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Police Knew Of Tasered Man's Psychiatric History
Fri Nov 23, 5:13 PM

By Alison Auld And James Keller, The Canadian Press

HALIFAX - A Nova Scotia man with chronic psychiatric problems that at times fuelled a violent streak should have received special treatment for his illness, rather than being placed in a "correctional" facility ... where he later died, family and mental health experts said Friday.

Howard Hyde, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in his 20s, died Thursday morning in a Halifax-area jail, about 30 hours after he was shot in a struggle with police.

Hyde's widow, Karen Ellet, said she made it clear in a 911 call to police that Hyde suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was off his medications and was so agitated he assaulted her.

She restated that when four officers showed up at her apartment late Tuesday to arrest him on the domestic dispute charge.

"He should have been taken to some kind of mental hospital to be medicated, to get him stable and get him rehabilitated," she said Friday.

"He just totally collapsed mentally. He was hardly coherent. That's what bothers me the most - he was so defenceless."

Hyde's sister, Joanna Blair, said officers should have treated Hyde with special care since he had a long history of run-ins with police, had been in and out of mental health institutions and feared police.

"I think that he should have been taken to a psychiatric hospital, and then his charge of abuse should have been dealt with when he was in a calmer state," she said from her home in Shelburne, N.S.

Jean Hughes, a professor at Dalhousie University who specializes in psychiatric nursing, said police officers need specific training on how to approach people with mental-health conditions to ensure such encounters don't turn violent.

She said mental-health patients who are paranoid can become afraid very easily, especially if they have had violent encounters with police in the past.

Hyde was tasered by police during an arrest in 2005.

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http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/071123/national/ns_taser_review_15