Jacquelyn Sykes experienced the unthinkable five years ago when her boyfriend, Daniel Gillis, was shot and killed by a police officer after she called the authorities to help him. Following Gillis' death she fought for changes in the way Pittsfield Police respond to those in crisis, such as those in a mental health crisis. The community is now again engaged in this dialogue following the police shooting death of Miguel Estrella on March 25th. Once again, it was the victim's girlfriend who called authorities for help and the outcome was a death of a man in crisis. While there were many differences between the two incidents, the similarities are striking - men experiencing a mental health crisis with a knife in hand, both men were shot when they allegedly came at the respective officers. In both cases, internal PPD investigations indicated* that the officers were justified in the shootings according to use of force protocols.
* The investigation on Mr. Estrella's case has not yet concluded
In our conversation we cover a variety of topics, including: body cameras, crisis response clinicians, rethinking community response teams, police citizen advisory/oversight, and more.
Like each of the conversations on these issues, I hope this episode with Jacquelyn is helpful in the effort to lead to solutions that would lead to changes that would help us avoid these types of tragic outcomes in the future.