Mental Health and NSW Police: Screening of Brutal Force

Content warning: this event includes graphic footage of violence against a person in mental health crisis, and discussion of deaths in custody and suicide.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this event refers to people who have died.

We are screening Brutal Force in NSW Parliament so our politicans cannot look away.

ABC Four Corners' Brutal Force exposed shocking footage of police violence against people experiencing mental health crisis.

Too often, mental health emergencies are met not with care but with police violence, unlawful arrest, and death in custody.

In NSW, more than 200,000 people experience severe or complex mental health issues each year.

Of them, more than 58,000 cannot access the care they need, due to underfunding of services.

Each is a person. Each has a name, a story, a family.

Remembering their stories

This event remembers three of their stories: 

• Jodi Knott: a 48-year-old woman who lived with schizophrenia and was experiencing a psychotic episode. Instead of providing care, the responding officers brutally beat, pepper sprayed and arrested Jodi, in what a District Judge called an act of "gratuitous cruelty". Jodi was unarmed and completely naked at the time of the attack. She is remembered by her cousins Nichole and Sharee.

• Courtney Topic: a 22-year-old woman living with undiagnosed schizophrenia, experiencing what a coroner later found was most likely a psychotic episode. Concerned bystanders called police after seeing her distressed and holding a knife outside a Hoxton Park Hungry Jack's. Within 41 seconds of arriving, officers pepper-sprayed her, attempted to use a faulty taser, then shot her dead. She is remembered by her parents, Leesa and Ron.

• Jesse Deacon: a 43-year-old man experiencing an acute mental health crisis, self-harming alone in his Glebe home. A concerned neighbour called triple-zero asking for an ambulance; police were sent instead, forced entry, and after a taser failed to subdue him, an officer shot him dead. The officers who responded had received no mandatory training in responding to mental health crises. He is remembered by his parents Michael and Judy, and his sister Lucinda.

These stories are as heartbreaking as they are preventable.

Advocating for change

We will be joined on Tuesday by the victims’ families, including Jodi Knott’s cousins, Nichole and Sharee; Courtney's mother Leesa and Jesse's mother Judy.

Together, we will be releasing a joint statement alongside more than 12 mental health and human rights organisations, detailing our shared vision of what mental health care and justice could look like in NSW. 

To discuss how to enact this change, we will have a panel: 

• Giancarlo de Vera, CEO of BEING - Mental Health Consumers;

• Dr Amanda Cohn MLC, Greens Spokesperson for Health and Mental Health;

• Dr Ian Korbel, Chair of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) – NSW Branch;

• Judy Deacon, mother of Jesse Deacon and mental health advocate

Join us to be part of the change

Join BEING - Mental Health Consumers and Amanda Cohn MLC for a screening of Brutal Force and a panel discussion on the reforms required to ensure the next person who reaches a moment of crisis is met with care, dignity and safety.