The killing of a mentally ill West Kendall man by a Miami-Dade police officer — as his horrified mother watched him bleed out on her kitchen floor — has elicited a pledge of reform by county leaders eager to lessen the danger of encounters between police and people in crisis.

The shooting death of 21-year-old Richard Hollis and the plight of his mother, Gamaly Hollis – whose efforts to seek justice for her son led to her own arrest, prosecution and jailing – were detailed in a Miami Herald series, Guilty of Grief, in November.

Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez invoked the family’s tragedy as he announced the formation of a work group of legal system leaders to study deadly use of force by police when they confront people with mental illness. The group will include State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Chief Circuit Court Judge Nushin Sayfie, newly elected Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and the president of the county chiefs of police association, Pete Delgado.

Martinez said he will initiate an artificial intelligence-aided comprehensive study of police use of force reports and body-worn camera footage to identify failed strategies and develop effective practices. Thomson Reuters, which publishes, among other things, the legal reporting service Westlaw, has agreed to provide technology and expertise with the inquiry, Martinez said.

Martinez plans to examine what happens in cities that use the alternative approach of deploying mental health professionals and peer counselors on crisis calls rather than armed police.

“We have huge challenges with people who have mental illness,” Martinez said in remarks during the swearing in for his fifth term as public defender on Jan. 17. “It’s at the street level by officers. It’s at the system level when they come into the court system. It’s everywhere.

“Our residents expect us to make sure that when they call the police their family members aren’t killed in front of them, like what happened to Ms. Hollis.”

Miami-Dade Police documented 33 encounters between the Hollis family and officers until June 15, 2022, when a neighbor at the Peppermill Apartment complex called 911 to report a frightening argument inside the Hollis’ unit. The 34th incident turned fatal. Officer Jaime Pino – exasperated over the family’s recurring conflicts – kicked down the door of apartment B-312 and, seconds later, fired five shots into Richard.

Pino knew Richard was ill, and a drug abuser prone to psychotic episodes. Pino had previously committed Richard to a psychiatric hospital under the state’s Baker Act, one of nine times Richard was involuntarily committed; diagnosed variously as suicidal, paranoid, delusional and bipolar; given temporary stabilizing medication, and released within days.

Gamaly Hollis sought accountability from police for Richard’s death, particularly since Pino had threatened to kill Richard eight months prior to the shooting. She was sentenced to 364 days in jail after a jury convicted her of violating a judge’s order that she stay away from Pino and cease posting about him on social media.

Her offense: Posting to her 39 Facebook followers a picture of Pino’s squad car parked in front of his garage, along with the words “bye bye” – the same words Pino had said to her when she yelled “murderer” at him from her car. She is still facing trial on two charges of stalking and resisting arrest, and could be sent back to jail if convicted. A week after the Herald series, prosecutors offered a probation deal that would keep her out of jail if she admits guilt, but she has rejected that.

Gamaly Hollis said she was gratified that county leaders are seeking to reform the law enforcement system as a result of Richard’s case.

“Richard’s death must not be in vain,” she said. “I want his name to be heard and I want people to know what happened so it will stop happening. Something is wrong when a police officer who threatened to kill my son comes to my home and, without hesitating, without negotiating with a sick, skinny 21-year-old in crisis, carries out his threat and shoots my son five times.

“I will keep fighting for justice and to get dangerous police like Officer Pino off the street before he kills somebody else. I’m not afraid. I can take whatever abuse they give me.”

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, in reviews that are standard following any fatal police shooting, found the shooting justified. Florida law gives police, who often must make split-second decisions, wide latitude to use deadly force if they perceive a threat.

Richard had two knives and was yelling threats in close quarters. Prosecutors, in a memo documenting State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s decision to not prosecute the officer, found “Richard Hollis’ statements and actions that night presented a clear threat to Officer Pino and Gamaly Hollis.” Miami-Dade’s police union also has defended his actions.

Persistent problem

Use of force by officers in Miami-Dade, including deadly incidents, occur with great frequency. A lawsuit filed last April by a Maryland man whose beating by nearly two dozen Miami Beach officers was captured on officers’ video listed more than 50 instances of what the suit called police misconduct and excessive force. Prosecutors say the beating appears to have been sparked by the man’s middle finger gesture to officers who laughed at him when he nearly fell off a scooter.

The city of Miami remained under the oversight of a court-appointed monitor for a decade following a string of deadly police shootings of Black suspects. Court supervision of the department ended in 2021, after the monitor, appointed by the U.S. Justice Department, concluded Miami Police were complying with a settlement agreement.

People with mental illness, like Richard Hollis, are considerably more likely to die in such police encounters. One group, the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center, says encounters between police and people with behavioral disorders are 16 times more likely to turn deadly.

Another study – this one by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health – found that 67% of all shootings by police involving a person with mental illness were fatal. Almost one-in-four of the 10,308 police shootings studied between 2015 and 2020 involved a person with a behavioral health problem.

Most police departments use a nationally recognized program called Crisis Intervention Training to teach officers how to deescalate tensions when dealing with people in crisis. Records show Pino had been given CIT training 19 years before Hollis was shot. But body-worn video from before the shooting, and of other interactions with Richard and another man, shows that officers often inflamed tensions by mocking, bullying and cursing at people.

And Martinez told the Herald that training, by itself, cannot overcome a corrosive departmental culture, from the top down, that allows officers to treat people in behavioral crisis with contempt.

“It can’t just be more training, or a booster shot of training,” Martinez said. “Some of these officers, like Officer Pino, do not belong on the street interacting with people. We cannot continue to have interactions that are downright shocking and shameful.”

Martinez said he hopes the work group will take a multi-dimensional approach to improving the way people with mental illness, and their families, are treated by law enforcement officers and the courts.

“To me, the Hollis case showed us everything that is wrong with the criminal legal system,” he said. “It showed how a mentally ill individual got killed instead of getting help. It showed how Ms. Hollis did not receive victim services or grief counseling but instead was persecuted for speaking up. The Hollis case highlighted everything that needs fixing.”

Martinez, who is beginning his fifth term as Miami’s public defender, spoke at length at his swearing in about the dangers posed – both to police and civilians – by encounters between officers and people with behavioral illness.

‘Expecting too much of police’

“We are expecting too much of police,” Martinez said, as both the county’s top prosecutor, Fernandez Rundle, and Sayfie listened from the auditorium. “Police, no matter how much training they get, they are not equipped to deal with the life trauma those individuals” have experienced. “We’ve got to do better to make sure we have more mobile crisis clinics (and) mental health experts who are the first responders.

“Only when there’s a threat to life or a danger to life should we get law enforcement involved.”

He added: “They don’t want to be in those situations where their life is at risk, either. They have to make last minute, instant decisions, life or death decisions, that I’m sure weigh on them for life.”

Sayfie could not discuss the Hollis family with the Miami Herald, as Gamaly Hollis still faces charges before the County Court Sayfie oversees. But she welcomed the dialogue between prosecutors, defenders, law enforcement and the courts.

“There is room for improvement all around,” Sayfie said in an interview. “People don’t know who to call so they call the police, and that can turn into the perfect storm. If people had options, they could call a professional to help someone in the middle of a crisis.”

For decades, Sayfie said, Miami-Dade has been a national leader in developing specialized courts, such as Drug Court, Mental Health Court, and Veterans Court, where defendants facing criminal charges often are met with treatment options, social services and diversion into less-punitive programs. “We definitely have been at the forefront to make things better in our community,” Sayfie said.

But, she added, “There has never been the moment where we drop the mic and say, ‘OK, we’re done. We’ve solved this problem.”

Sayfie said she is optimistic that the group Martinez proposed may find some success, particularly since the county’s first sheriff since 1957, Rosie Cordero-Stutz, also has expressed interest in tackling the issue. “She is a critical part of this story,” Sayfie said of the new sheriff. “At the end of the day, this is not what law enforcement was designed for. It was not designed to assist people with mental illness.”

“We want police officers going where they are needed,” Sayfie said. “It is not fair to them, and it’s not fair to the people who made the call in the first place and are looking for help.” She added: “We’re not social workers. But we have to be on some level.”

Martinez said the time is right to propose meaningful reforms of the way both the law enforcement and legal systems interact with people whose mental illness leads to conflict.

“Our institutions are not where the public is at. The public is way ahead of us in realizing that how we handle these crises is not good enough,” Martinez said. “We are not taking a comprehensive approach to finding solutions that work for everyone.

“Mental illness touches every single family and people expect us to change, adapt and improve. I hope that lasting change inspired by the Hollis case will give meaning to the death of Ms. Hollis’ son.”

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