The story repeats itself with grim consistency all over the country.
A distraught family member, unable to calm a loved one in the throes of a psychotic or suicidal episode, calls police, desperate for help.
Officers arrive, tensions quickly flare, guns are drawn, people panic — and a troubled life is extinguished, sometimes within seconds.
Later, family members — people such as Shirley Marshall — are left to sort through the aftermath, stricken by the feeling that their plea for help precipitated their relative’s death. Marshall’s son, Jason Harrison, a black man with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was killed last year by Dallas police after he refused to put down a screwdriver.
– The Washington Post