San Francisco Police Who Killed Alex Neito in Self Defense Last Year, Site Victims Psychiatric History

SFGate reported: SF Police Police said the officers had been responding to reports of a man with a gun at Bernal Heights Park who was acting erratically and threatening passersby when they came across Nieto eating his dinner. Nieto had been carrying a Taser stun gun before his shift as a nightclub security guard. Authorities said Nieto brandished the weapon at the officers. The City College student was shot as many as 14 times, according to his autopsy report.

In the autopsy report, the medical examiner highlighted Nieto’s psychiatric “history of aggressive and bizarre behavior, auditory hallucinations and noncompliance to psychiatric medications.” In 2011, Nieto was placed on a psychiatric hold “for attempting to burn his parents’ house down.”
A few weeks before the shooting, a former friend had filed a restraining order against him saying Nieto had used his Taser on him four times in front of his wife and son.
His friends and family have repeatedly objected to the release of his mental health history, saying authorities were trying to taint his character and distract the public from the actual details of the shooting, which the department has been reluctant to share.
“Alex’s past mental well-being is irrelevant to the issue of whether the police are liable or criminally accountable for his homicide,” they wrote on the Justice for Alex Nieto website. “Any smear tactics cannot contradict or explain witness statements concerning this police shooting.” END SFGate report

Police Shootings have been in the media since Ferguson MO. and Staten Island NY. In this case as in other similar cases regarding simulated guns, and victims resisting arrest the end result is most likely fatal. The medical examiner is putting Alex Nieto’s psychiatric history in the forefront. In our view it is another example of psychiatry not working. His medical history indicated he has not been complying with his medication. We think the medication is the reason for his continued erratic behavior. His non-compliance with meds indicates he took meds and then didn’t take them at times. This also creates erratic behavior when a patient abruptly comes off their meds. There have been numerous cases where patients don’t take their psychotropic drugs and then either commit suicide or take others live with theirs. Psychiatry once again gets a pass as a patient places themselves in a fatal situation. The drugs and psychiatry once again show up and someone is deceased. These occurrence will not end until something is done about these drugs and psychiatry is taken to task for their responsibility for their actions.