By Robert A Emmanuel
After hearing that her son Rashawn Shabazz had been shot by police and taken to hospital, Josette Joseph said that she experienced shock, frustration and a sense of familiarity as she recalled her son’s battle with mental health issues.
She said it is vital for police to be better trained to handle those who are afflicted with such conditions.
Shabazz, 33, was shot by police officers last week during an altercation in town where he was seen carrying a knife, and allegedly throwing projectiles at bystanders.
His mother told Observer that she was at home with her daughter when the news first broke.
“I was horrified because I was home on Thursday, and my daughter was scrolling on her phone and she said somebody got shot, and she asked a friend who it is, and then we saw the videos,” she revealed.
She believes that the police should have alternative tools to defuse situations involving individuals with mental health challenges.
“What they did to my child is wrong. If they see you are using rubber bullets to no avail, you leave him or try some other way; you should not be shooting him, the police are too trigger-happy,” she said.
The incident occurred days after Shabazz was released from prison.
Joseph said that her son is usually calm once on his medication, but has a tendency to act violently when not on it, which she said often occurred when he was in the prison.
Joseph revealed that during one of those unmedicated episodes, Shabazz had reportedly thrown stones at her. She alleged that her son’s issues with mental health stemmed from his time behind bars, where she claimed he was frequently beaten.
“The first time he would have been admitted to the prison, it would have been some minor offence, and when he came out of prison he told me that he started to use cocaine at the prison; they gave him cocaine and that started to mess with his mind.
“I don’t know what was in it, or what it was, but since he started to use the cocaine, that is when [the mental issues] started,” she alleged.
Shabazz’s run-ins with the authorities stem back more than 10 years when he was reported to have escaped the prison in April 2014.
According to a well-placed source, Shabazz has schizoaffective disorder and was admitted into the prison and not the country’s psychiatric hospital due to his criminal charge.
The source also claimed that the prison has a designated psychiatric nurse but that staff struggled to administer Shabazz’s fortnightly injectable medication, meaning he had been without it for at least a year.
Superintendent of Prisons Colonel Trevor Pennyfeather told Observer that prisoners generally are administered medication via various means, including by inserting it into their food.
Colonel Pennyfeather explained that prisoners with mental health challenges would often become violent when staff would attempt to do this.
“There are times when you give them the medication, that they refuse to take the medication…there are times when they are in a particular mood, violent and so on, or they box away the food,” he explained.
Shabazz has been at the Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre receiving treatment after he lost a kidney due to being shot.
Joseph said he was in stable condition and added that she was seeking to have her son evaluated and assigned to Clarevue Psychiatric Hospital.
Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Everton Jeffers said police officers are willing to work with families to better deal with relatives suffering from mental health conditions, but said it was important that family ensure that their relatives take their medication to prevent violent outbursts.
The Deputy Commissioner said “when the situation escalates, the police have to get involved because the public is at risk”.
He added, “We think that it should not reach there; it should be a mental health issue where the mental health people deal with it.”