On May 11, Justin Way was drinking and threatening to hurt himself. His father, George Way, said his son was a recovering alcoholic and had been alcohol-free for five weeks.

“He just lost his job, and he had a setback,” he said.

Way’s live-in girlfriend, Kaitlyn Christine Lyons, said she’d caught Justin drinking a bottle of vodka, which she took away from him to pour out. She said he was drunk, lying in their bed with a large knife, saying he would hurt himself with it. She called a non-emergency number in an attempt to get her boyfriend to a local St. Augustine, Florida, hospital for help—and told them she did not feel threatened.

“My brother has been Baker Acted three times because he was threatening to hurt himself so I figured that would happen with Justin,” said Lyons. Florida’s Baker Act allows the involuntary institutionalization of an individual, and it can be initiated by law-enforcement officials.

“The only person Justin threatened was himself and I honestly don’t think he wanted to die.”

Minutes later, two St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputies, 26-year-old Jonas Carballosa and 32-year-old Kyle Braig, arrived at the home, armed with assault rifles, and told Kaitlyn to wait outside.

“I thought they were going into war,” she remembered thinking when she first saw the large guns. Within moments, Justin was shot dead.

George Way said the initial report he received from Det. Mike Smith detailed an incident wherein his officers said they were attacked by Justin with a knife. Way said Smith told him Justin had threatened Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn denies this.

Denise Way, Justin’s mom, said that the detective relayed to her that “they told Justin to drop the knife and he didn’t—so they shot him because that’s what we do.”

Denise said Smith then told her about “this new trend in law-enforcement now—it’s called suicide by cop.” She said Smith explained “suicide by cop” is when suicidal people provoke the police in an effort to end their own lives.

She said Smith wouldn’t tell her family where or how many times their son was shot.

Justin’s parents do not believe their son was a threat, because they think Justin was shot while still lying in bed.

“If Justin was coming after them with a knife, at 6-foot-4, wouldn’t there be blood splattered all over the room?” George said.

Way’s parents brought Justin’s mattress to the curb after his death. George says he believes there was a bullet dug out of the bed from a hole found in the middle of it. He also said the blood was contained entirely within the mattress, and that it did not hit the walls or the floor.

“The only person Justin threatened was himself and I honestly don’t think he wanted to die.”
In a phone interview with Commander Chuck Mulligan of the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, The Daily Beast asked if it was standard procedure to bring assault rifles, but not mental-health professionals, to a scene where someone is suicidal.

“If the deputies feel that that is the appropriate weapon system to use, then yes,” said Mulligan.

If the deputies used tasers and one prong missed, Mulligan said, they might be left in a difficult and potentially dangerous situation.

“They were in a very tight space within a residence,” he said.

Mulligan added that the difference between an assault rifle and a handgun would not have affected the outcome in Justin Way’s case.

“Whether it’s a rifle or not, in many senses, is a non-issue,” he said. “A bullet comes out of a handgun, a bullet comes out of a rifle.”

This wasn’t the first time that law enforcement in the area had been involved in a fatal shooting. One of the two officers that went into Justin Way’s home, Kyle Braig, was involved in a fatal shooting with a knife-wielding man five months ago. A few days after Way was killed, another suicidal man was injured by St Johns County deputies.

On Facebook, Jonas Carballosa, the second deputy involved in the Justin Way shooting, once posted the following quote: “Most people respect the badge. Everyone respects the gun.”

Way’s parents said they do not ever want to call the police again—for anything.

Kaitlyn Lyons said she hopes the police rethink how guns are used in cases where people are calling about those who are suicidal or seeking help.

“I think they should come in using other things,” she said. “And I think they definitely need to figure out how to handle suicidal people.”

This story written by Gina Tron for The Daily Beast.

Recently I’ve been wondering why the mainstream media is so terrible at reporting accurate or concerning details of supposed criminal activity. There never seems to be any real ‘story.’ No background information, no character description, no follow-up – just vague details in politically-correct language. With so much controversy between law enforcement officers and civilians recently, why wouldn’t a reporter, editor, or publisher want to get to know the whole story? When people die, are arrested, or stolen from, it’s a tragedy. Fellow citizens deserve to know the humanity of it all – right?

On Saturday, March 14^th, I was able to see some of the bigger picture.

That evening, the local mainstream news in Dayton, Ohio reported on a police stand-off in West Carrollton, a neighboring suburb. I paid particular attention to it because earlier the same day, another standoff had occurred in Dayton. The ‘breaking’ story I saw on my News Feed read,

“Officers from multiple departments are assisting West Carrollton police at the scene, including the [SWAT team].

A man inside the home reportedly has access to weapons and body armor, according to dispatch reports.”

A friend who is a local journalist for several alternative news outlets encouraged me to go and inquire further, as the initial report was too ambiguous. Having multiple encounters with police officers before, I knew that a press release so vague could mean anything. I’ve seen friends arrested for bogus charges, only to see him/her made into a ‘bad guy’ later on. The first thing I thought was, “Is the man in that home going to be ok?”

Since I lived nearby, I grabbed my phone and went to the scene of the standoff. After briefly talking to a group of neighbors who were standing by the blocked-off street, I proceeded to walk up the half block to talk to one of the officers. Immediately I was approached by a sergeant who strutted menacingly toward me, telling me to leave. I asked him who I could talk to instead, and was given a made-up answer. I walked back and a (much friendlier) volunteer firefighter repeated the same information I already had.

About 30 minutes later, the standoff ended with the man being arrested, and no shots fired. As the mainstream media was preparing an interview with the lieutenant, the same sergeant who asked me to leave the scene earlier came down the hill and starting chatting up the locals and media personnel like he was Barney Fife, while ignoring me, the one with a camera pointed at him. I then watched the reporter interview the lieutenant and was appalled. There was no meaningful questions being asked about the man in custody, no concern whether or not the arrest was legitimate, and no skepticism at the necessity of sending multiple police departments and a SWAT team to surround a suburban home. It was frankly pathetic.

The lieutenant said the man had called a suicide hotline, and threatened to harm himself. After a tip by the hotline, West Carrollton police sent a patrol to the home to conduct a welfare check. When the man refused to allow the police entry, the other units were dispatched. The initial report of weapons and body armor appeared to be a farce, as the “peace” officers had now acquired a search warrant and were looking inside the residence for weapons, unsure if there were any to begin with. When asked what charges were to be filed, the lieutenant only specified “inducing panic.”

I could prattle on about the stupidity of arresting a man for “inducing panic” when it was law enforcement who sent out an armored truck full of men with assault rifles. I could take this opportunity to chastise the West Carrollton Police Department for imprisoning a man who had not committed a crime. I could mention the psychological harm jail could cause to a person in need of counseling or medicine for mental sickness. But that’s not why I’m writing this.

I’m writing this because the world needs to know their reporters, news anchors, editors, and publishers are cheating them. When information is presented to us so casually, so methodically, so absent of detail, it enables us to become calloused and indifferent to our fellow man. It is the excuse people need to scapegoat innocent victims for their own problems and shortcomings. It fuels the inexplicable hatred for the John Crawfords, Tamir Rices, and Eric Garners of the world when they deserve justice so badly. When humanity is omitted from these tragedies, when aggressive journalism is replaced with press releases, when our “news” is nothing more than a police department write-up designed to omit law enforcement accountability, your local and national news persons rob the rest us of dignity.

The state’s law enforcement agencies exist by fiat, not for justice. Likewise, mainstream media exists for revenue and power, not news. Fortunately, we are all the solution to this. Any one of us with some amount of confidence and a smartphone can change the face of news and law enforcement as we know it. Alternative media is the solution, and all of us are the journalists. It’s no longer enough to share the right Facebook posts anymore, but instead we must get our hands dirty and risk something to show the rest of the world the humanity – and truth – of every encounter a police officer has with a citizen. This is the only way to stop the injustice and collusion of the police and media together.

I regret not performing my own interview with the lieutenant, but I have to start somewhere. It has been a long process in my life to go from a LEO apologist to where I am now. However, I would not have made it to this point without the right people pushing me to be a voice for truth, and it is not going to stop here. I encourage you to do the same. We all must recognize that if any of us can accurately see the problem, then we have no choice but to apply the solution ourselves.

Go out there and record the cops. Buy a police scanner and dispatch yourself to protect the lives of others. Get connected with like-minded people and work together whenever possible. Mainstream media is as much Leviathan as your local PD, and together we can cut the head off the beast.