Woman Suffering Mental Health Crisis Killed by Police

Victoria Lee, 25, was shot to death by Fort Lee, New Jersey, police after her brother called 911 because she was having a mental health crisis. The police showed up, engaged with Victoria’s brother before pulling him out of the apartment. Inside, Victoria stayed with her mother and threatened to stab the police in the neck if they entered. She also told them to “shoot” her. Victoria obviously needed help, but she got the opposite.

The Problem

The police killed Victoria within moments of breaching the door, after she seemingly charged them with a water jug. Before breaching the door, the officers tried to plan who would use deadly force and who’d use nonlethal force. They already knew Victoria was having a mental health crisis and that she possibly had a knife. Upon breaking through the door, they should have used a taser or other nonlethal force.

The concerning thing about this case is, the police showed up five deep and behaved in a militarized fashion. One officer began trying to break the door in before the other officers were even prepared. It’s troubling that these five officers were so anxious to get into the apartment without any real clear plan of action. It took five officers to decide to kill a woman within seconds of getting the door down.

Also, the level of aggression and lack of attempt to de-escalate the situation prior to entry tells why the brother called 911 back and tried to cancel the call before the cops came. He probably knew it wouldn’t end well. In many instances where there is a person having a mental health crisis, police end up hurting them more.

What Now

The officers in this case acted incompetently, and they don’t deserve to wear that badge. There needs to be police retraining across the country and a force specifically for addressing mental health calls. Currently, these officers are not trained well in interacting with individuals who might have mental health concerns.

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