Exclusive: New figures show on average 10 people in mental health distress die each year during interactions with state police
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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 the Guardian 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.
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