A Utah mother is speaking out and questioning the tactics used by police while responding to mental health emergencies after an officer shot her 13-year-old son who has autism.
Golda Barton told KUTV that she called 911 on Friday night with the hope that emergency crews could help hospitalize her son, who has Asperger's and was having a mental health crisis.
She recalled that she told officers her son, Linden Cameron, was unarmed and "just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming."
A few minutes after two officers went inside the family's Salt Lake City home, Golda Barton said she heard someone shout "get down on the ground" and then several gunshots.
“He’s a small child. Why didn’t you just tackle him?” Barton said in an emotional interview with KUTV on Sunday. “He’s a baby. He has mental issues.”
Police said that they were called to the home about a child who was having a “mental episode ... and had made threats to some folks with a weapon,” Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Keith Horrocks said in a statement.
Sgt. Horrocks said there was no indication a weapon had been found.
According to a GoFundMe page set up to help pay for the teen's medical bills, Linden suffered injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, intestine and bladder.
The city's mayor has promised a swift and transparent investigation into the shooting.
“While the full details of this incident are yet to be released as an investigation takes place, I will say that I am thankful this young boy is alive and no one else was injured,” Salt Lake Mayor Erin Mendenhall said in a statement to the Salt Lake Tribune. "No matter the circumstances, what happened on Friday night is a tragedy, and I expect this investigation to be handled swiftly and transparently for the sake of everyone involved.”
Local mental health advocates also criticized how police handled the incident.
"Police were called because help was needed but instead more harm was done when officers from the SLPD expected a 13-year-old experiencing a mental health episode to act calmer and collected than adult trained officers," Neurodiverse Utah, a grassroots organization promoting autism awareness, said in a statement.
Protesters nationally have called for changes in how authorities respond to mental health emergencies. In a recent high-profile case, Daniel Prude, a 29-year-old Black man, died in March after police found him running naked through the street, put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, then held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing.
His brother, Joe Prude, had called 911 seeking help for Daniel Prude's unusual behavior. He had been taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation earlier that night but was released after a few hours, his brother told officers.
The Monroe County medical examiner listed the manner of Prude's death as homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The report cited excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, as contributing factors.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
