The stepfather of a man shot and killed by New South Wales police while suffering from psychosis says the current system is “as useless as udders on a bull” as Guardian Australia reveals officers aren’t allowed to talk with mental health workers during high-risk callouts – even on the phone.
Neil Wilkins, whose stepson Todd McKenzie was shot at his Taree home in 2019, has written to the state’s mental health minister, Rose Jackson, urging Labor to scrap the ban on mental health workers assisting police when weapons are involved.
Wilkins’ plea comes as new figures reveal 52 people experiencing mental health distress died in interactions with the state’s police during the past five years.
Fifteen people died in the 12 months to June. There were six deaths in 2021-22, 11 deaths in 2020-21, 16 deaths in 2019-20 and four deaths in 2018-19, according to the data obtained by Guardian Australia.
Guardian Australia can also reveal a 24/7 telehealth mental health triage service for police was operating out of Newcastle for nearly a year before officers fatally shot Krista Kach in the city on 14 September.
But the service can only be used by police in smaller towns. Furthermore, mental health workers across NSW aren’t allowed to help police during high-risk incidents when a weapon may be involved – even if they are only providing advice virtually.
McKenzie, 40, and Kach, 47, died nearly four years apart in NSW’s Hunter New England region.
They were both in extreme mental distress when they were killed by officers who forced their way into their homes after unsuccessful and hours-long attempts to “negotiate” with them.
McKenzie was holding a knife when shot. Police claim Kach threatened them with an axe before they later Tasered her and shot her with bean bag rounds – one of which pierced her heart.
Kach’s family said in mid-September the police force had assured them they would look after their mother and she would be cared for by “qualified medical professionals”.
In his letter to Jackson, seen by Guardian Australia, Wilkins said it was “abundantly clear” police were not adequately trained in the area of mental health in order to negotiate with someone “having a psychotic episode and holding a weapon”.
“They do not possess the skills to de-escalate. There is also a barrier between police and mental health staff as no collaboration currently exists to address such situations,” Wilkins wrote.
“No one had a crystal ball to see that a mounting death toll would emerge like it has. I don’t have tunnel vision – I know that there will always be some mentally unwell killed in extremely dangerous volatile situations but many are preventable.”
Wilkins urged Jackson to support a royal commission into police responses to people with mental illness and to canvass a true “joint intervention” program for police and mental health workers that would involve psychiatrists and families.
A coronial inquest into McKenzie’s death – expected to deliver its findings by the end of the year – heard that police cadets undergo just 18 hours of mental health training and once in the force can participate in a voluntary one-day online training course.
The inquest also heard evidence from police and a NSW Health executive that mental health workers were forbidden from helping police during high-risk incidents.
If a person was armed, it turned an incident into a “negotiation” and mental health staff were “not trained to do” that, psychiatrist Dr Brendan Flynn told the inquest.
The inquest heard the restrictions applied to Sydney’s Pacer program as well as the Hunter New England region’s virtual equivalent, Mental Health First Responder. The latter is available in 63 towns and due to start in Newcastle in the coming months.
Flynn told the inquest it was likely a “Pacer team being at the scene would not add anything” if an incident involved a weapon.
This was because if someone was in an acute enough state of mental illness to be armed, they would probably require assessment in hospital, whereas Pacer aimed to assist police with less acute incidents to keep people out of emergency departments.
A Hunter New England local health district spokesperson said its local Pacer equivalent was similarly designed to “avoid unnecessary transfer to hospitals” and not to “provide acute clinical treatment or intervention”.
The Minns government has been under pressure after the recent deaths of Clare Nowland, Steve Pampalian, Jesse Deacon and Kach, who were fatally wounded or shot by NSW police between May and September.
It has lauded the Pacer program as a solution even though the police force has separately disclosed it is looking to replace it.
Jackson said the government was “already taking action to address this issue” – pointing to a review by the police force of its own mental health training practices.
The mental health minister said she would consider the recommendations from the review, which could include changes to the Pacer program.
Jackson said she was committed to making sure people experiencing mental illness received the care they needed and she was “deeply saddened” this hadn’t always been the case.
The NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, said the review would be “thorough and meaningful” and “where we can do better then we will endeavour to do so”.
The NSW Greens justice spokesperson, Sue Higginson, obtained the “alarming” figures detailing the number of fatal police interactions via questions on notice in parliament. She has called on Labor to support a parliamentary inquiry.
“Everywhere we look we uncover evidence of a policing system that is failing the most vulnerable people in our state,” Higginson said. “It’s an indicator of political failure that’s not good for anyone, including police.”
The government has resisted calls for an independent inquiry or royal commission.
Guardian Australia contacted NSW police for comment and was referred to NSW Health for questions regarding the Pacer program. The force said it could not comment on matters that were before the coroner or subject to a critical incident investigation.
• In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978.
