'All the police saw was a big black man'

> She told me, ‘Call 911. Tell them it’s a 5150 call.’ I
> did. A ‘5150’ is a call for help for a mentally upset
> person.

Still glossing this over on the part of the deceased, are we? CA Welfare & Instutions Code 5150 in fact is:

"5150. When any person, as a result of mental disorder, is a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or gravely disabled..."

Read it for yourself at http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=1161221303+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

"Upset" is after you have a fight with your girlfriend over the toilet seat.

"A threat to others" arising from some kind of insanity.. a threat to innocent families - even women, even children - trying to watch a movie down at the mall, is a 5150.

> Too often, when the police see one of our young people in
> trouble ... they react with violence — sometimes brutally,
> sometimes fatally.
> San Francisco cannot afford to lose one more African
> American youngster. In the past 10 years, the City has
> lost 23 percent of its Black population.

You make it sound like that 23% was murdered! Nonsense, that 23% left because of rising rent from the high-tech boom from which they were excluded simply for their own lack of a competitive education and skillset.

The cops shouldnt have killed Idris, but we shouldn't be pretending he wasn't psychotic, violent, and a threat to others. It sounds like he was aware of his problem and knew he was a danger to those around him, but that doesn't make him harmless. If he's so bad that he has to clear out a theater, he should have been staying home instead.

*Sj,
reminding everyone of unpleasant other side of this coin.

Stop policebrutality!!!

Sorry... But when I read this story..., as a reader of esp. Gandhi (no principal pacifist) and M.L. King (a principal pacifist), I've got to say: F#CK THE POLICE

Or even: KILL THE POLICE (ICE-T) - not the good guys and girls within the police-corps; THE POLICE CAN'T BOTHER ME (2PAC-TUPAC SHAKUR, his heritage is in his mothers hands...)

STOP POLICEBRUTALITY!!!

And I still believe that people who're going 'mad', that this has more to do with poverty, social exclusion and being lonely, than with a kind of biological or just any hearsayingquestion...

Kind greetings,
Martin-Gent-Belgium

Note: Sorry for the broken English

I wish you guys and grrrls would all remember with dignity he who was gunned down by policebrutallity - all the shots...
Please rememeber him with dignity!
R.I.P. Let him Rest In Peace our brother

M@#
Belgium

Yes it does mean dangerous to others. yes he was mentally unfit. Does that make him less of a person? everyone has problems, and is different. if we all used labelling as an excuse for every problem where would we end up? The fact that cleared the theatre shows that he is capable of living in sociaty even with his problems, and so NO, he should not have stayed at home. I doubt the theatre had a wheelchair ramp, should all wheelchair users be forced to stay at home?
We employ police to train to deal with all of the social problems we face, so they should a) make sure they get the training an b) use it.