Tanisha Anderson, a 37-year-old Cleveland mother with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, died after Cleveland police responding to a Nov. 12, 2014, call for assistance from the family to take Tanisha to the hospital for evaluation tragically mishandled their response. After Anderson panicked and resisted, she was thrown to the pavement and a police officer kneeled on her as he tried to restrain her, and she later died. Anderson’s “sudden death associated with physical restraint in a prone position” was ruled a homicide by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office. But the officers involved were not prosecuted in her death based on findings that a heart condition and medications also contributed to her death.
That was then. This is now.
What should have happened to repair Cleveland police response to those in mental health crisis has not yet fully happened, at least not to the extent needed.
Despite reforms to Cleveland police response so that those responding to people in mental health crisis are better trained and knowledgeable in crisis response and often go out in company with behavioral health experts, the city still hasn’t deployed an unarmed “care-response” model. In that model, unarmed mental health specialists and peers trained in and focused on helping rather than escalating the crisis are deployed in situations where it’s safe to do so, rather than simply accompanying police.
Last year, on the 10th anniversary of Tanisha Anderson’s death, “Tanisha’s Law” was introduced in Cleveland City Council by council members Stephanie Howse-Jones, Rebecca Maurer and Charles Slife. It seeks to codify a care-response model to “send unarmed behavioral health clinicians to some emergency calls, instead of armed police officers,” cleveland.com reported at the time.
It’s an important and needed law. Yet it’s still awaiting action. The reason? The city of Cleveland appears to be “slow-walking” a study of 911 calls authorized by council two years ago.
There’s no excuse for that delay.
Cleveland officials are right to want to study 911 calls so they can fully assess both the needs and opportunities for an unarmed mental health response before proceeding with legislation.
But that means the city also must prioritize this study. There’s simply no reason to have let it drag out for years. And surely, Cleveland already analyzes 911 calls for purposes of budgeting, police training and personnel deployments. This isn’t rocket science.
Albuquerque, New Mexico; Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County; Durham, North Carolina; and Evanston, Illinois “each operate versions of ‘care response’ where behavioral-health experts, not police officers, are dispatched to some 911 calls involving mental illness, substance use or wellness checks,” cleveland.com’s Sean McDonnell reports.
It’s time for City Hall to finish its 911 study as quickly as possible so City Council can move on to resolving details of its proposed Tanisha’s Law expeditiously and constructively.
No one else in mental health crisis should have to die in the way Tanisha Anderson did. And they won’t — if Cleveland approaches this effort in a positive and collaborative way.
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