Hey Gavin Newsome California’s Mental Health Crisis: Did You Know How We Got Here?
Sandra Shells was a 70-year-old nurse at a large Los Angeles hospital, and getting ready to retire, when she was waiting for a bus to take her work early in the morning of Jan. 13, 2022. She never made it. At around 5 a.m., before the bus could arrive, a 48-year-old man named Kerry Bell punched her in the face, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. The nurse fell backward to the ground, her head striking the pavement. Three days later, she died of her injuries. The city’s chief of police, Michael Moore, called the brutal attack “a tragic and senseless murder directly tied to the failure of this Nation’s mental health resources.” The killing of Sandra Shells was especially horrifying. But it was just one more in a growing trend of crimes connected to mental health problems. In the city of Los Angeles, crimes committed by people with mental health issues have risen dramatically over the past decade. According to Los Angeles Police Department data co