Lilburn, GA — Dramatic video was uploaded to Facebook over the weekend showing Georgia Tech police shoot and kill a fourth-year engineering student from Lilburn, Georgia. The victim, identified as 21-year-old Scout Schultz was barefoot and holding a multi-tool at the moment cops opened fire.
According to NBC, at a news conference Monday, Schultz’s family’s attorney said the student was experiencing a “mental breakdown” on the night of the shooting.
“What was Scout doing that day?” said the attorney, L. Chris Stewart. “Standing there disoriented, having a mental breakdown and was shot from 20 feet away.”
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, police were responding to a 911 call when they confronted Shultz in front of the campus parking garage.
In the dramatic video, police are heard screaming at Schultz who is yelling back at police, “Shoot me!”
Screaming at a person with a mental illness is not only futile, it only serves to further confuse, frighten, and provoke said person — especially if that person is in the midst of a breakdown — like Schultz was.
As one officer appeared to show bravery and attempt to de-escalate the situation by calmly engaging Schultz, his voice was overpowered by the other voices demanding Schultz drop the knife.
“Drop the knife!” yell the officers, which only seems to further disturb Schultz.
“What’s your name!” repeatedly screams another officer as if that was going to help the situation.
Another officer yells to drop the knife one more time before Schultz takes a small step forward and is shot. Shultz’s screams were chilling. Shultz would be taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, but would not make it.
Stewart told reporters that Schultz was holding a multi-tool, which contained pliers, a screwdriver, and a “tiny, little knife.” Stewart also noted that the knife was never exposed while police threatened and eventually killed Schultz.
“That’s one of the biggest problems in this country is officer’s actions with the mentally ill,” Stewart said, adding that more training needs to be implemented for police officers.
According to NBC, William Schultz, Scout’s father, called his son “the greatest kid.” When asked what he would say to the officer who shot Scout, William Schultz said: “Why did you have to shoot? That’s the question. That’s the only question that matters now.”
William Schultz added that his child had a 3.9 GPA and planned to graduate in December, according to the report.
“Scout wanted to make new medical devices, and now we’ll never know what Scout might have come up with,” Scout’s mother, Lynne, said. And she’s right, thanks to untrained cops who were unable to think of any other solution to this incident other than deadly force.
Did the officers in the video below show courage and only kill Scout as a last resort? You be the judge.
If your answer to the above question is ‘yes’ after watching the video, perhaps you should consider the videos below.
Recent body cam footage from officers in the United Kingdom was released last year that shows how reluctant their police are to resort to deadly force. The stark contrast in violent escalation between UK cops and US cops highlights the dangerous overzealous nature of American police.
Northamptonshire resident, Lee Vickers proved to be an especially dangerous man last year after he grabbed a large butcher knife and charged after police. Had he been an American citizen, he would have been immediately killed. He presented a very real and deadly threat, and even non-police officers would have been justified in the use of deadly force against him.
However, two brave police officers disarmed him without harming a hair on his head. The level of restraint exhibited by the two officers in the video below sheds light on the sheer tragedy of so many senseless deaths at the hands of police in the US. Unarmed teenagers, men, and women are constantly being gunned down US cops who are trained to kill first and ask questions later.
How many mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters would still have their families if American police acted more like police in the UK?
For the naysayers who think that Vickers’ case is an isolated act of heroism, think again. The lack of deadly force is so common by police in European countries that it’s not only been documented multiple times, but it’s been caught on film multiple times.
It is high time this country looks closely at the way it trains its police force.
Information from the World Health Organization states that schizophrenia affects about 24 million people across the world, with a wordwide prevalence of about .7%.
It’s important to note that prevalence of a disease is different than incidence of the disease. A prevalence of .7% - 1.1% does not reflect how many people are diagnosed with schizophrenia each year. Rather, prevalence refers to the number of people who have schizophrenia at a given time, indicating how widespread the disease is. Incidence, on the other hand, refers to the number of people who are newly diagnosed with schizophrenia during a given time period and indicates the likelihood of being diagnosed with the disease. Because schizophrenia is a chronic disease and people diagnosed with schizophrenia continue to have it throughout their life, prevalence is quite a bit higher than incidence. The World Health Organization estimates that the incidence rate of schizophrenia is about 3 per 10,000 people.
So if we accept the fairly conservative estimate of 3 per 10,000 Americans with schizophrenia which shows up overwhelmingly in young adults, in a country of 350 million people, we can estimate that 105,000 people strongly biased toward college age young people will be schizophrenic at any given time.
Sometimes, we have to consider what the stats really mean, even when applied to such a huge population. The numbers do mean something.
Come now, anxiety and depression and phallic longings do not result in a man with a tiny knife charging fully armed police officers.
No, it results in a person (who has attempted suicide before) writing three suicide notes then calling 911 and telling the operator there's a student with a knife and gun threatening others.
There’s more to be found at the source. There is video of the moment in question where Schultz is heard shouting, “Shoot me!” at the police. There were three suicide notes left at the dorm. He had, according to his family, attempted suicide on multiple occasions before. And, as noted in the excerpted section above, it was Schultz himself who placed the call to draw the cops to the area, providing a description of himself and saying that “the unidentified male” had not only a knife, but a gun.
This isn’t a question of heavy handed police coming down on activists or anything of the sort. It’s also not a story of racism since Schultz was white. This is a textbook case of suicide by cop carried out by a very disturbed individual with a history of presenting a definite danger to himself if not others. In the video linked above you can hear the police making every effort to talk Schultz out of this and attempting to get him to drop the knife and cooperate. He refused and instead advanced on them. They already had reports (without knowing Schultz was the one who made them at that point) saying there was also a gun. At that point what were they supposed to do? . . .
No, it results in a person (who has attempted suicide before) writing three suicide notes then calling 911 and telling the operator there's a student with a knife and gun threatening others.
Suicide by cop.
Pretty much,but that doesn't mean the cops have to play along.
Maybe we should just hire smarter cops? Ones that can think,instead of always reacting like mindless automons?
