Police need a better approach for dealing with the mentally ill

I can’t get out of my mind the picture of that mentally ill man being deliberately rammed by a police car. He was then set upon by several police, one stomping on his head. It was plain to see in the video (“Father in coma, cry of ‘police brutality’, 15/9).

I wonder if some of our police have been watching too much American television? This is not the way we treat people in Australia, especially the mentally ill, even if they are behaving oddly. Perhaps an ambulance would have been more appropriate? I realise our police have been tested in recent months by protesters and may be on edge, but this behaviour was not acceptable, repeat, not acceptable.

J. Johnson, Malvern, Vic

I am sickened by yet another report of outrageous violence by members of Victoria Police (“Man shot on-air, stomping cop suspended”, 16/9). I have worked in mental health services long enough to know that those among us who are mentally ill encounter widespread discrimination and unfounded fears about behaviour. The police and others in authority have always had the option of relying on the use of “time and space” to deal with perceived or actual threats to public and their own safety. It seems this well-founded and least restrictive response is not accepted by some Victorian police.

Despite strident denials, the evidence from more recent incidents confirms systematic and internal cultural issues that need to be acknowledged and confronted for there to be any restoration of public faith in the way in which the mentally ill are dealt with by those charged with law enforcement and protection of us all.

John Flockton, Moss Vale , NSW

COVID paranoia

Australia is consumed by a COVID paranoia. I spent five months stuck there from April, unable to return to my wife in the US. I spent a month in self-isolation in two states. I had to apply to government departments to cross borders and then eventually leave the country. Victoria is the ultimate surreal nightmare of all things un-Australian. I finally managed to fly out of Perth last Sunday. Once I landed in Dallas I was passed through immigration by a friendly official, then I flew on to Santa Fe, where I wasn’t required to quarantine. Walking free, I was picked up by my wife and the months of Australian madness, thankfully, began to evaporate.

Stewart MacFarlane, Las Vegas, US

Reef madness

For years we have been hearing that the Great Barrier Reef is dying, killed off by sediment from North Queensland farms, among other things. But now we hear that Dr Paul Hardisty of the Australian Institute of Marine Science told a recent Senate inquiry that that only 3 per cent of the reef is affected by farm pesticides and sediment and the pesticide risk for that 3 per cent is “low to negligible” (“Dying-reef claims sinking at Senate inquiry”, 16/9). I have googled extensively, but the only major media outlet I found that reported this admission was The Australian.

Roslyn Phillips, Tea Tree Gully, SA

China on the move

China has been at war — stealth war — with the West, and the US in particular, since 1949 (“Our China relationship needs help before it’s too late”, 16/9). The “100 Year Marathon”, a term used by Mao Zedong, is the long-term objective that Mao put in place for China to literally rule the world by 2049. Within this are lesser goals, for example “Made in China 2025”. The “China Dream” is the rejuvenation of China to its ancient status of the Middle Kingdom, the country to which all other countries pay fealty. China has been and is inexorably spreading its tentacles across the world. As Winston Churchill said about appeasement: it’s feeding the crocodile hoping that it eats you last.

R.C. Warn, Weston, ACT