In the US, the Mentally Ill Are Victims of Police Violence Too

It would be very easy to simply blame bad cops for this. But it is beyond bad cops, and it would be a mistake to frame it this way because it cannot lead us to the answer as to why it happens so frequently in the most advanced and wealthiest society on earth.  I can't imagine doing what these men did and would not be a cop. But we cannot change this situation by changing one cop for another or replacing an entire police force with another. That's why the death sentence has to be opposed as it accomplishes nothing and it is workers, the poor, racial minorities and in the US especially, the mentally ill, that are the victims of it. State security forces should not be doing this and are not equipped to in every way imaginable.

It is a tragic failure of a society that doesn't care about people, a system in which the accumulation of capital and profit for a small minority of people is the main aim of all economic activity. And this is what affects all other social activity, the maintenance of society and its inhabitants as well as the stewardship of the natural world.

The mentally ill are a burden, to care for them is "money out".  Ensuring their well being as best as possible is by no measure a potentially profit making venture. The very rich who have the misfortune to produce a child that suffers debilitating mental illness or physical disabilities that require acute 24 hour care have the ability to provide it as capitalism will provide it for a price. Without money and providing such care is expensive, people do the best they can with often catastrophic consequences.

What civilized society would not ensure that a person like this does not have the needs they require to live a decent life? We have the money. And imagine what this does to a family. Think of Jeff Bezos' $169 billion earned off the backs of Amazon workers when we are told we cannot provide for the mentally ill.

What civilized society allows a situation like this to exist at all?  We can argue that the cops seemed decent enough and they had to do what they did but they chose to be cops and they are to blame regardless. But it lets the system off the hook in a way. This happens all the time as the article accompanying the video explains. Why are cops dealing with this problem but more important why does the problem exist at all? These people are not qualified to deal with this situation, a situation that wouldn't arise in a civilized society. It's not only cops that aren't qualified to deal with this situation as frequently those that work in institutions supposedly set up to deal with the mentally ill are also not equipped and the institutions themselves are inadequate.

Like "correctional institutions" are not institutions aimed at correcting anything but simply the warehousing of human beings capitalist society has abandoned, so mental institutions (often prisons themselves) are there to warehouse the mentally ill. This does not mean that every person working in this field is a callous uncaring individual, but it is impossible to overcome an individual the failings of society as a whole.

Also, the depression and massive problem of mental illness in the US and other societies must surely be a product of an inhuman society much like the psychosis chickens and other animals have as a result of industrial farming.

In short, capitalism is sick society. It is a society hostile to both humanity and the natural world of which we are a part.

Here is the BBC article that accompanied this video