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Does Toronto Police officers have problems only to handle mental health cases or they do react overboard in many cases. We witnessed first hand an incident on September 18, 2011 at San Lorenzo Anglican Church Hall in Dufferin near Lawrence Avenue, where old Chilean refugees, friends and their families were celebrating their National Independence Day. Police supposedly came to check due to noise and suddenly more than 5 Police cruisers were in the scene, screaming that people have to leave the party. People who suffer police persecution and torturing in Chile and Central America started to run like -if- actually they have commited a crime, when they were only celebrating a National Day, nice and quiet.
I have witnessed other cases where Police officers suppose that people has an violent intent, later completely throw out of the Courts. Toronto is not the scene of a Miami Vice or NYPD Blues episode. Compare with really big city, Toronto is an oasis. We care for the Police work, but when a mental health person - and a woman - is killed because the officer feared for his life, it is incredible. Where is the training to control and administrate violence in a policing environment? They learn many techniques, crowd difusion and even martial arts, how it is that a person is dead?
Training is really needed.
JC Cordero
Mental health and Police handling the mentally ill
While Toronto police response to mentally ill assailants has improved over the years, mental health advocates argue not enough is being done to prevent unnecessary deaths, even after numerous recommendations by inquests.
The fatal confrontation between 52-year-old Sylvia Klibingaitis, shot dead outside her North York home on Oct. 7 after allegedly wielding a knife in front of police, is the fourth fatal confrontation between Toronto police and the mentally ill since 2008 — and at least the 14th since 1988.
The incidents raise a raft of questions around how equipped police are to handle encounters with the mentally ill.
“The history shows that police are not trained to disable or defuse the situation,” said lawyer Barry Swadron, who represented the family of Byron Debassige, 28, a schizophrenic shot dead by police after stealing two lemons from a Yonge St. market in 2008.
“If you have a person who’s mostly disturbed, who happens to have a knife or edged weapon, the chances are pretty good that the officer will shoot to kill,” Swadron said.
In a heated situation, police are trained to stand firm.
“Backing off is counter to the way they operate,” said Terry Coleman, a retired police chief in Moose Jaw, Sask., and consultant with the Mental Health Commission of Canada.
While numbers are difficult to track, a 2011 study by the commission found that the mentally ill are “over-represented in police shootings, stun gun incidents, and fatalities.”
Each year, roughly one-third of police shootings in Canada resulting in injury or death involve people with a diagnosed or suspected mental illness, said Rick Parent, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University.
From 2000 to 2001, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health presented a weekly panel of mental health consumers and professionals to the Toronto Police College. All uniformed officers at the time attended, said Jennifer Chambers, a CAMH coordinator. She speculated the program was discontinued because police wanted to train in-house.
The Ontario Police College, where Toronto recruits train for 12 weeks, gives new officers a handbook on how to deal with mentally ill suspects.
But to be effective, training must bring police and the mentally ill face to face, said Anita Szigeti, a Toronto mental health lawyer.
“It needs to include consumers or survivors, so they can explain from their end,” she said.
While the majority of encounters end without violence, advocates say each death is preventable.
In August, Charles McGillivary, a 46-year-old with mental health issues, died after police tackled him near Christie and Bloor Sts. The incident came only eight months after the Special Investigations Unit exonerated officers involved in the 2010 shooting of 25-year-old Reyal Jardine-Douglas, who suffered from paranoia. He revealed a knife outside a stopped TTC bus.
McGillivary’s death is under investigation by the SIU and Jardine-Douglas’ by the coroner’s office.
After 26-year-old O’Brien Christopher-Reid, who suffered from “profound delusions,” was shot four times while allegedly threatening police with a knife in 2004, an inquest recommended police training include more communication techniques.
“It does nothing (for police) to scream and shout,” Coleman said.
Ontario’s Mental Health Act requires police to take into custody those they believe are at risk to themselves or others. A central problem is that police are ill-prepared to identify an armed assailant as mentally ill, let alone interact with that person in a heated standoff, Szigeti said.
An inquest into the death of Edmund Yu, a 35-year-old schizophrenic killed by police in 1997 after threatening them with a hammer, led to the creation of Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams, an officer and mental health nurse duo on duty from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Ten Toronto police districts have the teams, but they’re not designed for imminently violent situations, police say.
A team was not called before Klibingaitis was shot.
Three deadly interactions between police and the mentally ill
Aug. 29, 2010: Reyal Jardine-Douglas, 25, is shot by police after jumping out the rear of a TTC bus. The Pickering man, who suffered from paranoia, was carrying a knife. The coroner’s investigation is ongoing.
Feb. 16, 2008: Byron Debassige, 28, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was shot five times by police after taking two lemons from a convenience store. The inquest recommended the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services “revisit the benefits” of having a mental health professional train officers in mental health issues.
Mystery surrounds fatal North York shooting
Published On Fri Oct 7 2011
Dzeja Klibingaitis, 83, leaves the SIU investigation van after hours of questioning. Her daughter, Sylvia, was shot and killed in an apparent confrontation with police Friday morning.
LAURA STONE/TORONTO STAR
Alexandra Posadzki and Laura Stone
Staff Reporters
When Dzeja Klibingaitis heard two gunshots and a woman’s screams, she had no idea that her daughter was being shot dead during an encounter with police outside their home in the city’s north end.
“I ran to the room to tell Sylvia that something bad is happening,” said the 83-year-old woman. “I go in her room where she sleeps and she’s not there. I don’t know what’s happening.”
The Special Investigations Unit, the province’s police watchdog, is probing the shooting, which took place about 9:30 a.m. Friday.
Police were responding to a call about a person with a knife at 51 Wedgewood Dr., northeast of Yonge St. and Finch Ave. E.
The SIU said Sylvia Klibingaitis, 52, was shot once in the chest following an interaction with an officer. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Sunnybrook hospital.
“It’s my understanding that she did pursue the officer with a knife,” said Const. Wendy Drummond.
The SIU said police fired at least one shot.
Dzeja Klibingaitis, reached by phone Friday morning, said she was in her bedroom when she heard the shots. They sounded like they were coming from the direction of Yonge St., she said.
When asked if she thought her daughter was involved in the shooting, the elderly woman said no.
“It’s terrible,” she said. “I’ve never had this kind of experience in my life.”
Police had told her to wait on the patio for 15 minutes, she said, but she had already been there for 30. “I’m not supposed to even answer the phone.”
As police cordoned off the quiet street, an officer took the phone from Dzeja Klibingaitis as she talked to the Toronto Star, saying she was needed to provide testimony.
The slow-moving senior spent hours in an SIU van as investigators wandered in and out, some of them carrying cups of coffee. A Franciscan priest, dressed in a brown robe, went into the van for a portion of the afternoon. Dzeja Klibingaitis eventually emerged around 5 p.m. and was helped down a set of stairs before being whisked away into another van, without speaking.
Sylvia Klibingaitis had a history of community activism. She fought the Ontario Municipal Board on a proposed condominium development in 1999, while living in a low-rise apartment at 325 Bogert Ave. with her daughter, Lorelei, then 6.
Greatwise Development Corp. wanted to demolish the apartment complex and build a highrise condominium, which brought a heated fight from local residents.
Sylvia Klibingaitis, then vice president of the Bogert Tenants’ Association, became involved in the years-long dispute over the condo building “because what was happening was really outright wrong.”
Twelve years later, her old apartment complex remains standing.
“I love the neighbourhood as well as our home,” she told the Star in 1999. “Lorelei goes to a good school. I’ve really been scrounging to carve out a life for us here.”
But it looks like money problems dogged the 52-year-old as recently as March, when she declared bankruptcy with total liabilities of $119,052 and assets totaling $6,050.
Neighbours said the mother and daughter were quiet people who mostly kept to themselves. A few added that Sylvia Klibingaitis had moved in with her mother only a couple of months ago.
“They were nice people,” said Geo Papas, who lives at 53 Wedgewood Dr. “We had no problems (with them). We were not very close but we were okay.”
Elizabeth Melchiori, 80, lives directly across the street. She said the pair had renters living in the home.
The Star spoke with two people who live at Sylvia Klibingaitis’s former home on Bogert Ave. and knew her through her work with the tenants' association. Neither wished to be identified but said Klibingaitis had moved out several years ago.
Both tenants said Klibingaitis often exhibited “irrational behaviour,” alternately refusing to speak with anyone or expounding at length about random topics.
“I went to speak to her, say hello, (and she) said she couldn't talk, it was her week for not talking,” said one neighbour.
Klibingaitis also frequently mentioned her religion, which always seemed to change, one woman recalled.
“She went to one church, then the other one,” she said. “She was Catholic and then she was Protestant.”
“I never really talked to her. She was somebody in another heaven.”
Another woman who lives near the scene but didn’t want to be identified said she saw emergency responders performing CPR on someone lying on the ground.
Elaine Levison, who lives around the corner, questioned why Sylvia Klibingaitis was shot in the chest. “Why can’t they shoot in the arm, why can’t they shoot in the leg?”
Insp. Doug Quan, from 32 division, confirmed there had been a “serious incident” but wouldn’t elaborate, saying the matter fell under the SIU’s jurisdiction.
SIU spokeswoman Jasbir Brar said seven investigators and three forensics specialists had been assigned to probe the “details and circumstances” of the case.
The SIU is called in when police officers are involved in incidents involving death or serious injury.
June 11, 1996: Schizophrenic Wayne Williams, 24, was gunned down by police in Scarborough after allegedly threatening them with a knife. The inquest recommended a mandatory mental health refresher course for all officers.
I have witnessed other cases where Police officers suppose that people has an violent intent, later completely throw out of the Courts. Toronto is not the scene of a Miami Vice or NYPD Blues episode. Compare with really big city, Toronto is an oasis. We care for the Police work, but when a mental health person - and a woman - is killed because the officer feared for his life, it is incredible. Where is the training to control and administrate violence in a policing environment? They learn many techniques, crowd difusion and even martial arts, how it is that a person is dead?
Training is really needed.
JC Cordero
While Toronto police response to mentally ill assailants has improved over the years, mental health advocates argue not enough is being done to prevent unnecessary deaths, even after numerous recommendations by inquests.
The fatal confrontation between 52-year-old Sylvia Klibingaitis, shot dead outside her North York home on Oct. 7 after allegedly wielding a knife in front of police, is the fourth fatal confrontation between Toronto police and the mentally ill since 2008 — and at least the 14th since 1988.
The incidents raise a raft of questions around how equipped police are to handle encounters with the mentally ill.
“The history shows that police are not trained to disable or defuse the situation,” said lawyer Barry Swadron, who represented the family of Byron Debassige, 28, a schizophrenic shot dead by police after stealing two lemons from a Yonge St. market in 2008.
“If you have a person who’s mostly disturbed, who happens to have a knife or edged weapon, the chances are pretty good that the officer will shoot to kill,” Swadron said.
In a heated situation, police are trained to stand firm.
“Backing off is counter to the way they operate,” said Terry Coleman, a retired police chief in Moose Jaw, Sask., and consultant with the Mental Health Commission of Canada.
While numbers are difficult to track, a 2011 study by the commission found that the mentally ill are “over-represented in police shootings, stun gun incidents, and fatalities.”
Each year, roughly one-third of police shootings in Canada resulting in injury or death involve people with a diagnosed or suspected mental illness, said Rick Parent, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University.
From 2000 to 2001, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health presented a weekly panel of mental health consumers and professionals to the Toronto Police College. All uniformed officers at the time attended, said Jennifer Chambers, a CAMH coordinator. She speculated the program was discontinued because police wanted to train in-house.
The Ontario Police College, where Toronto recruits train for 12 weeks, gives new officers a handbook on how to deal with mentally ill suspects.
But to be effective, training must bring police and the mentally ill face to face, said Anita Szigeti, a Toronto mental health lawyer.
“It needs to include consumers or survivors, so they can explain from their end,” she said.
While the majority of encounters end without violence, advocates say each death is preventable.
In August, Charles McGillivary, a 46-year-old with mental health issues, died after police tackled him near Christie and Bloor Sts. The incident came only eight months after the Special Investigations Unit exonerated officers involved in the 2010 shooting of 25-year-old Reyal Jardine-Douglas, who suffered from paranoia. He revealed a knife outside a stopped TTC bus.
McGillivary’s death is under investigation by the SIU and Jardine-Douglas’ by the coroner’s office.
After 26-year-old O’Brien Christopher-Reid, who suffered from “profound delusions,” was shot four times while allegedly threatening police with a knife in 2004, an inquest recommended police training include more communication techniques.
“It does nothing (for police) to scream and shout,” Coleman said.
Ontario’s Mental Health Act requires police to take into custody those they believe are at risk to themselves or others. A central problem is that police are ill-prepared to identify an armed assailant as mentally ill, let alone interact with that person in a heated standoff, Szigeti said.
An inquest into the death of Edmund Yu, a 35-year-old schizophrenic killed by police in 1997 after threatening them with a hammer, led to the creation of Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams, an officer and mental health nurse duo on duty from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Ten Toronto police districts have the teams, but they’re not designed for imminently violent situations, police say.
A team was not called before Klibingaitis was shot.
Three deadly interactions between police and the mentally ill
Aug. 29, 2010: Reyal Jardine-Douglas, 25, is shot by police after jumping out the rear of a TTC bus. The Pickering man, who suffered from paranoia, was carrying a knife. The coroner’s investigation is ongoing.
Feb. 16, 2008: Byron Debassige, 28, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was shot five times by police after taking two lemons from a convenience store. The inquest recommended the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services “revisit the benefits” of having a mental health professional train officers in mental health issues.
Mystery surrounds fatal North York shooting
Published On Fri Oct 7 2011
Dzeja Klibingaitis, 83, leaves the SIU investigation van after hours of questioning. Her daughter, Sylvia, was shot and killed in an apparent confrontation with police Friday morning.
LAURA STONE/TORONTO STAR
Alexandra Posadzki and Laura Stone
Staff Reporters
When Dzeja Klibingaitis heard two gunshots and a woman’s screams, she had no idea that her daughter was being shot dead during an encounter with police outside their home in the city’s north end.
“I ran to the room to tell Sylvia that something bad is happening,” said the 83-year-old woman. “I go in her room where she sleeps and she’s not there. I don’t know what’s happening.”
The Special Investigations Unit, the province’s police watchdog, is probing the shooting, which took place about 9:30 a.m. Friday.
Police were responding to a call about a person with a knife at 51 Wedgewood Dr., northeast of Yonge St. and Finch Ave. E.
The SIU said Sylvia Klibingaitis, 52, was shot once in the chest following an interaction with an officer. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Sunnybrook hospital.
“It’s my understanding that she did pursue the officer with a knife,” said Const. Wendy Drummond.
The SIU said police fired at least one shot.
Dzeja Klibingaitis, reached by phone Friday morning, said she was in her bedroom when she heard the shots. They sounded like they were coming from the direction of Yonge St., she said.
When asked if she thought her daughter was involved in the shooting, the elderly woman said no.
“It’s terrible,” she said. “I’ve never had this kind of experience in my life.”
Police had told her to wait on the patio for 15 minutes, she said, but she had already been there for 30. “I’m not supposed to even answer the phone.”
As police cordoned off the quiet street, an officer took the phone from Dzeja Klibingaitis as she talked to the Toronto Star, saying she was needed to provide testimony.
The slow-moving senior spent hours in an SIU van as investigators wandered in and out, some of them carrying cups of coffee. A Franciscan priest, dressed in a brown robe, went into the van for a portion of the afternoon. Dzeja Klibingaitis eventually emerged around 5 p.m. and was helped down a set of stairs before being whisked away into another van, without speaking.
Sylvia Klibingaitis had a history of community activism. She fought the Ontario Municipal Board on a proposed condominium development in 1999, while living in a low-rise apartment at 325 Bogert Ave. with her daughter, Lorelei, then 6.
Greatwise Development Corp. wanted to demolish the apartment complex and build a highrise condominium, which brought a heated fight from local residents.
Sylvia Klibingaitis, then vice president of the Bogert Tenants’ Association, became involved in the years-long dispute over the condo building “because what was happening was really outright wrong.”
Twelve years later, her old apartment complex remains standing.
“I love the neighbourhood as well as our home,” she told the Star in 1999. “Lorelei goes to a good school. I’ve really been scrounging to carve out a life for us here.”
But it looks like money problems dogged the 52-year-old as recently as March, when she declared bankruptcy with total liabilities of $119,052 and assets totaling $6,050.
Neighbours said the mother and daughter were quiet people who mostly kept to themselves. A few added that Sylvia Klibingaitis had moved in with her mother only a couple of months ago.
“They were nice people,” said Geo Papas, who lives at 53 Wedgewood Dr. “We had no problems (with them). We were not very close but we were okay.”
Elizabeth Melchiori, 80, lives directly across the street. She said the pair had renters living in the home.
The Star spoke with two people who live at Sylvia Klibingaitis’s former home on Bogert Ave. and knew her through her work with the tenants' association. Neither wished to be identified but said Klibingaitis had moved out several years ago.
Both tenants said Klibingaitis often exhibited “irrational behaviour,” alternately refusing to speak with anyone or expounding at length about random topics.
“I went to speak to her, say hello, (and she) said she couldn't talk, it was her week for not talking,” said one neighbour.
Klibingaitis also frequently mentioned her religion, which always seemed to change, one woman recalled.
“She went to one church, then the other one,” she said. “She was Catholic and then she was Protestant.”
“I never really talked to her. She was somebody in another heaven.”
Another woman who lives near the scene but didn’t want to be identified said she saw emergency responders performing CPR on someone lying on the ground.
Elaine Levison, who lives around the corner, questioned why Sylvia Klibingaitis was shot in the chest. “Why can’t they shoot in the arm, why can’t they shoot in the leg?”
Insp. Doug Quan, from 32 division, confirmed there had been a “serious incident” but wouldn’t elaborate, saying the matter fell under the SIU’s jurisdiction.
SIU spokeswoman Jasbir Brar said seven investigators and three forensics specialists had been assigned to probe the “details and circumstances” of the case.
The SIU is called in when police officers are involved in incidents involving death or serious injury.
June 11, 1996: Schizophrenic Wayne Williams, 24, was gunned down by police in Scarborough after allegedly threatening them with a knife. The inquest recommended a mandatory mental health refresher course for all officers.
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