by Gwynn Guilford
Nick Pinto gives a chilling glimpse into the NYPD's treatment of the mentally ill:
In the space of a week in 2007, police officers shot and killed two emotionally disturbed men in Brooklyn. Khiel Coppin, 18, was holding a hairbrush under his shirt like a gun when police killed him in Bedford-Stuyvesant. David Kostovski, 29, was brandishing a broken bottle at police when he was shot in East New York. In 2008, when police responded to a call from the mother of 35-year-old Iman Morales, who wasn't answering his front door. When police arrived at the Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment, Morales, naked, retreated out the window and onto a ledge 10 feet above the sidewalk. Police called for an inflatable air bag to place on the sidewalk under Morales but didn't wait for it to arrive before shooting him with a Taser. Morales went stiff, fell headfirst onto the sidewalk, and died.
Part of the reason for the increased incidence of violent showdowns between the NYPD and the mentally ill is the shuttering of mental institutions.
The Dish 