Suicide: Taser Death of Mental Patient Leads NY Police Officer to Choose Death

Suicide is often indicative of mental illness.  Sadly, many of our law enforcement personnel have even more psychiatric problems than the people like Mr. Morales, who police regularly Taser and arrest on lunacy warrants.  Police officers have a mostly thankless job, and they are underpaid for the risks they take every day.  Many officers must work a second job doing guard duty just to make ends meet, after a long shift patrolling our streets to keep the peace and protect citizens.  Police officers have an even higher rate of divorce than the general population, which is very high indeed. 

To make the problem even worse, police officers are under great pressure to keep fit, and they have scheduled endurance tests.  Many police officers have turned to using STEROIDS in order to build physical strength.  Steroids work on the brain, causing aggressive and irrational behavior.  Consider the wrestler who killed his family and himself.

Top wrestler, Chris Benoit, kills family and himself
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/top-wrestler-kills-family-and-himself/2007/06/27/1182623990169.html

The stigma attached to mental illness prevents many people from seeking help when they experience psychological problems.  This stigma must be even greater for police officers than it is for others.  How long would they remain employed while building a thick psychiatric treatment file? 

There was no mention of the Lt. Pigott seeking psychiatric help for his suicidal tendacies after ordering Morales' deadly Tasering.  I am sure that as you say, Jim, Lt. Pigott's family would have preferred for him to have the courage to face whatever happened, even imprisonment.  The problems we face in life are only temporary, but irrational people tend to feel overwhelmed often, and some easily give in to suicidal thoughts. 

Suicide is expected to increase significantly in today's critical economic climate.

Here is one reason why mental patients need to be relocated from police custody to receive care in secure mental hospitals:  Many police are more deranged than the mental patients they arrest, due to officers using STEROIDS, which cause irrational, aggressive behavior.  Putting mental patients in police custody may be equal to leaving the zoo in the care of the gorillas.  Consider these headlines:

Steroid Abuse Can Contribute to Police Brutality -- Even Murder
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/US/story?id=775659&page=1

ABCNews.com
Marc Lallanilla
May 24, 2005

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Thank you very much for posting the videos.

The Police are here to help. They kill themselves (sometimes literally) for a public who ridicules them, belittles them, points fingers and crys when the "evil cops" wont let them off with breaking the law. Tasers are not non-lethal, they are less-lethal. If I were to taze or shoot you, which is more likely to kill you?

It's article like this that cry for the police to be held "accountable" that have made things so much worse. Yeah, cops today may be a little more off tilt, hmm, I wonder why? Could it be that years of the public telling cops they have to have the strength of superman, the gadetry of batman and the patience of Mother Teresa combined with Gandi has driven most of the "good" people from applying for the job? Then, just to make sure those who still want to be cops are beaten down more, we expect them to now every nuance of everyone's life. Every officer should know every law, every drug, every gang, every possible outcome of every situation they may ever enter. They should be a shrink and a full medical doctor.

It was a sad thing that Morales died. I'll agree. But he was sick. Sometimes when people are sick, they die. You can't save them all. It's sad, it's depressing, but hey, life is sad, life is depressing.

And what's with the sue the individual cops trip you're on? I would like to see Pigott's wife sue the Morales estate. He was a nutter and off his meds. His responsibility was to take his meds, and he didn't. He forced the police into a confrontation that led to his death. That death drove Pigot to suicide. So it is Morales's fault, his family should pay. Let me guess, Pigott's wife will never sue. She new full well (or should have) the dangers and pitfalls of police work. Just like Morales's mother new the dangers of a mentally ill son.

It's sad, it was a tragedy. Moral of the story, if you're sick, take your meds. Submoral, when the police tell you to do something, you do it.

Thank you very much for sharing your opinion with us, MShow.  As you said, "Sometimes when people are sick, they die."  I guess that is also why Lt. Pigott died.  He was likely sick with worry over his coming prosecution. 

You said, "When the police tell you to do something, you do it."  Many people have faced capital punishment at the hands of angry officers for acting contrary to orders, that is for sure.

Unfortunately, when people are sick or very intoxicated, they sometimes CANNOT follow police orders as they normally would.  Please consider this the next time you are out on patrol.  Please don't look at every citizen not following orders as an affront to your authority.  Some people really cannot do better than they are doing.  I beg you to please consider that.  If they were sober or in their right mind, they would likely give you full respect, officer.  Please try not to hurt them.  I implore you to have mercy in those cases.  Try not to Taser them or shoot them, unless it really is a situation where your life is threatened.  Please. 

Especially when dealing with mental patients, sir, I ask your indulgence.  Anything that you might be able to do to bring the citizen into custody without harming him or her, please take every precaution.  I respectfully and most humbly ask you to do this.  Sometimes it may be a circumstance where only you and God will know if you did your best to bring the mental patient into custody without harm, and it will not be played out on tape for the entire world to see.  If that ever happens to you, I beg you to please deal as gently as possible, while minimizing danger to yourself and your fellow officers.  God always sees, and He cares equally for you and for mental patients.  Please show mercy in His Holy Name, and He will bless you, I promise.

Sir, if you noticed my first post, I started out by saying that police officers have entirely too much stress.  Some of it is stress that we, the people, cannot relieve for you.  But I feel that a substantial increase in salary would go a long way to relieve stress on our law enforcement officers.  I regret that you officers sometimes come to work tired, having already worked all night on a guard duty job.  Then you must face the often dangerous job of police work, sometimes with little sleep.  You must be able to think quickly and not simply react quickly.  You need to be well rested and as relaxed as possible to do your job well.  I advocate for more money for police officers always.  This is something that society needs to insist upon in order to reduce your stress level.  I am not against police officers.  I am just against abuse of power.

Thank you again for taking the time to respond.  I appreciate very much getting your opinion on these events.  If you conduct a search in the NowPublic search field, you will find other articles about recent tragedies like this one.  Please feel free to share your opinion on any of those.  Also, visit our group at Care2 - Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill.  Feel free to join and share your opinions with the group.  http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI .

Before I end this post, I want to tell you about a mental condition that many acute patients have:  From Web Definitions -

Anosognosia is a condition in which a person who suffers disability due to brain injury, seems unaware or denies their handicap. This may include unawareness of quite dramatic impairments, such as blindness or paralysis.

Another definition is ‘a deficit of self-awareness related to cognitive and behavioral impairments due to brain injury.’

Such a conditions seems to be rampant among the teeming billions of humans. The widespread state of denial regarding the human relationship of mankind to his environment is evidenced by the ‘cognitive and behavioral impairments’ as seen by modern man.

He is unable to even admit to his own impaired condition, or his imminent peril, much less do anything about it.

You did not identify yourself as an officer of the law, and I ask that you forgive me if I assumed wrong about that.  I hope to hear from you again.  Thank you again for responding.