After wrapping up a project for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, my digital journalism class will be shifting their focus on reporting about the state of Milwaukee's mental health services. The projects are being supervised by Professor Herbert Lowe in partnership with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and their reporter Meg Kissinger.
Kissing has visited the class twice and shared her experiences in covering mental health and started to outline her vision of the project, where each group profiles a different member of the community dealing with patients combatting mental health. I will be paired up with Monique Collins covering the role of police officers.
Police officers are usually the ones that answer the calls of disturbances or issues being caused by mental health patients. Calls dealing with these patients are addressed by specially trained officers. In several cases, the person being brought into custody never really meant harm to others.
In recent local news, Milwaukee has been investigating the death of a 25-year-old mental health patient that was brought into the Mental Health Complex and died of a broken neck while awaiting treatment. He was brought there by police in handcuffs.
Giving my own take, a person causing a disturbance that is also suffering with mental health issues, might be more rattled while seeing a police officer detain them and putting metal bracelets on them. While researching the police officer's role, I was curious if there were other ways of approaching the issue.
I remember watching the "Imminent Danger Piece" on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's website and early on the topic was being discussed about how police get involved into a situation and how control is assumed. I found it very interesting how the idea is being developed where a person can sign off on their personal control once authorities start to feel that they can pose a threat to others.
Kissing has visited the class twice and shared her experiences in covering mental health and started to outline her vision of the project, where each group profiles a different member of the community dealing with patients combatting mental health. I will be paired up with Monique Collins covering the role of police officers.
Police officers are usually the ones that answer the calls of disturbances or issues being caused by mental health patients. Calls dealing with these patients are addressed by specially trained officers. In several cases, the person being brought into custody never really meant harm to others.
In recent local news, Milwaukee has been investigating the death of a 25-year-old mental health patient that was brought into the Mental Health Complex and died of a broken neck while awaiting treatment. He was brought there by police in handcuffs.
Giving my own take, a person causing a disturbance that is also suffering with mental health issues, might be more rattled while seeing a police officer detain them and putting metal bracelets on them. While researching the police officer's role, I was curious if there were other ways of approaching the issue.
I remember watching the "Imminent Danger Piece" on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's website and early on the topic was being discussed about how police get involved into a situation and how control is assumed. I found it very interesting how the idea is being developed where a person can sign off on their personal control once authorities start to feel that they can pose a threat to others.