HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) — In December 2019, 43-year-old Hank Berry called 911 to ask police to investigate whether his son, who he’d recently lost custody of, was being physically abused. Shortly after police arrived, he was killed by a single gunshot.
Berry had called 911 repeatedly that day. John Fletcher, who represented his family in a civil suit against the police, said that Berry was never diagnosed with a mental illness, but had exhibited strange, paranoid behavior in the months before he was killed.
“I don’t know what you would call that, but clearly, he was having a mental health crisis of some sort,” Fletcher told 10 On Your Side in an interview.
He believes that if police had better options to deal with cases like this, lives could be saved.
“Two of the police officers knew very well that he was having mental health issues,” Fletcher said. “This was not a situation where police are reacting to a dangerous, violent criminal. Hank Berry was not a danger to anyone — he was just confused and, at worst, was not obeying an earlier command by the police to stop calling 911.