Jessica Cooper hand-delivered a signed court docket order to the Lincoln Park Police Division in Michigan in August 2022.
The doc would have allowed police to move her cousin, Shane Cousins, 33, to a psychological well being facility involuntarily for an analysis — had the police division adopted via.
As a substitute, Cousins’ psychological well being continued to spiral; his delusions and paranoia intensified, and on Jan. 24, Michigan State Police troopers killed him after he fired a gun at a police helicopter flying above his brother’s Detroit dwelling.
Within the months resulting in his demise, Cousins thought planes and helicopters have been the federal government’s means of spying on him — or, on some days, a means of dropping hashish seeds from the air as a way of confiscating his grandmother’s land in Tennessee. He’d shoot at plane “to scare them off,” his household informed the Detroit Free Press, a member of the USA TODAY Community.
He additionally thought the federal government was attempting to kill him. He walked round his home and yard firing weapons. He threw screws in the midst of the road. He thought he was the chief of Ukraine. He thought TVs and radios have been sending him subliminal messages. He thought relations have been human traffickers, his grandmother a part of a cult.
Earlier makes an attempt by Cousins’ household to assist him get a proper analysis and remedy failed. And after Cousins barricaded himself in his dwelling with weapons and had a standoff with Lincoln Park police on Aug. 7, 2022, the Cooper-Cousins household desperately sought a court docket order to have him evaluated involuntarily.
That is what Lincoln Park Police Lt. Patrick Culter informed them to do, in accordance with a police report of the incident.
On Aug. 17, 2022, a Wayne County probate decide issued the order.
However when Cooper hand-delivered the order to the police division, Cooper mentioned, Culter informed her she and her household have been harassing Cousins. He wasn’t satisfied Cousins was mentally in poor health, she mentioned.
Nonetheless, Cooper mentioned her household devised a plan with Lincoln Park police to get Cousins out of his home to a neighborhood McDonald’s, away from his weapons, so he might be apprehended. Officers by no means confirmed up, she mentioned.
Reached by telephone for remark, Culter mentioned he wasn’t approved to talk to the information media. Lincoln Park Police Chief Scott Lavis, who took management of the division this month following Chief Ray Watters’ retirement, mentioned he was wanting into the matter.
Possibly, if police had taken Cousins in to get assist, “he’d nonetheless be right here,” mentioned Shannon Cousins, one in every of Shane’s youthful brothers. Round his neck hung a skateboard pendant holding a small portion of his brother’s ashes.
“We tried the whole lot,” mentioned Cynthia Cooper, Shane Cousins’ mom. “We actually tried, so onerous.”
Extra:Police footage exhibits gunman firing at helicopter in Detroit
A disconnected system
In keeping with the court docket order, police had a window of 10 days to get Shane Cousins evaluated at a neighborhood psychological well being facility — on this case, the Hegira Well being psychiatric emergency heart in Livonia.
“It’s a court docket order. It must be executed as such,” mentioned Kristina Morgan, liaison supervisor for the Wayne County Probate Courtroom’s Behavioral Well being Unit.
To Morgan’s data, police departments normally comply with via on such orders.
But when the court docket is just not made conscious {that a} transport order wasn’t executed by a police company, then enforcement mechanisms are restricted, Morgan mentioned.
If a transport order is not executed, Michigan regulation requires police companies to report back to the court docket the rationale it wasn’t. Then a decide would possibly schedule a evaluate listening to to find out subsequent steps.
In Shane Cousins’ case, he was by no means transported to the Hegira facility, and the Wayne County Probate Courtroom confirmed with the Free Press that Lincoln Park police didn’t present a non-execution report.
Psychological well being advocates say Shane Cousins was a sufferer of the nation’s damaged system of addressing and treating psychological sickness amid an escalating nationwide psychological well being disaster prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Now we have a disconnected or disjointed system,” mentioned Kevin Fischer, government director of the Nationwide Alliance of Psychological Sickness in Michigan.
System failure
Fischer famous an absence of psychiatric beds and remedy facilities, in addition to a lack of information in regards to the help sources which can be out there.
“We shouldn’t have to attend till somebody is in a disaster. We’re reactive after we must be proactive,” Fischer mentioned.
Ash Daniels, a psychological well being advocate and organizer with Michigan Liberation’s “Care, Not Criminalization” initiative, referred to as Cousins “one other one who was failed by so many programs, who misplaced his life to the failure of those programs.”
“What does that say about our neighborhood? Persons are in disaster and we flip them away,” Daniels mentioned.
“We have to begin speaking about it extra. All people is aware of any person who lives with psychological well being concerns. It’s OK to not be OK. It’s OK to speak about these items.”
Fischer mentioned police responding to psychological well being calls on the frequency they do “is just not a superb system.”
Unhealthy days
The Cooper-Cousins household is close-knit, Cynthia Cooper mentioned. They’ve by no means been far aside from each other.
Jessica Cooper calls Shane Cousins her “little massive brother.” She is simply 11 months older than him. And though they weren’t truly siblings, their dad and mom used to decorate them in matching outfits like they have been.
Shane Cousins was the oldest of Cynthia Cooper’s three sons.
Shane was like a father to his brothers, Shannon and Stone. He taught them methods to skateboard. He was the glue of the household, Stone Cousins mentioned. He was outgoing and beloved to make others chortle.
His household can pinpoint when Shane Cousins’ psychological well being started to deteriorate.
It began when his pal, Michael Cavanaugh, was killed in a downtown Detroit hit-and-run in 2018. Shane Cousins was there when it occurred. He died in his arms, Stone Cousins mentioned.
Then, in 2021, when Shane Cousins and his siblings briefly moved to Tennessee to assist their grandmother, his delusions grew to become “full blown,” a lot in order that their grandmother took him again to Michigan in July 2022.
In keeping with Shane Cousins’ household, he briefly checked himself right into a psychological well being facility in Tennessee, however checked himself out earlier than he was formally identified.
By August 2022, Cousins had his standoff with Lincoln Park police. Then, on New 12 months’s Day, one other shut pal of Cousins died. That was the tipping level, his household mentioned.
“He had his good days,” Jessica Cooper mentioned, wanting up on the ceiling. There have been cookouts, skateboarding classes, visits with household.
“And he had his unhealthy days,” she continued. “However on the finish, even on his good days, he wasn’t himself.”
Andrea Sahouri covers legal justice for the Detroit Free Press, a member of the USA TODAY Community. She might be contacted at asahouri@freepress.com or on Twitter @andreamsahouri.
