Eric Schirmer parked at a Rite Aid in Mill Creek and sat there month after month, willing himself to die.
He was 68 years old, a French-born electrical-design engineer who had worked for Airbus and Boeing, a man whose good looks belied the alcohol that ravaged him on the inside. After a dispute with his wife, he’d moved out of the apartment they shared in late May and folded his 6-foot frame into his silver Dodge Charger.
He scrawled his predicament on a sheet of notebook paper and placed it on the dash. It read:
DEPRESED (AND LOST)
His health deteriorated over the summer but he refused help. In early August, paramedics predicted Schirmer would “probably pass away within days unless he was seen by a doctor,” according to a police report. A mental health official determined that Schirmer should be involuntarily committed, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation, and signed a form directing police to transfer him to a hospital.
Had it been a few weeks earlier, police might well have removed Schirmer from his vehicle and done just that. But now officers had a new law to consider.
House Bill 1310, which went into effect July 25, created a statewide standard for when law enforcement officers can use force. The legislative sponsors intended to curb excessive use of force by police, but it has sown confusion among departments about what level of force is permissible when responding to a crisis that isn’t a crime.
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