Here we go again. 32 years later.
Police Commissioner James O’Neill says the NYPD did not follow procedures on how to handle the mentally ill in the fatal police shooting of 66 year old Deborah Danner in her Bronx apartment.
“We do have policies and procedures for emotionally disturbed people and it appears those procedures were not followed.”
I can’t believe we are here AGAIN.
To many of us this is Deja vu all over again.
Same borough of the Bronx, Mentally ill elderly African American woman killed by the NYPD inside her OWN apartment, and both cases happened even the same month of October.
I started in journalism covering the Eleanor Bumpurs case in 1984, and at the courthouse, went into the bathroom and threw up after looking at photos of the fatally shot body of 66 year old Bumpurs. .
Emergency Services police were called in evict Bumpurs from her apartment who was four months behind on her monthly rent of $98.65. Police were told that Bumpurs was emotionally disturbed, had threatened to throw boiling lye, and was using a knife to resist eviction. When Bumpurs refused to open the door, police broke in. In the struggle to subdue her, and Bumpurs was waiving a knife, according to court testimony. One officer Stephen Sullivan, fearing his partner’s life was in danger, shot Bumpurs twice with 12-gauge shotgun. One pellet from the first shot struck Bumpurs’ hand; all nine pellets from the second shot struck her in the chest, killing her. The PBA argued: “This 300-pound woman suddenly charged one of the officers with a 12-inch butcher knife, striking his shield with such force that it bent the tip of the steel blade.”
All types of protocols were put into place for the police dealing with EDP’s. Emotionally Disturbed Person, and now this happens again in the Bronx the other day.
Sgt. Hugh Barry has been stripped of his badge and gun after he fatally shot Deborah Danner inside her Pugsley Ave. apartment near Seward Ave. in Castle Hill Tuesday evening.
Police says Danner was “acting in an irrational manner” and threatened Barry and his team with scissors. The NYPD Sgt had convinced Danner to drop the scissors she was threatening cops with but shot her twice when police say she swung a baseball bat at him.