No One Cares About Crazy People
The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America
. . . But Linden will suffer for the rest of his life. Most of the bullets fired by Salt Lake City police on September 4 into his 13-year-old body–shoulders, intestines, bladder–are still there and may never be removed. The shots that shattered both his ankles apparently didn’t lodge.
The “investigation” into the cops’ behavior drags into its tenth day. Salt Lake City police promised the release of body-cam footage by “10 business days after the incident.” That would be Friday.
For background on Linden’s story–which has drawn international media attention–see more of my blogs on noonecaresaboutcrazypeople.com.
For recent updates, click on the links below:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/linden039s-medical-bills
(As they say in Old May-He-Ho)
Sorry; still steaming, still sarcastic.
The story below confirms what I suspected from the outset: the Salt Lake City police chief is going to smother the investigation into the Linden Cameron atrocity–13-year-old autistic boy shot several times by a cop–as long as he can get away with it, which may be forever.
Somehow it didn’t pull at my heartstrings to read that the chief discussed the shooting in a radio interview with “emotion clear in his voice.” It has been eight days, at this writing, since Linden was drilled. Is the chief waiting for the deadeye officer to finish writing his memoir?
Actually, the chief has announced that there will be four investigations (he said three, but then added another): one by an “outside police agency,” one by the district attorney’s office, and an internal investigation into whether there were any policy violations. (Duh.)
If there turn out to have been no policy violations, perhaps the policy could use a rewrite: Nix on firing several bullets into an unarmed panic-stricken boy.
The fourth investigation will be conducted by a “Citizen Review Board.” Such boards have earned respect in many cities, but police unions tend to detest them.
Maybe those four separate probes will produce a unified conclusion that shooting Linden–whose mother had called the police to help calm the boy during a psychotic spell–was an unnecessary and borderline criminal action.
Maybe, but don’t count on it. The more “investigations” pour into an incident like this one, the better the chances of a compromised finding: especially when at least two of those “investigation” entities share institutional DNA with the perpetrator.
Still, at least one former law-enforcement officer has criticized the “investigation” delay. Here is a significant pullout from near the end of the Deseret News story by reporter Amy Donaldson:
“[F] ormer Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank, who appeared on the Dave and Dujanovic show immediately after Brown, said police could be more transparent if they wanted to, and it wouldn’t compromise investigations.
“This is the mistake being made across the country time and time again. The nation has stood up and said, we have a problem and we need to discuss this. And the response from policing locally and across the nation is, ‘Well, we’re going to talk about it, investigate it, and we’ll tell you about it later.’ That is not satisfactory.”
Brave and eloquent words from a former police chief, as Linden’s story spreads around the world. Let’s see how much weight they carry in his hometown.
