The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan is challenging the Warren Police Department over an incident involving accusations of excessive force against Christopher Gibson, a 26-year-old man experiencing a mental health crisis. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, claims that Warren police officers knew of Gibson's mental state yet still beat, tased, and pepper-sprayed him, leading to heart and kidney damage, as per a 31-page complaint.
Amid the freezing December cold, officers discovered Gibson wandering the streets, confused and without a coat. Despite his mother's pleas to take him to a psychiatric facility, the ACLU alleges he was instead taken to a holding cell. Mark P. Fancher, an ACLU attorney, expressed, per The Detroit News, "If officers regarded Mr. Gibson's behavior as problematic, the antidote was not violence," suggesting that compassion and treatment would have been the appropriate response over pepper spray or taser use.
The lawsuit detailed the traumatic encounters between Gibson and officers in the police department's holding cell. Moreover, Fancher emphasized to ClickOnDetroit that "These were officers who did all the wrong things," and claimed there was a clear violation of Gibson's constitutional rights. Similarly, the ACLU's Syeda Davidson argued that police officers are often ill-equipped when handling individuals in mental health crises and advocated for mental health experts, not militaristically trained officers, to respond to such situations.
According to the articles, the incident began with a disturbing interaction in which an officer, after learning of Gibson's distress, reportedly stated he "picked the wrong city to be going through it in." Details from the lawsuit, as covered by FOX 2 Detroit, suggest a grueling physical altercation followed, with officers using tasers and force against Gibson, who at one point bit an officer. This response led to his hospitalization and subsequent internal bleeding, with his mother allegedly not being informed of his location for three days.
