The Mental Health Conversation We're Not Having Around Police Violence

On April 29, an unarmed black teenager named Jordan Edwards was shot to death by Texas police officer Roy Oliver. The Balch Springs police officer was responding to neighborhood reports citing “rowdy drinking teenagers,” however, no sign of alcohol or guns were found at the scene of his death. Edwards, only 15 years old and in high school, was leaving a house party when the officer shot him. He died at the hospital. Oliver was fired from the police department after his original report that a car of teenagers aggressively reversed in his direction proved to be false. In response to the public outcry for the officer’s sentencing, Oliver’s family cited his post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as a contributing factor to his violence (his lawyer has yet to comment on that or multiple reports of previous misconduct). That’s problematic for several reasons. First, it stigmatizes people with PTSD by insinuating that mental illness naturally leads to violence. In fact, the opposite is true. Those with mental illness are 16 times more likely to be victims of police brutality and other acts of violence, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. Although Edwards did not, roughly 25 percent of victims of police shootings showed signs of a severe mental illness, the Washington Post reported.   Continued cycles of police violence are often a source of trauma and can trigger pre-existing PTSD in the black community &nb...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news