Being a police officer is not an easy job. You have to deal with a lot of stress, strange people, and dangerous situations. Not a lot of people would want to be a cop. I certainly don’t want to. When you take the oath, you sign on to alot. You sign on to the fact that your actions will be questioned. You are given a significant amount of power, and firepower. What you do will be watched by those above you, and the people you serve. It comes with the job.
On Monday, Lackawanna County District Attorney Andy Jarbola released the details of a state police investigation into the shooting death of Brenda Williams. The 52 year old Scranton woman was shot dead by 3 police officers after an altercation in her apartment in late May. The report was long overdue, and there are still many details that haven’t come out.
While we heard about certain events that happened in Williams’s home, we didn’t hear much about what was said. How was this mentally unstable woman talked to? I know some of you probably don’t care about that, but that’s important. A paranoid schizophrenic off their meds is not approached the same way you’d approach a ‘normal’ person. Brenda Williams was naked running around her home for an hour and 10 minutes before shots rang out. What took so long? What was said in those 70 minutes? What happened to elevate this agitated woman’s aggression to lead her to grab a knife? Why was she allowed to be out of the officers’ sight ?
I realize this was her home, but if a police officer must go into a residence, they need to be sure of their own safety. I find it incredible that Brenda Williams was able to move around the rooms in her apartment without the officers knowing where she was and checking to make sure she didn’t have a weapon.
The first officer on the scene thought that Williams should have been involuntarily committed for an evaluation. It was close to shift change and a supervisor was called. Why did a supervisor change the determination, and instead decide to file a charge against her? Did the shift change have anything to do with dispensing of this 302 order? On the morning show, we heard from a man who claimed to have worked in mental health for 17 years. He said the 302 is easy to do, and the officers should have let a mental health professional make a determination rather than make it themselves.
Police officers play two roles in their jobs. Obviously they are out there to uphold the law and stop the bad people. They also are there to render help to people who need it. On May 28th, Brenda Williams was not the bad person, but a mentally ill person who needed to be taken care of. Once she lunged at a police officer with a knife, they were justified in the eyes of the law with shooting her. It should never had gone that far. I hope the Scranton police will take a real good hard look at this case so it never happens again. We need to know if the Scranton Police are being properly trained to deal with so called ‘EDP’s’, emotionally disturbed persons. We need to know if it’s proper for police to allow a mentally unstable and agitated woman to wander around her apartment without knowing what she is doing. We need to know if the shift change was a determining factor in the cancellation of the 302. Finally, we need to know why it took so long to get the details of an investigation into this case. I hope the police will be forthcoming in the coming weeks, but if the past is any indication of the future, we may be waiting for answers for a long time.
Corbett
E-Mail
Print
