health Info To Federal Guns Background Check System
In other news on the health care challenges to policing efforts, a New Orleans man diagnosed with schizophrenia and manic depression was shot and killed by police during a breakdown. And CityLab reports on how environmental health issues connect to police violence.
Concord Monitor:
N.H. Won’t Begin Reporting Mental Illness To Federal System For Gun Background Checks
The New Hampshire Judicial Branch will not comply with the state attorney general’s recent request to start reporting people with mental illness to the federal gun background check system. General Counsel Howard Zibel said in a letter last week that a new state law cited as cause for the change is “not sufficiently clear on its face for the judicial branch to begin the reporting that you request.” (Morris, 7/26)
The New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Mental Breakdown Led To Fatal Police-Involved Shooting, Pointing To Challenge For NOPD
In the year since [Christopher] Olmsted's death, the department has implemented changes, including creating a Crisis Intervention Team, to better deal with mentally ill people. It's part of necessary measures, officials say, as patrol officers continue to face a rising number of mentally ill people – in part because of reduced mental services – even though they are not as equipped for those encounters as medical and mental health professionals. Mental disturbance calls, coded by police and 911 dispatchers as 103M calls, were up 21 percent in 2015 compared to two years before. (Lane, 7/26)
CityLab:
How Environmental Injustice Connects To Police Violence
As the nation continues to process the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, it’s worth keeping in mind that the circumstances of those killings were not all the same. And demonstrators across the country aren’t protesting only police violence against black citizens. They’re also venting grievances about their own stifling living conditions, under which it’s often difficult to ride, walk, or even breathe without police suffocating black lives further. Place and environment matters when discussing police violence: This is the crux of the University of California, Davis professors Lindsey Dillon’s and Julie Sze’s argument in a forthcoming article for the academic journal English Language Notes. (Mock, 7/21)