DION Waite was a generous 30-year-old factory worker from Regents Park, in Brisbane's south, who lived for the gym and loved to cook meals for his family – and who once ran naked through a shopping centre.
Gold Coaster James Jacobs, 29, was a gifted school sportsman. He came to Australia 17 years ago with his family to escape the violence of their native South Africa – and finished up pulling a knife on police who tried to arrest him for an attempted carjack on an elderly woman.
James Gear, 23, from the Ipswich suburb of Coalfalls, was a normal bloke who loved sport and playing with his young nephews. But his family believes it was the schizophrenia he developed from marijuana that led to him attacking police who had come to the family house to investigate a minor disturbance.
And Mieng Huyng was a 40-year-old who lived in a small unit at a Queensland Housing complex in Brisbane's trendy inner-city West End. He was a quiet man who kept to himself – and gave off an energy that encouraged neighbours to keep their distance.
Four different men who never met but shared two things in common – all suffered mental illness, and all were shot dead by police.
In an unusual move, State Coroner Michael Barnes will examine the circumstances of their deaths in a series of co-ordinated inquests beginning tomorrow.
"The inquests will consider whether the force used by the police in each incident was justified and whether they could have responded in any other way," Mr Barnes said when the hearings were announced.
"Other matters to be considered include whether any inadequacy in the mental health treatment provided to the men may have indirectly contributed to their deaths."
The move to look at the deaths together has been welcomed by groups representing people with mental illness, as a long-overdue opportunity to investigate systemic issues around the accessibility and efficiency of mental health care.
And it will be welcomed by police who, with minimal training, daily find themselves having to deal with incidents involving people with mental illness.
For the families, it's a chance to give some meaning to their loss.
Mr Jacobs' mother, Jan Kealton of Broadbeach Waters, told The Sunday Mail: "James was my only son. Of course, his death has brought at times almost unbearable grief to (husband) Leigh and me. I can only hope that his death and our suffering will not have been completely in vain.
"Mental illness has become an increasingly pervasive problem and it is crucial that society learns to deal with it. That's what makes this inquest so extremely important.
"I am hoping it will help change the way we see and deal with mental illness in our community.
The first death to be examined will be that of Dion Waite. He was shot through the heart by a policeman when he allegedly lunged at a dog handler while armed with two knives after jumping naked over a neighbour's garden fence.
Officers were called to a disturbance at his mother's house on the afternoon on October 24, 2003, and police negotiators were brought in. Mr Waite's family say he and his condition were known to police, who had taken him to hospital previously.
His mother, Gaye Marino, said he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a teenager in New Zealand but claimed several attempts to have him admitted to hospital as an in-patient at Logan Hospital were unsuccessful.
Mieng Huyng died on Boxing Day 2003, when he was shot five times by police after stabbing three neighbours and then attacking a council worker in a nearby street.
James Jacobs was shot in the abdomen when he allegedly threatened two officers with a knife in a Southport street on March 24, 2005. They were investigating an attempted carjacking.
Mr Jacobs had spent a decade in and out of hospital after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but his family said he had been removed from supervision by mental health services.
James
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