Use of force justified?
Jan 2 2008 | Comment 1
Mankato police kill naked intruder
Mankato police kill man wielding broken glass
liz | 2:03 PM | Uncategorized
The Trouble with Spikol | Make Major Moves | PW Style | Cup o'Joel
Mankato police kill naked intruder
Mankato police kill man wielding broken glass
liz | 2:03 PM | Uncategorized
Liz Spikol was born in Philadelphia sometime in the 20th century. She started writing about her experience as a person with mental illness in 1999, while employed at Philadelphia Weekly as the paper’s managing editor. Aside from serving as that paper’s web editor, music editor, staff writer, senior editor, executive editor and a host of other random roles that she couldn’t make up her mind about, she has also worked as a Spanish teacher, as a Certified Peer Specialist during Philly’s system-wide transformation and as a communications specialist for a prison reform organization. Currently, she works at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and writes book reviews for PW. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about medications, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, SAD (and many other acronyms), mad pride, Big Pharma, celebrities, hospitals, stigma and the recovery movement. And other stuff.
It sounds like the police were left with the choice of either shooting or retreating, unless they had some less lethal kind of weapon they could’ve used. It must’ve been a really bizarre and frightening experience for them to see a naked man approaching with a piece of broken glass. I think also that police in a small town like Mankato may be less prepared for this kind of thing than big city police, so they may have fewer alternatives.
I don’t think it was the bipolar disorder or anything like that which caused the guy to do what he did – I think it was the drug (the methamphetamine). I’ve heard many stories of people doing very bizarre and violent things when under the influence of methamphetamine, and sometimes not even remembering what they did the next day. It seems to be a particularly dangerous drug in terms causing violent behavior, and I don’t think it matters whether or not the person taking it had a diagnosable mental illness. I think it can affect anyone in very bad ways.
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