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In an incident of clear mental illness, where Police should never have been called to the scene, a Lewiston, Idaho man has become another in a long line of victims to meet his maker at the business end of a service weapon.
Before I get too far into this story, I am not alone in my opinion that police are ill equipped to respond to calls of mental patients in crisis. Major networks like USA Today, The Atlantic, the Baltimore Sun, The Hill, and groups like the Social Welfare Action Alliance, the Steinberg Institute, the Sheriff’s collective at Sheriff’s.org, and even the ACLU, have all come out asserting that law enforcement should not be the first response to mental health crises.
The research is so overwhelming that many dispatch departments in cop shops around the country are even starting to ask about mental health in the initial emergency calls. If you learn nothing else from today’s talk, please come away with this: never call the police as a first response to someone you know experiencing a mental health crisis.
The Treatment Advocacy Center and the journal, Medical Daily, both did a study on police shootings, and found that sufferers of mental illness are 16 times more likely to be shot by law enforcement. Just let that sink in as we talk more about this tragic case.
That study was used in an article in Time Magazine that did a great job of bringing forth a lot of alarming statistics. If you have a mentally ill family member, I strongly suggest reading the article. It’s linked in the Masculist.net article of the same name as this podcast.
So, let’s get into the story.
According to NBC News, the family of Michael Trappett called 911 for assistance in dealing with a mental health crisis unfolding at their residence in Clearwater County.
A Bodycam video was released of the incident. And at the very beginning of that video, Trappett can be heard telling the officers to just shoot him.
[just shoot me]
Deputy Randall Carruth can then be heard making no attempts at de-escalating the matter, while pointing his gun at Trappett.
He admits that he and his partner did not want to shoot Trappet, but then very loudly and aggressively orders Trappet to stay away from windows and to put the knife down.
Mental health professionals like those suggested at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, who are more equipped than police to handle mental health patients, know that the last thing that’s effective in confrontations with mentally ill patients in crisis is to point weapons at them while screaming at them.
[shooting]
After what sounded like nine shots fired at the suspect while he was attempting to run away from the deputies, Trappett can be heard crying just before dying at the scene.
[crying]
With an unfortunately coincidental name in relation to the matter, Deputy Brokop, who was the female law enforcement officer that apparently fired her weapon first, was also the first to admit that she’d be losing her weapon.
A woman related to the victim then could be heard pleading with police to let her out, before asking police why they shot her family member.
[why did you do that]
Then, for the remainder of the time they’re standing over the gunshot victim, deputies Brokop and Carruth can be heard lamenting the possibility that they will lose their service weapons, also indicating that this was not the first time.
[I’ll lose my service weapon again]
Then, for at least two more minutes, instead of enacting life-saving efforts for Trappett, the two deputies can be heard talking about the process that follows a shooting.
[shooting process]
What you don’t hear these officers talking about is their several weeks of training to deal with mental illness calls. You don’t hear that because most police are not trained in how to deal with mental illness, let alone differentiate between a legitimate threat versus a manic depressive who just wants to commit suicide by cop.
In the video from Caruth’s bodycam, just before the shooting, Brokop can be seen approaching the victim quite fast after he took several steps back from the deputies.
It’s hard to imagine that Brokop, who also shot another man in 2020, had any ability to fire with any consistent aiming, given the quick succession of bullets. It should also be noted that the incident took place in what appears to be a tightly packed neighborhood full of nearby homes.
[Bullets being fired]
According to Justin Nix, a professor of criminology at the University of Nebraska Omaha, this was the absolute wrong move for the law enforcement officer to make, stating “It happens enough — officers rush in and make poor tactical choices… They have to shoot their way out to protect themselves.”
Based on the short time frame it all went down, the relatively tight space of the location between the house and the garage, the very few attempts made by the police to de-escalate the conflict, and the very few seconds between the time the video starts and Trappet is seen dying in his driveway, I might agree with that statement.
But this is not just a story of officers being overzealous in stressful situations. Almost all officers are overzealous in stressful situations. I think most people would be very apt to shoot first and ask questions later if they assumed they could die in incidents like these? And that’s the problem. They don’t know what the threat level is, because they have no training in mental health crises.
It’s a situation where police officers should have simply never been called. In addition to their lack of training, police are even less equipped to make judgment calls in situations where their duty is to protect themselves first.
While there was no previous footage from their body cams available on news sources I searched, their mere presence at the scene likely did much more harm than a mental health professional that may have been familiar with Trappett and his particular condition.
We’ve been drip-fed the compulsion to call the police in every single instance where we don’t like what’s happening. And Trappett’s death may have been avoided if the approach of our families and communities was not to first think to call the police.
My advice in nearly all situations involving people experiencing mental health crises is never to call the police as a first line action. In fact, the only time anyone should ever call the police when dealing with a mentally ill suspect, is when that suspect is actually endangering someone’s life and safety.
In this instance, yes, Trappett was carrying a knife. But he only brought out the knife after the police arrived on the scene, and after they had already been pointing their guns at him. It cannot just be assumed that he was threatening anyone in the home unless they specifically state that to police before they arrive.
Depending on the community, there should be resources available that do not involve bringing armed people trained in increasingly militant procedures to a scene where no armed conflict currently exists.
If you have someone in your family who’s mentally ill to the point that they have the history or potential of becoming threatening to the safety of others, you need to find your local resources who can respond to incidents like the one that ended in Trappet’s death.
We should care enough about our loved ones to create a plan in the event of a crisis. This should include leaving the scene if possible, and taking any young children and other vulnerable people away from the suspect.
Calling the police should be our absolute last resort in most cases – and most especially in cases involving the mentally ill.
Find the original articles here, along with all the other research I did for this story at legallyinsanefilms.com/stj.
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