It seems once again a person with mental illness was killed by police, perhaps needlessly. Mhai Scott, 38, worked for Club Demonstration Services, and was serving pizzas at a Costco in Sterling this Wednesday afternoon when coworkers noted her saying “crazy things” and getting agitated over the number of servings of pizza in a box. It is unclear at this time what was troubling her, but she alarmed her coworkers when she grabbed a knife and made “strange movements” with it. Naturally, the cops were called, and as is often the case, the cops treated her as they would any other criminal suspect, as somebody to shoot dead if she doesn’t obey orders.
Indeed, she didn’t obey orders to drop the knife, or the scissors she also was suspected of carrying, and so when she lunged at the cops, they indeed shot her dead.
“Preliminary indications are that she came at the deputies with a knife,” said Loudoun Sheriff Michael Chapman, as the Washington Post reported. “It’s a tragic situation. I feel for everybody involved.”
Nevertheless, upon reviewing the surveillance footage and interviewing some of the many people who were present, Chapman says he feels “confident in the way our deputies responded.”
Perhaps so, but nevertheless, the mentally ill should be responded to differently than typical criminals; they are motivated differently and often their actions can be neutralized without such deadly recourse as this.