An Asian American Teen Was Having A Mental Health Crisis When Police Killed Him

[Nevilledog]

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Venessa Wong
@venessawong
A new story from me: Christian Hall, a Chinese American teen in northeastern Pennsylvania, was suicidal and called 911. The police who arrived at the scene saw a weapon and eventually shot and killed him. His hands were hands up https://buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/christian-hall-police-shooting… via @BuzzFeedNews

An Asian American Teen Was Having A Mental Health Crisis When Police Killed Him
Christian Hall’s parents brought him to America in hopes of giving him a better life. Instead, he fell victim to institutional failures that harm many others who don’t fit the “model minority” myth....
buzzfeednews.com
9:19 AM · May 21, 2021

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/christian-hall-police-shooting

Christian J. Hall stood precariously on the ledge of a highway overpass near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, looking down at the cars passing beneath him. It was the early afternoon of Dec. 30, 2020, a cold, windy day.

Christian had called 911 anonymously, reporting “a possible suicider.” Pennsylvania State Police troopers arrived at the scene and formed a wide perimeter around the 19-year-old with their vehicles, behind which armed troopers urged him to put down the gun he was holding and talk it out.

For an hour and a half, the troopers tried to deescalate the situation, but Christian mostly stood or sat on the pavement, disengaged, nearly motionless. Very little happened for a long time. Christian put on a coat. He smoked. The troopers repeated their commands over and over: Put down the gun, come over, let’s talk. “I promise no one will hurt you,” a trooper said. “You have my word.”

Eventually Christian did start to move toward the troopers, slowly putting one foot in front of the other, inching forward, his arms down at his side, gun in one hand. They fired three shots, which struck the concrete highway barrier. Christian’s arms flew up, outstretched. He stopped walking. “Drop the gun!” a trooper shouted. Christian took one small step forward and put his hands up, pointing the gun toward the sky. Then he was still for a moment — a stillness of about two seconds that was shattered by the sound of more bullets. Police opened fire at Christian from about 70 feet away. He was hit three times, causing his body to fold and hit the ground. The weapon in his hand turned out to be an airsoft pellet gun.

*snip*

[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. My heart goes out to Christian

I am white looking have called cops to take me to the hospital in a mental health crisis and got mistreated. I suffer to think what Black ,Brown and Asian people face when asking for help from police.

Police need to stop being used to go out on mental health crisis calls.

Use the EMTs. Create a counseling team to help the mentally ill in crisis. Cops are unfit for the job.

Cops can't be trusted to help or do the correct things to help mentally ill people.