I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the latest black youth murdered by police.
If you haven’t, check out coverage by the New York Times yesterday and today
The loss of this young man has been on my mind and I’d like to send hope for healing and peace to the family. When the media sensationalizes tragedies like this one, the police often hold the moral high ground in the eyes of the public for “doing what they had to do” or “following protocol.” But the people living it know the cops were doing “what they always do”: using racist, excessive force to destroy, rather than protect, the community.
What concerned me most about the media coverage was the angle that the young man had been trying to commit what police apparently call “suicide by cop.” From the Times:
A similar description of the shooting was given by Precious Blood, 16, who said she heard about 10 shots fired, most if not all by one officer. Another officer called out: “Stop, stop, stop shooting — he’s down,” she said, but the shooter kept firing, “like he was playing with a toy.”
The law enforcement official gave a different version of the encounter, saying that Mr. Coppin charged toward the officers and refused repeated orders to stop. The police said they were also exploring the possibility that Mr. Coppin was trying to prompt a shooting, a phenomenon known as “suicide by cop.”
There is no way of reading “suicide by cop” that does not spell oppression. First, there is the fact the the police are able to be so unaccountable for the shooting that it must have been the will and intention of the person to be murdered. Second, it seems the reputation of police as killers is so proven that holding a hairbrush (or wallet, or candy bar, or set of keys) is suicidal.
But perhaps most importantly, and most overlooked in the media coverage, is the repeated trauma of living in an urban, working class neighborhood, particularly for people of color. Police violence is not incidental here, or sensational; it’s systematic. Murder and loss are very often constant presences in people’s lives who are then denied access to means to get care or care for themselves.
It was only briefly mentioned in the Times coverage that Mr. Coppin was on anti-psychotic medications. While speculating as to why would be inappropriate, as the matter is private and the possibilities are many, Mr. Coppin’s case underscores the fact that many youth of color who are arrested or incarcerated have mental illnesses and stress disorders. Growing up watching cops beat or murder young people, or them do it to each other, has profound effects on a person’s body, mind, and spirit. Punishing young people with jail or committing them to the custody of the state does not address the root causes of violence; it perpetuates the cycle and most often releases youth onto the street with no skills to heal or cope. Or it kills them outright.
Mr. Coppin’s death reminded me of two youth who were also killed in custody of the state several years ago in Boston. From the Globe:
Two recent suicides by young offenders have jolted Bolden and other state officials. In
December, 15-year-old Myron Watkins hanged himself with a sheet in the Metro Youth Services
Center, a Dorchester youth lockup that houses six detention and residential programs operated
by both the state and private vendors. Earlier this month, 17-year-old Charish Williams hanged
herself in another section of the facility.
The ultimate goal, says Childs, is to introduce the proper level of mental health services into the
juvenile justice system. But that can’t happen so long as young people are taken into DYS
custody without staffers even knowing about their earlier placements in the state’s mental health or social services system. For too long, says Preston, agencies have been “literally sealed off from one another,” leaving intake workers to scramble for information about a detainee. And it is around the time of handoff from one agency to the next, says Childs, that the young person is often the most emotionally defenseless.
Watkins, who had spent a lengthy period in a Department of Social Services facility in Natick,
took his life less than a week after arrival in DYS lockup, according to Bolden. Williams, who had
been in foster care before her detention, committed suicide nine days after arrival. State officials, according to both Childs and Bolden, are still trying to determine whether staffers missed signs of suicidal behavior on Williams’s part.
One obvious weakness in the system is the intake process at DYS, which can be conducted by
anyone ranging from a social worker with a master’s degree to a relatively low-paid direct care
worker. Bolden expresses confidence in all of his staffers, who he says are highly resourceful. But, other state officials, including the DSS commissioner, Harry Spence, are urging investigators to determine the proper level of clinical review for young people entering the system.
The analysis is just beginning. But if, as expected, more than half of the boys and girls entering
DYS custody exhibit signs of mental illness, then the system might do well to shift from its current clinical base of social workers toward more psychologists or psychiatric nurses.
The article clearly points out that the mental health of young people getting in trouble is absolutely a matter of the highest concern. Like in the case of Mr. Coppin, these youth were unable to access adequate services to address their needs. Mr. Coppin’s killers did not know how to deal with his potential illness even though it appears the mother reached out to communicate that. So without trial or treatment, Coppin got the death penalty. Watkins and Williams were unable to survive their sentence due to lack of care, either during or before their incarceration.
As a low-paid direct service worker at a women’s health clinic, I have often been in situations with clients that were way, way beyond my training. While I think I have provided consistently high levels of care, the strain on staff is intense when dealing with issues like murder, rape, HIV, abortion, sexual abuse, assault, drugs, and domestic violence. There is room for self injury due to stress as well as the potential to hurt someone else who requires a higher standard of care. Even when services exist for people, what is the quality and long term impact? Are we treating people as whole human beings, or as parts?
If we continue to treat people like parts they will continue to come apart. Get an abortion without talking about health care or birth control? Get mental health care without addressing violence in the community? Get a caseworker who abuses you? Go to work and not get child care? Go to jail and not go to school?
As I transition into working both at the clinic and as director of a program for youth who are court-involved and locked up, it’s overwhelming to realize all these intersections between loss, violence, health, sex, crime, police, class, race, and see the same people consistently and systemically not being cared for and unable to care for themselves across all areas of their lives. People like Mr. Coppin, Mr. Watkins, and Ms. Williams.
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Then her friend pointed out the doll’s resemblance to Ms. Reid, who went home crying. Her mom, after reassuring Ms. Reid, also got her some Essence and Ebony magazines and put up a “Black Is Beautiful” poster in her bathroom. “This being the 1970s,” Ms. Reid said, “it wasn’t hard to find.”