Transcripts of 911 calls from the evening when St. Paul police fatally shot and killed a suicidal man show that emergency dispatchers were warned about his mental health issues in the minutes before police arrived at his house.
The Sept. 24 shooting of Philip Quinn immediately raised questions from his family about how police handle calls involving mental health, but police said Wednesday that Quinn, carrying a screwdriver, failed to obey orders while advancing on an officer.
Quinn's brother and fiancée said after his death that police should have used nonlethal force to subdue him. Another brother recently said the Quinn family did not want to comment about the ongoing case or the transcripts released by St. Paul police Wednesday.
Police spokesman Steve Linders said Wednesday that the department is still awaiting findings about the shooting from its Police-Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission (PCIARC) and a separate grand jury proceeding in state court.
"What happened during the incident is that Philip Quinn charged at an officer in a very aggressive manner with a screwdriver in his hand," Linders said. "The officer retreated as far as he possibly could while shouting instructions to Mr. Quinn to drop the weapon and stop."
Linders said that Quinn ignored the officer's commands, and that once the officer was "backed into the fence," he "had to take action."
Officer Rich McGuire shot Quinn. Officer Joe LaBathe was also at the scene. Both were placed on leave following the shooting, which is standard practice, but are back on duty.
"My understanding is that the officer simply didn't have time to switch to less lethal force," Linders said. "Mr. Quinn was advancing on him very quickly."