Wellness Within Calls for Removal of Police from Mental Health Crisis Response Following Deaths in Custody
Wellness Within is devastated to hear of another person dying while in police custody on February 28, 2025. This is following a death in police custody less than one week prior on February 22, 2025. Both men were experiencing mental health crises when police say they were called to the scene. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims. Cases like these continue to remind us that police presence is dangerous, and often fatal, to those experiencing mental illness.
Wellness Within echoes experts calling for alternatives to police when intervening and managing mental health crises, and increased role for civilian-only approaches. Board Chair Natasha Hines says, “People with mental illness should never have to fear for their safety or the possibility of legal ramifications if they require help — policing is not the answer”.
This is a tragic reminder that conducted energy weapons can be lethal — weapons that are disproportionately deployed in mental health cases and against racialized individuals. The inappropriate and excessive use of tasers in Canada and globally by police has been well documented by advocates and prison justice organizations for decades.
Police involvement in mental health crisis response as first responders is largely due to a lack of formal infrastructure for responding to such crises. The Defund the Police Report recognizes that “police themselves admit they are not suited to respond to mental health crises” and that “many Canadians killed during police encounters suffer from mental health, substance abuse, or other related issues”.
Continuous fatal encounters with police and the growing hyper-incarceration of people with mental illness make clear that change is required urgently. It must also be recognized that Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and other marginalized communities experience violence and criminalization disproportionately.
Where all deaths in custody require a coroner’s inquest, Wellness Within demands the province and municipality publish official reports of all deaths in custody.
Wellness Within is a volunteer-based non-profit organization that serves women, transgender, and nonbinary people who have experienced criminalization and are pregnant or have young children in Nova Scotia, part of the unceded and unsurrendered ancestral territory of the Mi'kmaq people.
Wellness Within supports people through the full spectrum of reproductive health experience; facilitates workshops and education sessions; develops resource materials; and advocates for reproductive justice issues.
Contact: Natasha Hines, Chair, (902)717-2956 or natasha_hines@outlook.com, and Dr. Martha Paynter, Director of Research, 902-292-7082 or martha.paynter@gmail.com