A year ago to the day, Judy Deacon got a call to head to the police station.
The 80-year-old expected the issue to be that her son, Jesse, had been hospitalised again. But on her way there, she got a phone call from Jesse’s father. He was crying, and as soon as she heard the tears, she knew her son had died, she said.
Jesse, 43, was shot and killed by New South Wales police after they were called to his home in a public housing estate in Sydney following a report he was self-harming.
Deacon said the year since then had been “non-stop” as she channelled her grief at Jesse’s death towards action. On Saturday, she will hold a rally in Sydney’s CBD marking a year since Jesse was killed to air her demand that police should no longer be sent as first responders in mental health emergencies and instead it should be a health-led response.
“I think about him every day and, when I do, my eyes are wet because I’m not a crying person, but my daughter, his sister, is traumatised beyond belief,” Deacon said. “I refuse to accept the situation until something is done, and that’s when I’ll be able to break down and grieve.”
Deacon’s demand for a health-led response is the same that has been recommended in numerous government inquiries and non-government reports, and is starting to come closer to reality in NSW.
Last month, the NSW minister for mental health, Rose Jackson, told a forum held at parliament house on the issue that she expected the government to have an understanding of the “path forward” for a health-led response to mental health incidents by the end of the year.
It came after a NSW parliamentary inquiry into mental health care across the state, which Deacon contributed to, recommended the government “explore” sending police as second responders to mental health incidents. It also recommended that the police force improve mandatory mental health training for officers after a string of fatalities involving vulnerable people.
There have been a number of recent deaths, including that of 41-year-old Steve Pampalian, who was shot by police the month before Jesse. He was experiencing a psychosis when he ran at police with two knives, and was then shot four times.
Two months after Jesse died, 47-year-old Krista Kach was suffering a mental health episode when police fatally hit her with bean bag rounds during a siege in Newcastle last September.
Jesse, who had struggled with his mental health most of his life, was holding a knife when officers arrived at his home after reports he was self-harming. One officer tried to use a Taser but it failed, so another officer fired his gun.
Deacon’s year since Jesse died has been filled with meeting ministers and officials to advocate for change. One of her next targets is a meeting with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to push for a nationwide dedicated mental health response team that triple-zero calls can be triaged to.
“I want him to really understand that this issue is not going away,” she said.
Joining Deacon at the rally on Saturday will be Leesa Topic, the mother of 22-year-old Courtney Topic, who in 2015 was fatally shot by police while suffering a “severe episode of psychosis”.
When the coroner released its findings into Courtney’s death in 2018, it said the case had exposed a “compelling need for change” in the way police responded to people in mental distress, finding police tactics were “entirely inappropriate”.
Since then, about 52 people experiencing mental health distress had died after interactions with the state’s police during the past five years.
Sam Lee, a senior solicitor at the Redfern Legal Centre, said treating incidents of psychological distress as a law and order issue rather than a health one was a major issue.
But Lee said it was promising to see the police union come out publicly, shortly after Kach died, agreeing that police should no longer be sent as first responders.
Lee said once the government delivered the framework for a health-led response, which was expected by the end of this year, the next big questions were: “Where’s the budget to implement it? Who’s going to implement it? And what are the timeframes around that?”
Jackson told the forum on responses to mental health last month that even with a new response, comprehensive mental health training for police was crucial.
“Even if we get this system right, they’re still going to be out in our community interacting with people who may have mental illness, and we expect that they have been adequately trained for that interaction,” she said.
Deacon believes had there been a different response to her son’s mental health episode, he would still be alive. She said she hoped to effect change so that no other parent ever has to go through what she has.
“Nobody deserves to be treated without respect because they have a mental health issue,” she said.
• In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
