I am hardly misinformed about mental health issues. My clients suffer from them, I am a frequent participant (as an attorney sheparding my clients into services) of the mental health court system, I solicit mental health evaluations from experts and I worked for a psychiatrist who was a mental health expert who delivered opinions / diagnoses on people’s mental health issues. He had interviewed and reviewed records of shooting victims of the Chicago Police Department, people mistreated by health care facilities, and childhood abuse victims. I have seen the children of violent / sexual assault become victimizers themselves. I am aware that my arm-chair diagnosis is poor, and it was probably said in haste. But, PTSD is triggered by a sufficiently terrifying event to cause recurrent and residual effects. An arrest can be traumatizing. It’s not that traumatizing. And this is not an ‘egg-shell plaintiff’ scenario either…where we judge the terrifying effects based on each individual person.
I believe this kid is mentally ill and affected deeply by his illness. I don’t doubt the veracity of that and the tactics of the police in this situation are deplorable. But you don’t get PTSD from an arrest. I’m basing that on what his parents said. If it turns out he had a gun pointed to his head and thrown on the ground and beaten, etc., I might re-evaluate.
