By Black Star News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
Wednesday, the ACLU of Michigan filed a lawsuit against the Warren Police Department for the brutal beating of a Black man—who was suffering a mental health episode, that officers were said to be aware of.
On December 13, 2022, Alwanda Gibson,the mother of 26-year-old Christopher Gibson, said her son was having a mental health episode, after visiting a family member who was dying from cancer. Gibson noted that her son suffers from psychosis and schizophrenia.
Ms. Gibson said she believes her son seeing this family member, who is dying from cancer, “triggered his mental health crisis.”
Because of this, she called the Detroit Police Department to seek assistance for her son. But Christopher left the home before they arrived. He apparent wandered, coatless during the winter, into a gas station in the City of Warren, which borders Detroit. Gas station employees, worried about him, called the police. Christopher was taken into custody–and was brutalized while in police custody.
The ACLU lawsuits states that the Warren Police officers abused Christopher Gibson and violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights and ignored federal laws that were instituted to protect people with disabilities and those who need psychiatric care. The lawsuit also argues that there is a familiar pattern of abuse that the Warren Police Department has engaged in for years.
The Warren Police officers ignored Christopher’s references to his family member, who had cancer, with one officer telling him that he “picked the wrong city to be going through it in.” Another officer, while trying to put handcuffs on Christopher, told him “You’re mental, that’s fine. That doesn’t stop you from following directions.”
When Christopher resisted being put in handcuffs, officers pepper sprayed, tasered, and beat him.
Mark Fancher, a lawyer with the ACLU of Michigan Racial Justice Project, said Christopher could not follow directions because “The man was undergoing extreme trauma.” Fancher also said, Christopher was “tasered, beaten, pepper sprayed and threatened by a barking K-9.The video shows multiple officers applying their full body weight to him and causing these extreme injuries.“
Fancher also said that: “If officers regarded Mr. Gibson’s behavior as problematic, the antidote was not violence. No one should ever face the abusive treatment Mr. Gibson endured. He required compassion and treatment while in the throes of a mental health crisis, which would have made pepper spray, handcuffs, a taser, and brutalization unnecessary. This case makes clear, yet again, why Warren and other police agencies need to have mental health professionals to respond to – and prevent – horrific incidents such as this.”
Syeda Davidson, ACLU of Michigan staff attorney also spoke of the brutality Christopher Gibson endured at the hands of the Warren Police Department police officers: “What happened to Mr. Gibson graphically highlights how ill-equipped police officers can be when interacting with people experiencing mental health issues. Mental health experts – not police officers trained to unleash their militaristic mentality – need to be responding to situations like the one Mr. Gibson was facing. Until that happens, tragedies like this, sadly, will continue to occur.”
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