Taite Collins says he will always wonder if he could have done something more to stop what unfolded just metres below his home in one of Sydney’s largest public housing estates. He had just gotten out of the shower on Tuesday night when he heard yelling. He stepped on to his balcony and shot a video of his partner, Collin Burling, begging for help while he was restrained by police.
“I can’t breath,” Burling can be heard saying in the video before he appears motionless. He went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead in hospital.
“He didn’t have to die,” Collins tells Guardian Australia on Friday. “He begged not to die.”
The 45-year-old’s death is the subject of a critical incident investigation that will be overseen by the police watchdog. Advocates say the death is symptomatic of the failings in the way police and the mental health system respond to mental distress in the community.
According to the New South Wales police assistant commissioner Peter McKenna, four officers were called to the Waterloo public housing block at 2.14am by paramedics after reports a man was possibly suffering from a mental health episode.
Sam Lee, a solicitor at the Redfern Legal Centre, said the incident appeared to show a familiar pattern of police often escalating rather than de-escalating mental health episodes.
Read the full article at The Guardian Australia published on July 19.
