Police Kill Mentally Ill Man

Two police in Mason, Ohio used repeated Taser prods and kicking with their books to kill a mentally ill man. I wrote to the mayor and chief of police. No doubt you and the “damage control” specialists are labeling it an “incident.” However, the clear evidence makes it self-evident that Officers Daniel Fry and Sean McCormick tortured and murdered Doug Boucher, an unarmed man, mentally ill. The number of Taser strikes, his bloody face, the forensic evidence of being kicked with boots – it’s beyond imagining what the last interval of this man’s life must have been like. How pitiful, how shameful, how horrifying that when they roughly grabbed his arms to handcuff him they realized he was dead. The American public now knows it is routine for police officers who wrongfully assault and/or murder a person to claim that the person was threatening them. There’s even a word for it when used in court: “testa-lying.” Among those in a well-trained police force no officer would ever have to resort to this shameful strategy. It goes without saying that the police officers in Mason need to have training to help them handle situations such as this without torturing or killing a person. The officers involved need to be relieved of duty. They also need therapy to deal with impulse control and anger. From their actions, it is logical to suspect that they are the ones with mental problems, much more dangerous to society than Doug Boucher who, though “mentally ill,” has no record of harming another human being. The police in Mason, ironically serving “Ohio’s largest playground,” must urgently reassess the purpose of what it means to protect and serve. It is essential for everyone that those words reflect reality, not just continue as meaningless phrases for self-praising speeches. We can have peace without employing police to act as bullies who use out of control force. Any society is judged by its treatment of the most helpless and the most innocent.