Policing the emotionally disturbed.

In New YorkCity from 1971 to 1975, only 1.6 per cent of all police firearms discharges involved the class of people police have since come to call emo tionally disturbed persons (EDPs). Still, because po lice were comparatively unrestrained in those years, the number of such incidents was quite large: 46, or better than 9 per year.1 In theyears since then, police shootings have declined dramatically; fatal shootings by NewYork police have decreased from 93 in 1971 to 11 in 1999. There, as in most big cities, police apparently have become muchmore sophisticated in helping officers to avoid shootings of all kinds, in cluding those involving EDPs. If the lawyers who call me, in my capacity as a police practices expert, to request a consultation in their cases are any indication, however, the decrease in EDP shootingsmay not hold true in manysmaller and midsized U.S. police jurisdictions. With great regularity, I hear variants of the same story: my cli ent'sdecedent, the lawyer will tellme,was a troubled young man who had just undergone a great emo tional shock. He ran out onto the street with a knife, shouting and frightening people, but never really at tacked anyone. The policewerecalled; theysawhim, drew their guns, and closed in on him, warninghim to drop his knife. He backed up until he was against a wall, then tried to run. Because the police had cut off all his escape routes, he was then running in a police officer's direction with a knife in his hand; consequently, the police shot and killed him to de fend their colleague. With only minor differences, I have worked on such cases in suburban, rural, and small city police agencies from Texas, Florida, and New Mexico to Maine and Michigan; from Califor nia and Oregon to New Jersey and New York. They are terrible tragedies that victimize police officers as well as EDPs and their families, that strain the rela tionship between police and community, and that have cost police chiefs and elected officials their ca reers. Certainly,unlike the not-too-distant past, they no longer go unnoticedor written offas unavoidable "nut-with-a-knife" cases. The major reason that the big cities have become more sophisticated than smaller jurisdictions in re solving EDPsituations isa simple matter of numbers and exposure. The New York City Police Depart ment (NYPD) responds to about 18,000 EDP calls every year, and eventhe small number that have gone wrong …