Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, moments after shocking police video was released showing an Illinois officer fatally shooting Sonya Massey after she called police fearing a home intruder.
In his first public statement since dropping his bid for re-election, Biden said the shooting of Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by white Sangamon county sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson, in her home in Springfield, after a dispute over a pot of boiling water, “reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not”.
Biden, who is recovering from Covid at his home in Delaware, said Massey, “a beloved mother, friend, daughter and young Black woman … should be alive today”.
A good friend of mine lives in Burlington, VT and has schizophrenia. There is a service there, First Call, that will send people trained to recognize mental illness and deescalate the situation only getting police involved as a last resort.
Or at least that’s how it is supposed to go. Said friend was still drug away by police with First Call on the scene before. At least they weren’t shot, I guess. Still if they are ever in need of outside intervention I saved the number in my phone and I’m sure as shit not calling the police on them.
I wish more cities had a similar service.