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Calling it a choice is misleading. He was suffering from depression and suicidal ideation. He wasn't in a sound state of mind necessary to make a choice about
by pluma 11y ago
Calling it a choice is misleading.
He was suffering from depression and suicidal ideation. He wasn't in a sound state of mind necessary to make a choice about killing himself. He died from depression. The circumstances merely contributed to that.
The reasoning behind the "murder" rhetoric isn't entirely wrong. That he wasn't treated any different from any other suspect doesn't mean the way he was treated didn't contribute to his death.
If a suspect dies from law enforcement SOP due to a pre-existing health condition (e.g. tackling someone who already has trouble breathing) we tend to be outraged about that, SOP or not. In this case the health condition was depression with suicidal ideation -- it's not unreasonable to blame the behaviour of the prosecutors for bringing about his death even if the same behaviour wouldn't have led to the death of a healthier suspect.
Personally I think this is more of a failure of mental health care than of the prosecution -- although one could debate whether their indifference to his condition, or the general politics involved in their decisions, is indicative of other problems. He should have been under professional mental care and counselling. Prosecutors aren't mental health care professionals -- they're not qualified to judge his stability or risk to himself.