In the years since Courtney Topic was shot by police, her family has despaired at each death involving a person in mental health crisis. Despite feeling the “bullet in the heart again and again”, the family is struggling to gain the ear of politicians.
Now dozens of prominent lawyers, legal experts and academics will petition the state government to get mental health clinicians on the front lines with police.
Courtney Topic was shot dead by police while in the grip of a mental health crisis in 2015.Credit: Courtesy of the Topic family
“It’s been horrendous,” Courtney’s mother, Leesa, told the Herald on Wednesday, reflecting on four deaths in four months – Krista Kach near Newcastle, Jesse Deacon in Glebe, Steve Pampalian in North Willoughby and Clare Nowland in Cooma.
“Courtney didn’t deserve it, we didn’t deserve it, these other people didn’t deserve it either,” Leesa said.
“It’s a kick in the guts – or a bullet in the heart again and again and again and again. What’s changed?”
Leesa and husband Ron Topic’s lives were forever broken when Courtney, age 22, was shot in the chest by police in February 2015.
Leesa and Ron Topic (right) outside the NSW Coroners Court in 2018.Credit: Jessica Hromas
Police had been called after she was spotted in a fast food restaurant car park with a knife, in the grips of psychosis. An officer opened fire within a minute of confronting Courtney.
“Forty-one seconds. That’s how much her life was worth to them,” Leesa said.
A coronial inquest, in 2018, found the police response was “entirely inappropriate”.
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The Topics in June emailed Police Commissioner Karen Webb, Police Minister Yasmin Catley and other politicians seeking to discuss a “reprehensible” void in mental health training for officers.
“We are real people that are forever living the nightmare of losing a loved one. In our case, our beloved child, by those that are supposed to serve and protect,” the Topics’ email wrote.
Last week a high-ranking officer, who is conducting a three-month review into the police training and responses to mental health, asked to meet with the Topics.
The Topics’ hopes have been buoyed by the police, but the couple say they have not received a response from the politicians.
This week a letter signed by more than 80 of the state’s most respected advocates, obtained by the Herald, will ask Premier Chris Minns to urgently fund mental health workers to join police on the frontline.
Camilla Pandolfini, Redfern Legal Centre CEO and a signatory to the letter, told the Herald “mental health is a health issue that requires health solutions”.
Another signatory, Jonathon Hunyor from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, said the community could not expect police to be equipped with the skills to de-escalate people experiencing mental health crises.
“Having police arrive during a time of crisis escalates anxiety for those people and puts them at further risk,” Hunyor said.
Acting Commissioner Dave Hudson this month said clinicians were sometimes better placed than police to de-escalate such situations.
Krista Kach died in hospital on September 14, after police shot her with a beanbag round to bring to a close a nine-hour siege.
The letter follows revelations in the Herald that mental health experts who are posted to 19 police area commands across the state work only eight hours a day and are not called upon if a person at the centre of a police-led operation has a weapon.
Sources within the police, not permitted to speak publicly, say the force is picking up the slack of a health system struggling to hold and treat people at risk to themselves and others.
This month, the police union said officers were being “ambushed” at coronial inquests while the health system was not being held to account. Officers have told recent inquests of their own psychological torment after being involved in fatal shootings.
NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Josh Pallas told the Herald the council supported an “urgent inquiry” so that “the setting can be recalibrated to avoid further lethal police interactions.
“A health response to crises arising from mental ill health is paramount. Not a violent police response.”
Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson conceded earlier this week that the mental health system “isn’t working well”, but would not call for a royal commission.
If you or anyone you know needs support, call 13 9276, Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.