Anguish, frustration, uncertainty and stress have taken over Kerry Emanuel’s life. Three months ago his brother Junior Gulliver, who it was claimed was mentally ill, was shot dead by police. To date there are conflicting reports about what actually took place as the police are adamant that the cutlass wielding Gulliver attacked them. Emanuel however maintains that the farmer and father of two was unarmed at the time.
This case is one of many that have occurred over the years and raise questions about the police’s ability to deal with persons who are mentally ill. Often, families would ask why ranks had not employed other methods. This also is Emanuel’s contention.
During a recent interview with Stabroek News, the young man while making it clear that his brother was no “mad man” and that he had no mental issues, questioned why police did not try to subdue Gulliver or break his leg as a form of restraint.
Deaths in such circumstances have gained the attention of those in the mental health arena, the Ministry of Health and now the Guyana Police Force, which has been investing time into training its ranks on how to respond to a scene where a mentally challenged person may be creating havoc. Observers have said that the best remedy for the Force is to always be prepared as when called to a scene, they may not always be aware that they will be confronted with someone who is mentally ill.
According to Assistant Commissioner of Opera-tions David Ramnarine, “Apart from what is taught to ranks in the training school and what is in the force’s standing order within the last few months over 100 ranks particularly frontline anti-crime ranks are given a special package which includes a course on the mentally challenged.”
This subject, he informed is lectured by a very senior officer who has the requisite training and experience.
Asked how long such an initiative would have started, he said that he could not recall the exact date but knew it would have been just before the May 11 elections.
He was unable to say how in-depth the training on dealing with the mentally challenged is at the level of the force’s training school. However, Stabroek News was informed by persons in the force that mental health at the Training School is nothing close to expansive and does not have a prominent place in the curriculum.
Minister of Health Dr George Norton has confirmed that the ministry, having taken note of the deaths and the difficulties the ranks are facing in dealing with such persons, has been working along with the police.
In an invited comment, he said there have been some training courses. “They are short probably superficial but you know it is a good start where psychiatrists and persons from the Mental Health Unit have been meeting with the Guyana Police Force and other stakeholders,” he said.
While making it clear that he can only speak to the last five months, he stressed, “We are off to a good start.”
Norton said it was the ministry that took the first step in this collaboration, adding that it was fuelled by a need to bridge the gap between the police and mentally ill persons.
Complex issue
Vidyaratha Kissoon, a social activist who is interested in decent policing based on human rights, said that tackling mental health will be complex for the police. He said the police ought to be close enough to the community to be aware of those who are mentally ill.
“We need police who are compassionate. They must be willing to engage and understand what mental health is all about. Besides training they must have a personal interest,” he said.
Kissoon stated that Guyana does not have enough mental health support mechanisms so that who decides “who is mad could be arbitrary.” He said the police should be trained to deal with all kinds of situations.
“The police always claim they are guided by the laws of Guyana and the associated practices. It is clear that any reforms in how the police respond to situations with mentally ill persons will be based on a national and political will which transforms how Guyana deals with mental health. We cannot, for example, be charging persons who have attempted suicide,” he said.
Further, he pointed out that he has read that an effective police response to mental health includes selecting officers who are interested in working with mentally ill persons and have compassion, then appropriate training and review, and also intelligence at community level as to who the persons are and what are their challenges. He added that there are some persons who are provoked into action and that kind of behaviour has to be monitored.
“It is not easy, given that anecdotal evidence is suggesting that there are many persons, including young persons who are becoming more and more violent and the police themselves might be questioning the boundaries of what is sanity and insanity,” he said.
Kissoon told Stabroek News that recognising a principle of “do no harm” and then giving the police the appropriate skills, knowledge and tools should be the aim so that any encounters with persons with mental health problems are based on a recognition of common humanity.
He also called for all cases where police have killed suspects to be investigated thoroughly and the appropriate sanctions taken, regardless of the mental state of the suspect.
Three for the year
For this year there have been three reported cases of mentally ill persons being shot dead by police while a rank was stabbed to death by a mentally ill man who later turned the knife of himself.
The first case occurred in June and claimed the life of 18-year-old Regan Richards of Wismar, Linden. Prior to his death, the teen had shot Police Constable Victor Fausette in his head, leaving him gravely wounded. The policeman was hospitalized for some time as a result of the injury.
The police had said that Fausette had responded to complaints of an armed man brandishing a cutlass and chasing residents of the community. When he arrived, he took Richards of One Mile Extension, Wismar into custody. Richards was said to have been mentally unstable.
However, at the Wisroc Police Outpost, the police said, an altercation occurred and Richards overpowered Fausette, took away his service weapon, shot him in the head and fled.
Richards was tracked down at his home where he allegedly opened fire on police and was shot dead.
The second case was that of Gulliver and it occurred in July at Strathavon, Cane Grove Mahaica.
Police had said in a press release that around 15:00 hrs on July 4 ranks of the Cane Grove Police Station responded to reports that Gulliver, who was reported to be mentally unstable, was threatening a woman with a cutlass at Strathavon.
During their investigations the police were attacked by Gulliver, who was armed with the cutlass, causing them to resort to the use of force and he was shot to his body, the release said. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Mahaicony Hospital.
The windscreen and other parts of a motor vehicle that was used by the ranks to get to the scene were also damaged by Gulliver during the incident, the release said.
The police’s Office of Professional Responsibility launched an investigation into the matter which is now in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Stabroek News was unable to ascertain what the DPP’s position on the matter is. Two ranks have been implicated in the shooting and it is unclear if they are still on the job.
However, a grief-stricken Emanuel posited that if the ranks had acted professionally the outcome would have been different.
Despite the police’s description of his brother, Emmanual said, “He wasn’t mentally ill. He operated like a normal person.” He added that Gulliver could not have fitted the description of such a person as he worked as a farmer planting the nine acres of land his house sat on. Emmanuel described a mentally ill person as someone who ate out of garbage bin, walked around without clothes and behaved crazy. He said his brother did none of those things. He said that his brother would only become angry and lash out if someone got him really vexed.
He said that since the killing the police have told the family nothing; they were able to find out on their own that the file is at the DPP.
Emanuel recalled being at home and hearing two gunshots. He rushed to his brother’s home and found him lying on his back dead. “When I put my hand on my brother he wasn’t breathing… [nor was] his heart beating,” he said, adding that his brother had no chest wounds but was bleeding heavily to the back. He said that both shots entered his brother’s body through the back as at the time of the shooting he was attempting to climb down a ladder which was the only means of access to the building. One bullet, he said, hit Gulliver to his left back just above his waist damaging his liver and other organs while the second shot struck his spine before exiting under the right arm.
The man said he told the ranks who were armed with a pistol and rifle respectively that the fact that his brother was shot in the back and above his waist meant that the shooting was “intentional”.
He said his brother’s lifeless body was dragged to a nearby dam and left lying there for hours. Emanuel was adamant that his brother had no sharp implement next to him when he arrived at the scene. A cutlass which Gulliver used, was lying beneath his house, Emanuel said.
“What they [police] say that the man attack them with the cutlass is false,” he insisted adding that the shooting occurred in front of residents.
Emanuel said too that to date police have not given the family a copy of the autopsy results.
He said he had gone to the morgue to witness the autopsy, but was only required to identify his brother’s remains. After the post-mortem examination was complete, he said, he was shocked when a rank informed him that Gulliver was “shot to the front. That was not true. At the front of he didn’t had no hole…When the detective told me that I said that was crazy.”
The man said he was upset at the way his brother’s life was snuffed out particularly since he didn’t involve himself in problems with anyone. He said the complaint to the police was made by a woman living nearby, who was upset because Gulliver would trouble her daughter who he liked. It reached a point where the woman began calling Gulliver names, which led to an exchange between them and Gulliver threw a bottle at her.
Emanuel said the allegation that his brother damaged a windscreen and other parts of a motor vehicle are untrue as the driver told him that it was someone else who inflicted the damage not Gulliver.
Emanuel said the matter is now in the hands of the law and there is very little he and his family can do, but added that had it been a civilian who had killed his brother that person would have been on remand.
On September 18, Police Constable Antonio Dawson, 27, was fatally wounded while trying to arrest Frederick Samuels, who had kept him and other ranks at bay for a while near the Gafoors Complex at Houston, East Bank Demerara. Samuel’s relatives later said that he was mentally unstable.
A police statement had said ranks on a marine patrol in the Demerara River acted on information and went to the Houston wharf, where they spotted the man acting in a suspicious manner.
They approached him and attempted to conduct a search but he resisted and assaulted one of them.
He proceeded to an area in the vicinity of the Gafoors Complex, where he was approached by ranks of a mobile police patrol, who had been called to give assistance.
Police said during efforts to detain him, the man pulled out a knife and stabbed Dawson to his neck, chest, and abdomen. The man then stabbed himself about his body and slit his own throat.
Dawson was rushed to the GPH, where he succumbed while receiving treatment. His assailant was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
A relative of Samuels, who asked not to be named as he wasn’t there when the incident transpired, said, “What I understand from visiting the wharf it was more or less a provocation by the police that led to what transpired. Not the one who died, but others who were there.” He said Samuels did not “like police [nor] dealing with their attitude, their arrogance so if he was already agitated he would’ve become more so when he saw the police.”
Asked if he had ever dealt with Samuels while he was having a psychotic episode, the man said that he wasn’t living with relatives so “I didn’t deal with him every day. He was away from us for some time. This is not someone I dealt with every day but the way he dealt with family might’ve been very different than how he would’ve dealt with a stranger. The way he might deal with a confrontation with me and a stranger is very different because even at his most violent he retained that understanding of family.”
The man said that growing up Samuels was “a normal person.” All that changed after he returned from the interior where he had spent a long time.
In giving recommendations, the man said that there is need for a special squad trained by medical practitioners or specialists on how to deal with these cases. “Most times when persons are dealing with someone suffering mental illness the first place they go to have that person removed is the police.” He said that when the police turn up they are already thinking of protecting themselves. “… Once a person is mentally ill the police equate them with violence and the only way they know to handle violence is forcefully,” the relative said.
He called for the training of policemen to deal with psychiatric cases. “You have to know how to talk them down. In order to create this there needs to be joint effort between the force and the Ministry of Health…,” he stressed.
Further he said that there needed to be one or two ranks at each police station who is trained to deal with these cases.
