![]() “There’s our reflexive tendency to criminalize mental health crisis,” said Will Isenberg, a public defender in Boston who was not involved in Arthur’s case. And if a firearm is involved, it’s within a prosecutor’s discretion to charge a person with various misdemeanors and felonies, exposing them to years of incarceration, no matter the circumstances of the incident. Soon he would face firearms charges and jail time-deepening his depression and anxiety, and making it harder for him to get help, according to his lawyer and a social services advocate who worked on his case.Īdvocates say his experience speaks to a troubling tendency in the criminal legal system to treat mental health crises as criminal matters, rather than matters of public health. “I was so out of it that I couldn’t find the safety,” said Arthur, now 55. But it didn’t fire he had forgotten to take the safety off. Arthur put the gun to his chin and pulled the trigger. On that day in July, he said, he swallowed a handful of pills, took his fiance’s gun from a safe in their home, and went into the backyard of their duplex in Norwood, Massachusetts. “Every time I got arrested I was on something,” said Arthur, who had been drinking since he was 10 years old. “Everything came to a head finally.” Over the course of 30 years, Arthur, who asked to be identified only by his first name, was convicted of several charges, including breaking and entering, burglary, robbery, and unlawful possession of a firearm, according to police records. “Because of my past criminal history it was hard for me to get a job almost anywhere,” he said. At the time he was struggling to find work, he told The Appeal, and “everything was really piling up.” On July 19, 2018, Arthur called his sister and told her he planned to end his life.
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