‘We failed another citizen’: His crisis brewed for weeks before deadly clash with police

Mental health advocates say frequent 911 calls and hospital stays were warning signs a crisis was brewing in the weeks before a 27-year-old Charlotte man was shot and killed by police.

On Feb. 2, Charlie Shoupe was shot and killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Officer Daniel Flynn at a west Charlotte apartment complex.

Flynn shot Shoupe after he ran at the police officer with a knife, according to CMPD and neighbors who witnessed the shooting.

The deadly police encounter unfolded in less than 20 seconds.

For weeks before the shooting, though, multiple health care providers and first responder agencies were involved with Shoupe.

“He fell through the cracks. We failed another citizen,” says Roger Melville, former president of National Alliance on Mental Illness-Charlotte.

Shoupe was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to family members. His mother told a 911 dispatcher the day before he died that Shoupe had stopped taking his prescribed medication.

Now, Melville and other mental health care advocates say Charlotte leaders should review Shoupe’s death beyond CMPD’s ongoing investigation into Flynn’s actions.

Several mental health services and hospitals contacted by the Charlotte Observer refused to comment on Shoupe’s death or treatment, citing federal patient confidentiality laws. His mother refused interview requests.

Retired CMPD Deputy Chief Eddie Levins, a nationally-recognized expert on mental health police response, said Shoupe’s last few minutes of life were spent in a “full-blown crisis.”

Shoupe is seen in a Feb. 2 bystander video – recorded minutes before he was shot – cutting himself with a knife.

Firefighters who arrived before police tried to get Shoupe to drop the knife but said he refused and was acting aggressive. After the shooting, the fire fighters told police investigators Shoupe said “he was going to kill everyone, and that the police would have to kill him,” Chief Robert Cannon with the Charlotte Fire Department told the Observer.

“It's very rare that (mental health crisis) just happens out of the blue,” Levins said. “When you're dealing with an armed subject who is threatening, the time for talking is over.”

But, he said, repeated 911 calls to help Shoupe in the weeks before he died were warning signs.

The day Shoupe died was the sixth time in five weeks that police had been called to Shoupe’s home.

A review of Shoupe’s medical treatment and 911 calls to his home could reveal whether first responders, health care managers or doctors missed chances to help the 27-year-old, Melville said.

“This happens to many of them,” he said. “It's called the revolving door.”

To address that revolving door, Mecklenburg County started a police and community health program 10 years ago aimed at keeping people with mental illness from cycling through emergency room visits and local jails.

The program, used nationally, is called “CIT,” or the Crisis Intervention Team, and includes a five-day training course for police officers. Melville is a past volunteer instructor for the CIT program. CIT teaches officers verbal de-escalation skills and signs of common mental illnesses and addiction.

More than 600 CMPD officers are CIT-trained – a higher percentage inside the department than the national average.

But Melville says CIT’s effectiveness hinges on whether people with mental illness are connected with local health services.

911 won’t dispatch mental health

In Charlotte, a 24-hour mental health emergency response team – called Mobile Crisis – exists but isn’t connected to 911 dispatch. Instead, police, fire or medic – or, often all three – respond to 911 calls about suicides and other mental health crisis.

Mobile Crisis, a taxpayer-funded service, works to keep adults and children from repeat emergency room visits for mental or behavioral health complications, says Keshia Ginn, executive director of the Mecklenburg Mobile Crisis Team.

Mobile Crisis shows up only if responding CMPD officers or family members call the agency’s hotline. Charlotte’s other two emergency first responder agencies – fire and medic – say they do not make referrals to Mobile Crisis.

CMPD says it did not call Mobile Crisis in Shoupe’s case. Instead, he was taken to the hospital seven times between April 2017 and January 2018.

Hospital emergency rooms in Charlotte can stabilize a person’s physical health and provide basic psychiatric evaluation. But, mental health advocates say emergency rooms aren’t equipped to treat patients who have severe, persistent mental health issues.

Mecklenburg Mobile Crisis employees can access patient health history, review prescribed medications, help schedule doctor’s appointments, provide immediate mental health counseling and work with caregivers. The average response time is about 30 minutes.

In 2016, the crisis team delivered in-person services to 1,200 people in Mecklenburg County. About 80 percent of those were people who were at risk of going to jail or a hospital on the day Mobile Crisis was called.

CMPD has said it doesn’t track how often police officers use Mobile Crisis but it’s working on a way to start collecting data. The department does not have a policy that requires officers to call Mobile Crisis.

Melville recommends families call both 911 and Mobile Crisis (704-566-3410, select option #1) in a mental health emergency.

If a Mobile Crisis call involves a weapon, police are called.

8 trips to ER

CMPD records show police went to Shoupe’s home 11 times since April 2017. Mecklenburg MEDIC was there on all but two of the 911 calls.

Other public records, as well as Shoupe’s public posts to Facebook, show the struggles of the last year of his life.

▪  In April, July and August of 2017: Shoupe is taken to the hospital three times by MEDIC. CMPD officers are called as backup to assist MEDIC.

▪  September 10: Shoupe posts on his Facebook profile he is trying to get sober by quitting beer and marijuana.

▪  October 2 and 22: MEDIC and CMPD are at Shoupe’s home twice. Both times, he is taken to the hospital.

▪  Oct. 29: Shoupe is accused of assaulting two security officers and two psychiatric health care workers inside Carolinas HealthCare Kings Mountain Hospital. He’s arrested six days later.

▪  Nov. 17: Shoupe writes on Facebook that he’s been sober for two months. He says: “I feel accomplished.”

▪  Nov. 24: On Facebook, Shoupe writes: “I’d like to thank God that I had a great Thanksgiving ... There was no fighting and no drama which made my whole day.”

▪  Dec. 30: CMPD is at Shoupe’s home twice in one day. MEDIC and CMPD respond in the morning but Shoupe is not taken to the hospital. Hours later, officers return for a disturbance call. On the second visit, CIT officers persuade Shoupe to go to the hospital, police records show.

▪ Jan. 1: CMPD returns to Shoupe’s apartment to perform a “welfare check.” CMPD says Shoupe called officers from the hospital, asking if they would check on his mother and family.

▪  Jan. 19: CMPD officers and MEDIC go to Shoupe’s home after a 911 call about Shoupe threatening to kill himself. He’s taken to the hospital.

▪  Feb. 1: Shoupe’s mother calls 911 to request an ambulance for him. She tells medical workers Shoupe has not taken his medication and he believes that she is trying to kill him, according to CMPD. Shoupe refuses to go to the hospital.

A CIT officer, another CMPD patrol officer and MEDIC spend about 20 minutes inside the home, talking with Shoupe, CMPD officials said. The officers agree with MEDIC that Shoupe appears “lucid and calm,” according to CMPD.

CMPD said in a statement about the Feb. 1 call: “Mr. Shoupe appeared calm and reasonable and did not present an imminent threat to himself or anyone else.”

▪  Feb. 2: Police, fire and MEDIC respond to a “priority one” call to Shoupe’s apartment. He’s bleeding by the time firefighters arrive to provide emergency medical service. For several minutes, firefighters attempt to help Shoupe. He’s seen in a video holding a knife and walking around the parking lot in front of his apartment.

When CMPD Officer Flynn arrives, Shoupe is in the parking lot with a knife, according to CMPD. Flynn tells Shoupe to drop the knife but he refuses, police say. In a video recorded by a bystander, multiple gun shots are heard about 20 seconds after Flynn arrives. Shoupe dies later at a hospital.

Three days after Shoupe died, the assault charges pending in Kings Mountain were dismissed by Cleveland County court officials.

His public defender on the assault charges, Josh Valentine, says Shoupe, like others with mental illness in North Carolina, fell through the cracks of the medical and criminal justice system in the last few months of his life.

“There is this vacuum that has not been filled when it comes to the amount of treatment in our system,” Valentine said.

This story was originally published February 16, 2018 at 12:14 PM with the headline "‘We failed another citizen’: His crisis brewed for weeks before deadly clash with police."