CASTLE Hill — The shaken family of a 66-year-old schizophrenic woman who was fatally shot inside her Bronx apartment by a police sergeant Tuesday night when she lunged at him with a bat demanded that the U.S. Attorney General investigate her death, saying the NYPD failed their troubled relative and violated her constitutional rights.
Jennifer Danner said that the police mishandled their response to the domestic disturbance involving her sister, Deborah Danner, who had battled mental illness most of her life.
"Yesterday, my sister's life was taken because she was ill," Jennifer Danner told reporters on Wednesday.
"I want to make it very clear that the New York City Police Department has once again failed to properly respond to deal with mentally ill patients without resorting to deadly physical force."
Danner, who was in the hall outside her sister's apartment at the time of the shooting, said she also wanted the Bronx District Attorney's Office and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate the shooting.
"We also call upon the Attorney General of the United States Loretta Lynch's office to investigate the violation of my sister's constitutional rights," Danner said.
The shooting of Deborah Danner unfolded at her Castle Hill home Tuesday evening when police responded to a neighbor's complaint that she was acting erratically. Police said that she threatened Sgt. Hugh Barry and other officers with a pair of scissors when they entered her apartment.
She eventually put down the scissors but then grabbed a bat and came at Barry, who fired two shots with his service weapon, striking her in the torso, police said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday that Barry failed to follow police protocol with Danner. Police are taught to wait for officers from the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit, who have special training to deal with emotionally disturbed people. Barry also didn't try to use his Taser gun to subdue Danner.
► READ MORE: These Are the NYPD Protocols For How to Handle Cases of Mentally Ill People
De Blasio, Danner's family and court records all describe her as a "very smart book-wise" woman whose life had been ravaged by mental illness since she was in college.
Police had been called to Danner’s residence a “handful” of times over the last three or four years, de Blasio said. Police were aware that Danner had mental health challenges, he said.
Court records also showed that she was the subject of at least four guardianship proceedings over whether she was able to care for herself.
Jennifer Danner was appointed Deborah's guardian in July, court records show.
De Blasio, who spoke to Jennifer Danner after the shooting, said that she had tried for years to help her sister deal with her mental illness.
"She told me that Deborah's mental health problems had emerged during college and that literally, for all those decades since, Jennifer had tried to help her sister in a very, very difficult situation,” de Blasio said.
The illness had also taken a financial toll on Deborah. She filed for bankruptcy in 2007, saying she owed nearly $60,000 in debt, including $14,534 in student loans and $18,407 in credit card charges.
At the time of the filing, Deborah was unemployed and receiving $1,356 a month in Social Security Disability income. She had less than $4,200 in possessions — including $1,600 in furniture and $200 in vinyl records.
In 2011 she sued a dentist in Bronx Supreme Court, accusing him of malpractice for root canal surgery he performed on her.
At the time of the surgery, she was suffering from severe tooth decay, gum disease and had all but four of her teeth missing, records show. Court records show that a notice of entry of the judge dismissing the case was filed on Tuesday.
"She definitely had mental problems," said Deborah Danner's cousin, retired NYPD Officer Wallace Cooke Jr. "Her mother got her treatment, her sister got her treatment and it just didn't work."
Cooke, 74, who walked the beat as a police officer for 15 years in Harlem, said the sergeant should have never shot his cousin.
"The other more simple thing they could've done is just close the goddamn door," Cooke said. "It's as simple as that. Where was she going? Close the door. She didn't have no gun."
