"The fatal shooting of a man with mental illness shows Hong Kong police need a better response to such crises"
Daisy Cheung
Hong Kong Free Press
Published online: October 2024
The recent incident in North Point involving the death of a man with mental disorder at the hands of police responding to an emergency at his home is tragic, but unfortunately not uncommon worldwide.
In jurisdictions all over the world, police often act as first responders in cases involving mental health crises, even though in most cases they severely lack training on how best to support such individuals. A quick search reveals the names of countless vulnerable individuals who met untimely deaths due to interactions with police over just the past year.
As the number of such deaths increase, places around the world are beginning to take a long, hard look at the suitability of police involvement in situations involving people with a mental disability.
Many countries are calling for police reform, and in some cases, even the police themselves have concluded that they may not always be the most appropriate responders, since their presence may be an “escalating factor” itself.
What lessons can Hong Kong learn from the experiences of these countries? First, the issue of police inadequacy in the face of mental health crises must be recognised and squarely confronted, rather than swept under the rug as merely another incident where the fatality was unfortunate, but the use of force justifiable in the circumstances.
Concerns about how police in Hong Kong deal with people with mental disability are not new. In 2015, an autistic individual was wrongfully charged with manslaughter......(Please click here to view full text.)
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