Remembering Joshua Barre

On November 25, 2017, Tulsa, Oklahoma law enforcement authorities fatally shoot unarmed mentally ill Joshua barre triggering American Civil Liberties Union investigation.

JOSHUA ANTHONY JAMES BARRE March 13, 1988 – June 09, 2017 was born to Anthony Wayne Barre’ Sr. and Etta James Lowe-Barre’. His education began in Atlanta, GA at Old National Christian Academy. After moving back to Tulsa, OK at the age of five, Joshua became a member of The Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith. Joshua was a gifted Artist. Joshua attended Roosevelt Elementary School, where he succeeded academically with high honors and learned to play saxophone. He continued his musicianship at Carver Middle School, where he performed in the band and also played football 6th-8th grades. Joshua always was an admirer of music. He could read music and also play any instrument by ear. Joshua was a great artist, drawing and sketching all of his life. He attended Edison Preparatory High School and graduated with the Class of 2006. He wrote a story that was published while in high school at Edison, and during his time there much of his artwork was displayed in the school. Continuing his education at Tulsa Community College and The College of Southern Nevada in Henderson, Nevada where he studied English literature. He had a great admiration for children, and aspired to become an author and illustrator of spiritual children’s books. His finished illustrations exhibited creativity and brilliance.

Joshua’s mental health began to decline after the death of his father in 2010. From 2010-2017, Joshua Barre’s mental health spiraled out of control. Joshua Barre, a 29-year-old black man with bipolar disorder, came to a point in his life that he felt lost. He couldn’t afford to purchase his mental health medication. Quarantined at home while cycling through depression, anxiety and paranoia he grabbed two butcher knives and walked out of the house.

A Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman said a judge had issued the order for the man to undergo a mental-health evaluation or treatment. Joshua Barre’s mom Etta Jones Barre commented, “Joshua was constantly, frightened for his life, and expressing his frustration.” That’s the reason Ms. Barre pleaded for an intervention from Tulsa County deputies’ mental crisis unit.

Deputies had failed to take Barre into custody on the mental-health warrant on three occasions since June 1, when Barre reportedly had a hammer and threatened to kill officers from within his home. He was in the house alone, and “did not pose an immediate threat to the public,” police said in the statement. “Due to those circumstances, deputies left the house and chose to follow up on a later date.”

On Monday, “deputies were notified by a neighbor that Mr. Barre was up the previous night and scaring her children. Deputies were unable to locate Mr. Barre on that date,” the statement continues.

On Wednesday, deputies tried again to take Barre into custody at his residence, but Barre threatened to kill officers. The deputies left without forcing entry into the house or taking Barre into custody because, again, he didn’t “pose an immediate threat to the public,” according to the Police Department’s statement.

On Friday, police received four 911 calls between 9:50 a.m. and 9:56 a.m. reporting that a shirtless man with “two butcher knives” or a “machete” was walking down the street. Deputies had also been informed by a neighbor that Barre was “in the street armed with two large knives,” and they requested assistance from the Police Department.

Two deputies came upon Barre in the 300 block of West 50th Court North and ordered him to drop the knives, telling him that “they were there to get him help,” the police statement says. “Barre refused to drop the knives or stop, (and) he threatened to kill the deputies,” the statement continues.

Two deputies and one Tulsa police officer opened fire and shot 29-year-old Joshua Barre on Friday, November 25, 2017. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.

“My son was mentally ill and they didn’t have to kill my son,” Barre’s mother, Etta Jones Barre said, “They were trained in de-escalation techniques, they could have done something different.” Dan Smolen, the family’s attorney after reviewing the facts of the case, “Inexplicably, two deputies and one Tulsa police officer corralled him to the convenience store, setting up a nightmare scenario.” A deputy tried to subdue Barre with a stun gun just outside the store, but it had no effect. Fearing for the customers’ safety, the deputies and a Tulsa police officer who had arrived as backup opened fire, killing Joshua as he tried to enter the store.

BEYOND THE FAMILIAR QUESTIONS ABOUT RACIAL BIAS IN POLICING, BARRE’S DEATH SHOWS HOW MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES CHALLENGE LAW ENFORCEMENT

Responding appropriately to mental crises has been a priority for the Tulsa sheriff’s office since 1991, agency spokesman Justin Green said. Four deputies detailed to the mental crisis unit receive special training in de-escalation, suicide prevention and handling combative people. One of the deputies involved in Barre’s death, William Ramsey, has been with the unit for nearly 20 years. They’ve made thousands of pickups in all that time. Until Friday, Jusrin Green said, none of the pickups resulted in a death.

About one out of every four people killed in officer-involved shootings has a serious mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a Virginia-based nonprofit that has trained police in crisis intervention in roughly 2,700 communities since the late 1980s.

TENSION INTENSIFIED

Shortly after Barre’s shooting Friday, officers wearing helmets and shields flanked the store while a crowd slowly gathered and shouted at officers. Yellow tape and dozens of police cars surrounded the scene.

“It could’ve been me. It could’ve been a relative of mine. It doesn’t make any sense, man. It has to stop,” Carl Tate told CNN affiliate KTUL.

Deciding just when and how police should engage with the mentally ill is a risky give-and-take that’s been hotly debated among experts for years. The real shame is that officers are the first responders in such situations, said Ron Honberg, a senior policy adviser at the alliance.

The shooting was followed by a protest outside the northern Tulsa store that grew to about 300 people.

“This incident required a more robust response than normal due to large crowds and the actions that were being taken against officers,” the sheriff’s office. Some protesters were throwing rocks and pieces of concrete at officers.

“We’re asking police officers across the country to do the job ideally that trained mental health professionals should be doing,” Honberg told The Associated Press.

Barre’s family, their lawyer and others question why authorities didn’t try less-lethal force far sooner, when officers and bystanders would have been in less danger. Couldn’t they have kept him away from other people, used rubber bullets, or slowed him down with pepper spray?

The crowd dispersed after several hours with the help of community leaders and local ministers.

Police chaplain and pastor Andru Morgan prays after a mentally ill man brandishing two knives was fatally shot by law enforcement officers in north Tulsa on Friday morning. He had spent the past few hours trying to comfort the deceased man’s family members and upset spectators.

Tulsa Sherry Office agency spokesman Justin Green said the unpredictability of mentally ill people makes every encounter potentially hazardous. In Barre’s case, they knew more about Barre’s condition than they often do, and therefore “approached with some caution” that day.

A man protests with his hands up after a mentally ill man brandishing two knives was fatally shot by law enforcement officers in north Tulsa on Friday.

The fatal police shooting of a mentally ill man brandishing two knives in north Tulsa on Friday culminated in an intense protest and the deployment of officers in riot gear.

Police identified the man as 29-year-old Joshua Barre. Barre struggled for years with the hallucinations and dramatic mood swings of bipolar schizoaffective disorder, and had been committed four times for treatment at Tulsa mental health hospitals, according to his mother, Etta Barre.

Fearing the worst after discovering he’d been off his medication for two months, family members had asked the sheriff’s office to take him for an evaluation. Three days before her son was shot, the desperate mother said she even offered deputies the keys to her son’s house. But because he hadn’t committed a crime, deputies chose not to make him comply.

Twice, a skittish Barre threatened to harm them, but they left each time because he posed no threat to public safety, the sheriff’s office said hours after the shooting.

Tempers flared as an emotional crowd the police estimated at 300 people condemned the latest deadly police encounter in north Tulsa. Protesters chanted “f— the police” from behind crime scene tape and shouted obscenities at investigators.

In response to the rapidly deteriorating situation, Tulsa police officers outfitted with protective gear and carrying riot shields swarmed the site of the shooting. Although no physical encounter with the crowd occurred, there was an instance where at least two rocks were hurled toward law enforcement officers, and a fight broke out between two men.

Jeff Golden runs DE-ESCALATE, a program that trains officers to bring confrontations to peaceful resolution.

He said authorities did what they had to do when they fired on Joshua Barre.

“Public safety appears to be the primary goal of the officers, and the fact that no one else was injured by a man wielding knives while walking nearly a mile demonstrates patience and thoughtful action by the officers, in my opinion,” Golden said.

More than 50 police vehicles responded to the scene, and the Tulsa Police Department’s massive Mobile Command Center made a brief appearance.

“I never thought that in 2017, some s— like this would be going down,” said 82-year-old north Tulsa native Bobby Eaton Sr., who was a leader in the city’s civil rights movement. “But here we are.”

The events

Police Department spokesman Officer Leland Ashley said deputies with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office’s Mental Health Unit were trying to serve a civil “pickup order” for a 29-year-old man at his home in the 300 block of West 50th Street North when he walked away from the area.

Authorities released the names Wednesday of the police officer and sheriff’s deputies who fatally shot a mentally ill man as he entered a north Tulsa convenience store while carrying knives last week.

The Tulsa County deputies are William Ramsey, 49, and Brandon Walker, 41. Ramsey was hired April 18, 1989. Walker was hired Feb. 1, 2005.

The Tulsa police officer is Donnie Johnson, 32. He was hired July 1, 2008.
The deputies and officers are on routine paid administrative leave.

Barre continued to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and walked south while deputies continued to follow him and tell him to drop the knives. Barre walked toward a convenience store at 4449 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. “Fearing that he would enter (the) store and endanger the public, commands were given to him to stop and not enter the store,” police said in the statement.
As Barre opened the store’s door and stepped inside around 10 a.m., two sheriff’s deputies and a police officer opened fire, striking him an unknown number of times, Officer. Ashley said.
Police reported that a deputy had used a Taser on Barre before he opened the door but that it had no effect on him. Barre was taken to a hospital, where he was soon pronounced dead.

The protest

The crowd had already started forming as detectives began to process the scene, setting up markers to pinpoint the spent shell casings. One man who said he was Barre’s brother berated officers for killing a mentally ill man and asked how they would be able to sleep at night. Activist Angie Pitts demanded answers from police Homicide Unit Sgt. Dave Walker, who told her he needed to return to his investigation.

Tensions escalated as dozens of people gathered at a store across the street and chanted expletives at law enforcement officers. The group increased in size over the next hour and evolved into a full-out protest, prompting the arrival of riot gear and police demanding that reporters and photojournalists move a block away “for their safety.”

Barre’s death reignited tensions in a city where many black residents don’t trust law enforcement’s interaction with black men. In 2016, a jury found a volunteer sheriff’s deputy guilty of second-degree manslaughter Wednesday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect.

About three weeks ago, a jury acquitted Tulsa police Officer Betty Shelby in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man. “We just don’t want it to be like Betty Shelby,” 31-year-old Adrian Colbert said of Friday’s shooting. Colbert, a member of Black Lives Matter, criticized what he believed to be a coverup in the aftermath of Crutcher’s death last September and said he hopes the current investigation is handled differently. He said it was unfair that Shelby was allowed to view video of the Crutcher shooting before being interviewed by police. He also said it was unfair that her interview wasn’t conducted until three days after the shooting.
He remarked that Friday’s protest is the largest he has seen in Tulsa.

Donald Trump has expressed concern over the recent police killing of an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Speaking to a crowd of black pastors at an Ohio church, the Republican nominee said he was “very, very troubled” by the shooting. Terence Crutcher, 40, was shot dead by a white police officer while standing next to his stalled car last Friday.

His Democratic rival Hillary Clinton said: “This has got to end.” Colbert, of Black Lives Matter went on to say, “You want to know why? Because we’re tired. They’re scared of us, but they don’t have to be,” Colbert said. “We’re just gentle giants. We’re stereotyped.”

Community member Larry Mougell took issue with the lack of black police officers assigned to north Tulsa. He said a history of unfair treatment by law enforcement has brought feelings to a boiling point. “The majority of the police who patrol our neighborhoods don’t look or resemble anything like the people who live in the neighborhoods,” Mougell said. “At this point, what are people to do with their backs to the wall? It would be a mistake if we began policing our own neighborhoods. The police would have an issue with that.” He said he hopes for a better relationship with authorities rather than the situation being “the community versus them.”

Pastor Andru Morgan Love vs. hate sermon

In the middle of Friday’s chaotic scene, police chaplain and pastor Andru Morgan sat on a curb with his head on his clasped hands. He had spent the past few hours trying to comfort the deceased man’s family members and upset spectators. He said he needed a moment to pray and ask God to help him push on after becoming exasperated.
“This is a group of people that has been disenfranchised and upset, and we’re going to strive in this community to do more and try to gather everyone together,” Morgan said. “The common theme here is that we understand that hate cannot drive out hate. We understand that only love can do it.” The chaplain commended the crowd for a mostly peaceful protest and said people heeded every request to move away from the crime scene. He also thanked law enforcement officers for backing away from protesters when asked.

Rep. Regina Goodwin, Tulsa, OK Police and the Mentally ill

After the crowd eventually dispersed and the police tape was removed, state Rep. Regina Goodwin told reporters there needs to be a change in how law enforcement handles people who are mentally ill. She also said it is past time for Tulsa officers to be equipped with body cameras to ensure fairer investigations and perhaps deter future shootings. “Living every day through these situations day in and day out, you do begin to wonder, ‘Where is the urgency to see that this community is made whole?’” Goodwin said. “You cannot in any way get toward trust or respect if we can’t come together and see application of all these feel-good meetings we have.”

American Civil Liberties Union

American Civil Liberties Union, says, “Police Use of Excessive Force Exclusionary Rules demonstrate “clear patterns of immoral and unethical behavior.” Also on Friday afternoon, the American Civil Liberties Union asked the Tulsa Police Department and the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office to turn over the investigation to an independent entity. A statement from the nonprofit organization called it absurd for residents to trust a system that’s demonstrated a “clear pattern of immoral and unethical behavior” to investigate itself.

Barre’s family said he stopped taking medication for his schizoid affective disorder in April, which led to a decline in his mental health. His family questions why authorities didn’t or couldn’t act sooner to safely detain Barre. His sister, Nyesha Barre, said that “they failed him as a mental illness patient” by not handling the situation before it escalated to his death.

The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office

The Sheriff’s Office and Police Department say they gave Barre every chance to drop the knives and also attempted to subdue him by Taser, holding off on using deadly force until he became an imminent threat to the public. Before Friday, the Sheriff’s Office’s Mental Health Unit had made three unsuccessful attempts to detain Barre on a May 31 court order for him to receive a mental-health evaluation or treatment. On Friday morning, two deputies made verbal contact with Barre near his home in the 300 block of West 50th Court North and requested police assistance because Barre was walking in the street and carrying “two large knives.” The Tulsa Police Department received four separate 911 calls from residents who reported that Barre was walking with knives.

Sheriff Vic Regalado said he was unsure whether the two deputies were in the area because they were trying to serve the order a fourth time or were there on an unrelated matter. A police statement says the deputies told Barre they were there to get him help but that Barre refused to drop the knives or stop and threatened to kill them. Barre continued walking toward Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and then walked south toward the Super Stop. The distance from first contact to the convenience store is about a mile.

Regalado said one of the deputies attempted to use a Taser on Barre in the business’s parking lot. However, both probes didn’t make contact to complete the electrical circuit, he said.

Tulsa Police Sgt. Shane Tuell said he believes that the officer arrived as the two deputies and Barre approached the convenience store. Tuell said the officer’s car was parked in the north end of the lot. Surveillance video from inside the store released Friday evening by police shows Barre carrying two large knives in his right hand as he opened the door and entered.

The police statement said the officer and two deputies who fired the shots feared for the “lives and safety” of occupants of the business, so they fired their handguns.

The video shows the Tulsa police officer firing shots at Barre, but neither deputy can be seen in the video. Regalado said a deputy was on each side of the entrance, putting the two deputies and single police officer in a triangle configuration.

Etta Barre disagrees. She said deputies could have called her, or radioed for more backup, because they were already familiar with her son’s deteriorating mental state. “It was handled very sloppily,” she told the AP. “When they pulled up that name, they should have been in touch. Nobody getting hurt; nobody getting murdered.”

The real problem is that too many cities depend on police to compensate for a lack of properly-funded mental health programs, said Honberg, the policy adviser. “There may be isn’t a right answer in this particular case, but I say there’s a right answer to at least reduce these types of encounters taking place across the country, and that is we need to invest in mental health services with ongoing care that keep patients stable,” he said.

“A man with his hands up walks past police officers during an investigation of the police shooting on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on Friday.” CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World Cory Young

Police chaplain and pastor Andru Morgan prays after a mentally ill man brandishing two knives was fatally shot by law enforcement officers in north Tulsa on Friday morning. He had spent the past few hours trying to comfort the deceased man’s family members and upset spectators. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World MIKE SIMONS

A crowd gathers after a mentally ill man brandishing two knives was fatally shot by law enforcement officers at a convenience store on Martin Luther King Boulevard on Friday. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World MIKE SIMONS

Nyesha Barre via AP, File, “In this undated photo provided by the family on Saturday, June 10, 2017, Joshua Barre, who was fatally shot by two Tulsa County, Okla. deputies and a police officer on Friday, June 9, 2017, is pictured.”

In this Friday, June 9, 2017 file photo, “Tim Borrens yells at police after a man was fatally shot in Tulsa, Okla. Police in Oklahoma say an officer involved in the fatal shooting of a black man turned on his body camera seconds after shots were fired.”