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I could never express as well or as eloquently as did Rev. Al Sharpton in his speech before a group of demonstrators and mourners of tens of thousands, and millions of others through television coverage, in honor of George Floyd on June 4, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, speaking of having a knee on our neck.

Even though I'm not capturing the full underlying issue that I think Rev. Sharpton was getting at, this piece concerns the brutal and sometimes deadly use of force that some police use when restraining uncooperative or even cooperative mentally ill people who need help and are in crisis. In this instance, I'm not speaking of someone being Black, I'm speaking of mentally ill people. 

Recently, a coroner in a Martinez courtroom ruled that the death of Angelo Quinto was an accident. The officer, once again, had a knee on Quinto's neck. Quinto was having a mental health crisis. 

Specifically, without bringing up the issue of racism or disablism, corrective measures can be enacted. That particular method of restraining a person could be strictly prohibited. Police could be given better training. Police could be made more accountable. 

Mentally ill people aren't going to change. Police must change and must treat mentally ill people as noncriminal. 

When we see these incidents in the news, it worsens the chances of a mentally ill person receiving the treatment we need. Concerned parents could be afraid to call the police for a 5150 because they have seen in the news how so many mentally ill people in crisis have been brutally killed, when they should have been helped. 

I'm fortunate that police treatment I've received when in crisis has not done me any permanent physical damage. I'm grateful to police for doing their job of keeping the public safe and keeping the peace. As someone who can come across as normal, me, the treatment I've received from police in the past two decades has been okay. Yet I fear for those who have gotten sick in more recent times, since society has changed to become a far unkinder place than it was twenty and thirty years ago.