MIAMI — Reina Arocha begged for a Miami Shores, Florida, police officer to back off in the seconds before he unleashed several rounds that killed her 47-year-old daughter, a woman who had long struggled with mental health issues.
Unable to detach her oxygen tank quickly enough to reach her daughter, all Arocha could do was stand at the doorway shouting to police that the gun Etianna Planellas held wasn’t real.
“I screamed don’t shoot my daughter, it’s a fake gun,” said Arocha, the memory of the fatal Aug. 30 shooting in her own front yard forced her to take long, slow deep breaths. “The police kept telling me to go inside the house. I said I’m not going inside, this is my daughter. Then I said, you killed my daughter. When I looked over, the officer was shaking.”
It was only the latest example of the confusion, difficulty and danger that frequently surround encounters between the mentally ill and law enforcement officers in South Florida and nationwide.
What makes this one so tragic — for both police and Planellas’s family, who agreed to talk to The Herald last week — is that the officer knew who he was dealing with. In many cases, officers don’t have background information.
One law enforcement source with knowledge of the incident said the officer, whose name has not been released, took the shooting particularly hard because he’d been to the home a number of times in the past and was well aware of the woman’s mental condition. Arocha said after the officer fired his weapon, he seemed shaken and then covered his face with his hands.
She said her daughter had been diagnosed as bipolar and suffering from depression. Despite that, she said Planellas helped care for her aging parents and maintained an almost two-decade long relationship with a boyfriend. In the past, she’s worked as a medical assistant in Hialeah, at Miami International Airport and for a doggy daycare center.
Miami Shores Police spokesman Lt. David Golt said the officer, who was responding to a 911 call, mistook a realistic looking pellet gun for a handgun and only fired after it was pointed in his direction. Golt said Planellas had held it to her temple before pointing it at the officer. Miami Shores police have not yet responded to records requests from the Herald for calls of service to the home, video surveillance or radio transmissions.
It’s also not clear if the officer heard the warnings of a replica gun from Arocha, or how many times he fired. Arocha said the officer fired multiple times.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, as it does with lethal police actions in several cities, is investigating the shooting.
Other than traffic officers, most Miami Shores officers have yet to be fitted with body worn cameras so there is no direct recording of the shooting The Miami Herald has also requested the dash-cam video from the officer’s patrol vehicle.
The department also had not revealed who called 911. Family members suspect Planellas called police herself. It’s something she’s done in the past, they said, while deeply depressed or in a paranoid state.
Golt said police had been to the home several times over the years. Family members estimated officers had been called or visited the property at 68 NW 95th St., dozens of times, sometimes as often as twice a month.
“We’ve Baker Acted her and called police,” said cousin Anthony Hernandez. “She’s cut herself and threatened suicide stuff. But she’s never threatened anybody else.”
Steadman Stahl, president of Miami-Dade’s Police Benevolent Association, said the case underlines the added difficulties that officers face when dealing with people who are mentally unstable.
“Unfortunately, he had to defend himself. I think the game changes when she comes out with a gun. He didn’t know it as a BB gun,” said Stahl. “The officer had split seconds to make a decision. I think in this country, it’s now time to address mental illness.”
He said the officer was in his 20s and has been on the force for five years. He was the first to arrive at the scene and alone when he fired. Stahl said it also was the only time the officer has fired his weapon in the line of duty.
Before the shooting, Arocha said Planellas was lying on her lap on the sofa speaking about a father she never knew who died in Cuba. Later in the day, she was going on a boat owned by her boyfriend, Wilfredo Hernandez. Arocha said she told her daughter to go take a shower and lost sight of her.
The next thing she noticed was Planellas standing outside at the end of the driveway near her car, holding the BB gun. She went to the front window to take a closer look and noticed the officer making a U-turn and pulling up next to the home. He advanced from the east side of the driveway towards Planellas on the western end.
“I said Etianna, what are you doing? Then the police yelled to put the gun down. She was pointing it at her head,” Arocha said.
Arocha said she has little recollection of what happened next. The moment Planellas lowered the weapon and the officer fired is a blur to her.
In South Florida, there is a long list of encounters between law enforcement and the mentally ill that have ended in injury or death.
Lavall Hall was 25 and had only recently returned home from a hospital stay in 2015, when Miami Gardens police encountered him shirtless and swinging a broomstick one morning before sunrise. An officer shot him five times as his mother begged them not to kill her son. A year later, a behavioral therapist lying on the ground with his hands up in the air while trying to protect his severely autistic client, was shot by a North Miami police officer. Charles Kinsey survived.
How law enforcement deals with the mentally ill was also a hot button issue during last summer’s heated Black Lives Matter protests, when calls went out for police to leave dealing with the mentally ill to qualified social workers. That, sociologists and activists say, would relieve a large burden from police and allow them to focus more on major crimes.
University of Miami criminologist and sociology department Chairman Alex Piqueros said the death of Planellas is a perfect example of why local law enforcement should adopt policies now in place in Dallas and being practiced in San Francisco. The two large cities now deploy mobile teams of psychiatric and fire rescue healthcare workers to most calls involving mental illness or substance abuse.
For those still hung up on the term “defund the police,” Piquero said, creating the mobile teams is actually a costly endeavor.
“They’re not replacing the police, but supplementing the police response in most cases,” said the sociology chair. “I’d rather err on the side of caution. I’m not blaming the cop. It seems reasonable for him to have acted that way. But a woman’s death might not have had to happen.”
Last week, Planellas’s family was still processing what happened. Her grandparents, cousins and children milled about. The television played loudly in the background as cats climbed on credenzas and tables. Anthony Hernandez cradled Anthony Jr., a 6-month-old that the family said Planellas adored. Niece Mailin Robaina, 29, was sorting through hundreds of pictures on the dining room table.
“She has more pictures of animals and cats than she does of people,” said Robaina. “But you know what, she was the closest aunt I had. I spent every weekend, holiday and Christmas with her. She was always a happy spirit.”
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