DECATUR, Ga. — The mother of a man who was shot and killed by police Monday night while he was experiencing a mental health crisis is asking what could have been done differently to save him.
The GBI said Tuesday that the man, 58-year-old John Robert Smith of Decatur, appeared suicidal, pulled a knife, and was lunging toward another person when a federal VA police officer shot him.
And all of this unfolded inside the emergency room of the VA hospital in Decatur where the man had sought help.
Smith’s mother, Onnie Smith, said that someone at the VA hospital called her on the phone Monday night to tell her.
“He said, ‘Well, he was shot in the emergency room, and he has passed away.’”
Ms. Smith broke into tears as she spoke about the phone call. “At that point, I lost it. He was having a meltdown. Why was he then shot?”
Her son was an Army veteran who, she said, had been seeking help from the VA for mental illness and went back there Monday.
“He was trying to get help. That's why he went to the VA. And he had gone there before for help,” she said.
According to the GBI, “Smith was displaying suicidal ideations. Hospital staff took Smith into the emergency room for assistance. Once inside the ER, Smith pulled out a knife and threatened to harm himself... Smith refused to drop the knife and eventually advanced toward a staff member while holding the knife. An officer shot Smith. Smith was pronounced dead on the scene by the medical staff.”
Onnie Smith is asking where the helpers were, who might have talked her son down--before he pulled the knife.
“I thought a police officer would have tried to talk him down,” she said. “If you couldn’t talk him down, you should have some kind of staff there that could talk to the mentally ill.”
For more than a decade now in Georgia, local, state and federal law enforcement officers have been undergoing Crisis Intervention Team training so they can de-escalate life-threatening situations—including those involving people experiencing mental health crises.
The VA is not saying whether the federal officers on duty Monday night have had that training.
Kim Jones with the National Alliance on Mental Illness Georgia said Tuesday that while no law enforcement training can always be effective in all situations, CIT training has been a game changer.
“We know for a fact that CIT training for law enforcement officers has helped reduce shooting incidences and reduce negative interactions with people who have a mental health condition,” Jones said. “We know a lot of times that law enforcement officers come into contact with people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. And so it's very important that they know how to de-escalate those situations and know how to handle them properly so that everybody comes out of that situation in good standing. So we feel like it's very important and a very important part for all law enforcement officers to be trained in the CIT program.... we know that an officer who knows how to de-escalate, especially somebody who's experiencing suicide ideation or is suicidal, has actually saved people's lives.”
Onnie Smith said that after her son was honorably discharged in the 1980s, after three years in the Army stationed in Germany, he fell apart.
“He went in the army one person and a fine, happy-go-lucky man,” Smith said. “He came out destroyed. Like a lot of the happiness was gone. And it never came back.”
Onnie Smith said her son turned to crime and ended up serving nearly 30 years in state prison for rape and other felonies.
He was released in 2019, and after that, she said, he got a job and sought help from the VA for his mental illness, which never got better.
“That your child sacrificed his life in service for his country. And then he comes out and needs help and doesn't get it; I don't understand,” she said.
The GBI has just begun its investigation at the invitation of the Department of Veterans Affairs Police. The GBI will give its report to the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office for a decision on whether to prosecute anyone or clear everyone involved.
Onnie Smith hopes the investigation will lead to changes that help the next person in crisis survive, adding“I don't want to see another person go through this. Never, I don't want nobody else to be killed.”