Dear Alaska,

It is with heartfelt trauma experienced by our police and citizens who have been shot and killed by the police throughout the state in recent weeks that I ask for more mental health training to happen throughout Alaska for all our citizens including the police, the unhoused, the wealthy and employed, students, senior citizens and the downtrodden with whom we all share the same place to live our best lives, our home Alaska.

I ask for those in authority exposed to fellow Alaskans struggling with their mental health and issues of concern to consider all alternatives of controlling the citizen suffering with mental illness and their behavior before using guns. I am wondering why the man in Juneau was so quickly shot down as he and his dog were known citizens of the streets.

Law enforcement and citizens need to be trained and have an awareness that many people experience other disabilities, besides mental illness, like being hearing impaired.

Now is the time to take action to change our thinking and change our behaviors so that people are not killed on the streets by police, who may have had alternative methods that will keep themselves and citizens save without taking the life of a person suffering with mental illness, substance abuse or other trauma-related issues.

Please consider the lives we could save and the trauma that could be avoided for all, including the authorities, if we all could be armed with training about mental illness that would change the outcomes for some of our most vulnerable and suffering citizens that need support.

We need to find alternatives to the violence inflicted to people suffering from mental illness due to lack of training and resources for authorities, so that we Alaskans are not being shot and killed on our streets.

Meg Mitchell

Homer