*This article was featured in the April print edition of The Blue and Gold.
Moncks Corner, South Carolina is a small town nestled neatly between Lake Moultrie to its immediate north, and Charleston some distance southward. As is typical of southern outcroppings, Moncks Corner seems caught in a tug-of-war between what one can assume was former pastoralism, and present suburbanization.
It has produced several N.F.L players, a surprising number of radio personalities, and more recently, Anthony Hill, an aspiring musician, adept stoic, and as of March 9th, another brick in the wall that is the racial debate.
Hill, an Air Force veteran who struggled with bipolar disorder, lived in the The Heights at Chamblee apartment complex catty corner to the junction of Chamblee-Tucker Road and 285. Earlier this month, among the rows of non-descript manila buildings, he was shot and killed by officer Robert Olsen.
For nearly eight months now, since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was killed by an officer in Ferguson, the spotlight has intently shone on police brutality, sparking a national conversation that has evolved into a reflection on the state of race in what was assumed (by some) to be a post-racial society. It would be wrong, though, to file Hill’s death in the same drawer as Brown’s. Instead, Hill, should be recognized as a complex individual failed first, perhaps, not by the police, but by the mental health system.
It’s not a criminal situation, it’s a medical emergency.”
On Twitter, Hill offered the musings of a man who knew he did not have the answers, but would never drop their pursuit. “When they tell me I’m lost, I ask them, ‘What is it you think you’ve found?’” he tweeted on March 6th. More chillingly, an hour later, he also sent out “I think this twitter [sic] account will be dead by the beginning of the week. Take me to the moon and I still won’t have enough space.”
According to Richard Fausset of The New York Times, who profiled the shooting in an article late this past March, Hill moved to Atlanta in search of artistic success. He made music under the moniker “Ant Lanta;” his Soundcloud page features three songs in which he expertly croons with affected sultriness, much in the style of R. Kelly or Jamie Foxx, but with heavy “trap” influence. On March 28th, another Soundcloud account posthumously released a mixtape under his name. I reached out to several producers who claimed to have worked with Hill, but none responded, adding intrigue to what could have been a promising and impactful career. If anything is to be gleaned from his social media presence, Hill might have offered prescient commentary in the same way rappers like Kendrick Lamar do. But we will never know.
In the late afternoon of Monday, March 9th, the DeKalb County Police Department responded to a call reporting a naked man acting erratically. Officer Olsen was the first responder. As the sequence of events is purported, Olsen, with weapon raised, ordered Hill to cease his activity. Witnesses have corroborated that Hill approached Olsen, though there is no consensus on whether his hands were up, in “Don’t Shoot” fashion, or by his side. That, however, is where the uncertainty ends. Olsen fired, and Hill was killed.
For his part, Olsen did not act as some might expect. He can be seen in a video recorded moments after the shooting taking appropriate measures to control the scene, and attempting to administer aid to Hill. In this case, there seems to be less blatant intent as much as a lack of understanding and experience in dealing with the mentally ill.
Captain Paul Klerlein is the Administrative Division Commander for the Chamblee Police Department. He told me that Chamblee, like many departments nationwide, does not have standardized procedures for responding to calls where a suspect is deemed “mentally unstable.” Several officers on the force have received Crisis Intervention Training, but it is not a uniform practice. The DeKalb Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.
“One of the reasons is that we are more focused right now on getting police on the streets,” said Klerlein. “Once we have enough officers, then it is our priority to start doing more specialized training. We want our officers to have as much [training] as possible, because that benefits everybody.”
That endgame might look something like the San Antonio Police Department. In the wake of the shooting, Anna Simonton of Atlanta Progressive News wrote about the force’s unique Mental Health Unit, the collaborative effort of many governmental agencies to create a comprehensive response to cases like Hill’s. The unit is headed by officer Ernie Stevens. He says Hill was likely experiencing “excited delirium.”
“They get hot and their body starts fighting against itself, trying to cool down. That’s why they take off their clothes,” he told Simonton.
When he gets a call regarding a naked individual, Stevens, who instead of typical officerial garb (navy blue uniform) dons tremendously unintimidating blue jeans and a performance polo (it helps victims to trust him), first contacts paramedics. To him, “it’s not a criminal situation, it’s a medical emergency.”
The Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law would agree. They are a special interest group advocating for advancements in the rights of adults and children who have mental disabilities. I spoke with John Head, their Communications Director. He offered me material that suggests Hill’s “excited delirium” was likely the zenith of a hypomanic episode, a sometimes symptom of bipolar disorder that is typified by about.health.com as “abnormally sustained expansive moods.”
No more lying. I love you all. Man. Woman. Boy or girl. They want us to hide our love.
It is possible Hill had stopped taking his medication, thus triggering the episode; at this point, any assessment is conjecture.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is launching an investigation into the shooting. The Hill family has hired their own private investigators.
Perhaps the cruelest irony of Hill’s death is that he in fact sympathized with the police.
“If 99 out of 100 cops ouchea [sic] killing black men like its hunting season that still leaves 1 just doing his job. Stop w/ the generalizations,” he once tweeted. Three months later, he was the hunted.
