WASHINGTON — While numerous questions surround the death of a woman repeatedly hit with a Taser stun gun, her own mental health — and the handling of it — has emerged as a key concern.
Natasha McKenna, of Alexandria, Virginia, died after being taken off life support on Sunday.
Fairfax County sheriff’s deputies had earlier used a Taser multiple times to restrain her while she was being transported. Not long after that, she had a medical emergency and never fully recovered.
“Why in the world did this woman end up being handled by people who were not trained to deal with folks with mental illness?” says Pete Earley, a former Washington Post reporter who now writes and speaks about mental illness.
“This is just an outrageous incident, and an example of how people with mental illness need to be taken to treatment centers, not to jails and prisons that don’t know how to handle them,” he says.
The entire incident is under investigation, but McKenna’s mental health was in doubt early on.
According to Alexandria police, McKenna punched an officer and tried biting others when they responded to a call about a disruptive person.
“Officers were concerned about her,” says Crystal Nosal, a spokeswoman for the Alexandria Police Department. “They thought she might have some mental health issues.”
Once in custody, she was assigned special mental health considerations.
Earley, whose son battled mental illness, says he believes the incident with the deputies didn’t comport with McKenna’s condition.
“You shouldn’t end up with an encounter with law enforcement [and] end up dead because you have a mental illness,” he says.
