Fatal Encounters Between the Police and Persons with Serious Mental Illness

• In Event: Police-Related Deaths

Abstract

This study examines fatal encounters that occurred between law enforcement officers and mentally ill individuals. An assessment of incidents within the Treatment Advocacy Center’s Preventable Tragedies Database will include consideration of key demographic, behavioral and situational variables associated with these events. Fatal incidents are defined as encounters in which a law enforcement officer was killed by a mentally ill person, or conversely, an encounter in which a mentally ill person was killed by a law enforcement officer. This study aims to examine events from both perspectives (officer and mentally ill person), with the final products being a content analysis, a geographic analysis to determine if there is a spatial patterning of these events and regression analyses to explain any observed patterns.

Authors

• Hayden P. Smith, University of South Carolina

• Robert J. Kaminski, University of South Carolina