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Studies find ”between one-third and one-half of total police killings each year are of people with disabilities or of people who are experiencing episodes of mental illness.” https://time.com/5857438/police-violence-black-disabled/
In March, Daniel Prude was having a mental health crisis. His brother placed a call for help. A group of police officers ”put a hood over his head, then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes.” Days later he died of asphyxiation. https://apnews.com/5c2f0cf366e560b7f41ebb3c964b099c?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
Good alternatives exist: a program in Eugene, OR ”pairs a crisis worker & a medic, who form a team dispatched by the 911 system to calls that normally would be routed to police or firefighters. It fields about 20% of all calls to 911 & non-emergency line.” https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/08/eugenes-alternative-to-policing-would-go-national-under-bill-to-provide-medicaid-funding-for-similar-programs-nationwide.html
“The tools that I carry are my training. I carry my de-escalation training, my crisis training, a knowledge of our local resources and how to appropriately apply them. I don't have any weapons and I’ve never found that I needed them.” https://www.npr.org/2020/06/10/874339977/cahoots-how-social-workers-and-police-share-responsibilities-in-eugene-oregon
For more on how #BlackLivesMatter 
is also a disability issue, see this thread by @notanastronomer: https://twitter.com/notanastronomer/status/1270469699441049600?s=20
is also a disability issue, see this thread by @notanastronomer: https://twitter.com/notanastronomer/status/1270469699441049600?s=20
