Independence police killing mom, baby was a tragedy. And it didn’t have to happen | Opinion
On Nov. 7, police were called to a domestic incident in Independence. It began with a call for help from a grandmother about an altercation with her son’s partner, who was a new mom. It ended with the death of both mother and baby at the hands of police.
Independence police recently released heavily edited bodycam footage of the incident under investigation. This story should send shivers down anyone’s spine, particularly those hoping to start a family. While we will never know what the woman in this tragic case was suffering from, what happened to her is another illustration of how the American criminal justice system vilifies mothers with mental illness.
Postpartum mood disorders afflict approximately 1 in 5 mothers, and are the most common complication of childbirth. Studies reveal that only a fraction of these women get treatment. Postpartum mood disorders are considered a spectrum and include postpartum depression and, at the most extreme, postpartum psychosis. The latter is a life-threatening medical emergency that has a 4% risk of infanticide.
Considering how common postpartum mood disorders are and how only a minority of those affected get help, it is inevitable that maternal mental illness and the law would intersect. One could be excused for not thinking this should be cause for concern, especially considering America’s reputation as a civilized society. The truth, unfortunately, is radically different. Much like its medieval approach to reproductive rights, America has draconian laws toward mentally ill moms.
More than 20 nations — including Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia — have laws to mitigate punishment for newly postpartum mothers who harm their infants. These laws, sometimes called infanticide provisions, recognize that women who harm their children in the postpartum period may have been suffering from a mental disturbance as a result of childbirth. Instead, what America offers severely mentally ill moms is punishments ranging from the threat of the death penalty to life in prison. The latter is what happened to Carol Coronado, a mom from California who took the lives of her three children in 2014. Although multiple psychiatrists testified Coronado was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of her actions, she received three life sentences.
As if this isn’t concerning enough, studies have found that more than 40% of those incarcerated in jails have a mental illness. These rates are similar to those found in other countries. What is different, however, is that more than 60% of these individuals in the U.S. do not receive treatment while incarcerated. This easily explains why Kimberlynn Bolanos, a Chicago mother sentenced to serve 38 years for killing her infant, gouged out both of her own eyes while in prison. Bolanas was incarcerated despite being deemed legally insane and suffering from psychosis at the time of her actions by multiple psychiatrists.
These reasons are why what happened to Maria Pike and her baby in their Independence apartment was not as shocking as it should have been to me. The vilification and demonization of mothers with severe mental illness pervades the justice system at every level. Forget that front-line workers should get appropriate training on severe mental illness and learn de-escalation tactics. Those things alone might have enabled Maria and her baby not only to be alive today, but also get help and thrive. What the little bit of police bodycam footage that was released shows is that even expecting law enforcement to exercise patience to wait for the mental health professional who was on the scene to respond was apparently too high an expectation.
Automatically viewing those struggling with their mental health as dangerous — and not through a lens of illness — is what leads to tragedy. Until we can create greater awareness and understanding of mental illnesses, including severe postpartum mood disorders, law enforcement will continue to feel justified in using force to neutralize those they deem a threat.