Deadly outcomes in Dearborn, Detroit reveal how police struggle to navigate mental illness, firearm access

DEARBORN, Mich. (FOX 2) - It took seven hours before police managed to take a suspect into custody following a standoff in a Dearborn hotel Thursday evening. One person died from a gunshot sustained earlier in the day.

After crisis negotiators were able to get the armed 38-year-old suspect to surrender, the Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin gave a familiar description of the shooter. 

"The … suspect has a history of mental illness and drug abuse," the chief said. "There is a broader issue here than what is just happening in the city of Dearborn. The combination of mental illness and access to firearms."

Dearborn's mayor further elaborated on how mental health issues had been intertwined with tragedies in recent weeks.

"We know there are broader issues ongoing as they pertain to mental health illness that's ongoing not only in our region, but in our state and in our country as well as accessibility to firearms," Abdullah Hammoud said. "We're hoping those in the right position of power do act on this. It's about time that we had solutions."

MORE: Dearborn police: Hampton Inn clerk killed by gunman with mental illness, history of drug abuse

The danger of someone in the midst of a mental health crisis became one of the leading stories this week after Detroit police shot and killed a 20-year-old man who was armed with a knife and suffering his own mental break. 

During a segment of Let It Rip Thursday night, Detroit Police Chief James White said the shooting of Porter Burks would "live with him forever."

Burks had a pocket knife when he began charging police, who returned fire and shot 38 rounds in three seconds. 

White has called the deadly outcome a tragedy, but also said it's emblematic of a far larger issue that police forces are coming face with.

"The system failed him, but what is the system? There are no hospitals for mental health right now. You can petition to get a 48-hour hold, a 72-hour hold, they get medicated and they come out," he said. "And these are serious conditions, they're unpredictable conditions. When someone is a paranoid schizophrenic and their behavior is unpredictable, again we're not blaming someone for the condition but it's a reality.

"They're behavior is unpredictable. They didn't ask for the disorder (and) simply medicating them, putting them back on the street to encounter police, to encounter people on the street, it puts the police in a situation where we are becoming frankly the mental health arm of the state."

On Thursday, family of Burks announced through their attorney they would be suing the Detroit Police Department and the officers who shot the man. Geoffrey Fieger said there were many things he disagreed with regard to White's characterization of the shooting, but he did agree with him in one way: police should not be in charge of managing someone in the middle of a mental health break.

"I think he is correct and tried to communicate to the public an essential problem that occurs in the state and many others," Fieger said, referencing the state's closure of its mental health facilities when he ran for governor decades ago. "The state of Michigan at that time defended mental health."

RELATED: ‘There’s nowhere for them to go;' Fatal shooting of Porter Burks spotlights need for better mental health care

Former Gov. John Engler closed most of the state's remaining mental health facilities following decades of shuttering the institutions intended to care for individuals with mental health problems. As of 2016, Michigan had only 7.3 beds per 100,000 people intended for psychiatric care.

Often times, the first individuals to come into contact with someone suffering a mental break are police. While it can require years of training and education to learn how to deescalate situations involving someone in the midst of a crisis, police often are not the people with that experience.