How a call to the police cost this student thousands in medical bills
Standing half-dressed on his lawn at five in the morning, Andre Coates found himself surrounded by police.
After a friend had called 911 to report Coates threatening to hurt himself, several Lawrence Police Department officers arrived to talk to the then-21-year-old student. Instead of calming him down, Coates said the police only made the situation worse. Now, he faces nearly $5,000 in medical bills.
On the early morning of Aug. 23 2020, Coates arrived home late from a party in distress over a dispute with a friend. Locked upstairs in his bedroom, Coates had been sending concerning messages that prompted his friend to contact the police. After being let into the house by a roommate, police convinced Coates to come downstairs and out onto the front lawn to talk.
While police talked to Coates, he felt overwhelmed by the large group of officers and several cop cars parked outside. Coates said he might have felt more comfortable if he had been sitting on his couch talking to an officer or two instead, but that the exchange that followed felt one-sided.
“They had people between me and the door, and people on the other side. And they pulled me away from my safe place with my dog… I just kind of felt alone,” Coates said. “If somebody is in mental distress and feeling this way, I feel like showing up with four or five police cars and pulling them out of their room isn’t really the ideal way of making that situation better.”
Coates said that the police insisted he be admitted to Lawrence Memorial Hospital. From past experience, the cash-strapped student doubted a trip to the hospital would make the situation any better.
“I kept telling them that I didn’t want to go and that I wanted a different option,” Coates said. “Actually, I told them I just wanted to go back upstairs with my dog. They kept saying how this was my only option and how this was the best option for me… I didn’t want to feel like I would have to resist and things get any worse.”
After doing everything he felt he could to calmly refuse being brought to the hospital, the young Black man gave in. Loaded into the back of a police car, still worrying about the cost of a visit, Coates was brought to LMH.
“I felt like I got pulled out of my place of comfort, where I felt like I was secure,” Coates said. “They took me out of it and amplified everything that was going on. When they were here I never felt better or safer… I just felt pressured.”
Despite telling officers he didn’t feel like a danger to himself, Coates was ultimately placed under an emergency detainment and transported to LMH. The Lawrence Police Department’s policy on crisis intervention incidents outlines officers’ right to temporarily detain individuals believed to be mentally ill and likely to harm themselves or others. Once admitted to a treatment or crisis intervention center, an examiner determines whether that individual qualifies for longer-term involuntary commitment.
Coates remembered being pulled around from person to person at the hospital where his blood and urine were taken for testing. He doesn’t remember, however, any extended psychiatric assessment or counselling. Coates returned home that morning around 8 a.m.
Weeks after being released was when Coates finally saw the $4,700 bill for his forced hospital visit.
“I opened it and read it and my heart just dropped when I saw the total price. I was completely devastated and had no idea on what to do,” Coates said. “I thought it was all cleared and they said they had it covered at the house.”
Coates first began searching online what would happen if he refused or couldn’t pay his debt, still in denial.
As Coates called the police department and LMH to search for a way to lower his costs, he remembered repeatedly bringing up his concerns about affording the hospital trip to the responding officers that night. Coates said he was told by them to not worry and that there were “programs” that covered the costs.
Call after call, even attempting to reach out to the officers who detained him that night, Coates faced either a voicemail or being told there was nothing the person on the line could do.
While Coates was escorted to the hospital without incident, many in similar situations have not been as fortunate. According to the Washington Post’s fatal police shooting database, between 2015–2021 23.2% (1,405) of fatal police shootings killed people who were known to be mentally ill. One Washington Post report found that these incidents are nearly 40% more likely to happen in areas with populations lower than 1 million, such as Lawrence.
According to an email from the Lawrence Police Department, data about suicide attempt and mental health crisis calls are hard to accurately document as oftentimes police will respond to situations that are different from what the original call was for.
The need for better approaches to mental health crises has prompted many police departments to invest in crisis intervention training. Some are experimenting with sending unarmed mental health experts instead of police when possible.
The Lawrence Police Department announced in 2015 its initiative to train all officers in crisis intervention. According to an email from the LPD, the agency currently has 69% of its officers trained, down from 79% in 2018, the original target year for full training. Another training session, which involves instruction and practice on de-escalation and mental health, is planned for the fall.
In 2017, a crisis co-response team was formed by the LPD that relied on mental health specialists to help de-escalate situations with police on the ground. Coates was not, however, met by one of these teams until being released from the hospital.
Police and staff from Bert Nash called and visited Coates’ residence several times following the incident to ask if he had pursued therapy options. While Coates has since sought professional counselling, partly to process trauma related to this event, he doesn’t think there was any reason for police to have continued to visit and talk to him.
The night police detained Coates, he kept thinking again and again that he simply wanted to stay home with his dog. Usually, when Coates is stressed out, he ends up driving himself down country roads and staring at the stars, or cruising through the suburbs, judging each house’s architecture.
A fourth-year student in the school of architecture at the University of Kansas, Coates has had to take on tens of thousands in loans. His mother helps with some things, but Coates is mostly financially independent and works full-time in fast food to pay the bills. Still, he expects to have around $25,000 in debt when he graduates. The unexpected burden of the hospital bill has given Coates and his mother further financial strain.
According to Devin Farris, Coates’ girlfriend of eight months, Coates is seen by everybody he meets as a people person who is always in a good mood. For weeks after the incident, however, Coates remained in a depressed state.
“He was definitely in a depressive mood for weeks and he wouldn’t take the hospital wristband off himself… that was very important to him for some reason,” Farris said. “I think that just reminded him probably not to kill himself because he knows this was the consequence of his actions… it was just very memorable to him.”
Since the incident, Coates has entered therapy and said he is doing much better. Farris said he has been able to handle negative emotions and control his feelings much better since starting therapy. Yet, the financial and emotional impact the event had on him still lingers.
“Before, I never felt like my life was in danger when I saw a cop,” Coates said. “But the last time I got pulled over speeding I was like, ‘OK, I have to do everything by the books. I don’t want this officer to get the wrong feelings or anything.’
“I was in the middle of the highway going back from KC to Lawrence. There was nobody else on the road. It was pitch black, just me and this officer. I was like, ‘Well, he could do something. Nobody would know…’ That was the first time I felt scared because of an officer. I don’t think any civilian, no matter your race, color, religion, sex, anything like that, should feel afraid of the people who are supposed to be protecting you.”
Coates’ feelings towards police and hospitals have also shifted. If put in a similar situation again, Coates said he would try to do more to assert himself against being taken by the police.
“If it’s not life-threatening, if it’s not a severe injury, if it’s not anything major, then it just continues to teach me that hospitals are here, obviously to treat you, but it’s really just to make money,” Coates said. “Same with the police, you know? They got called, they’re just responding… It doesn’t matter what they’re saying and what they’re going through, you’ve just got to put them somewhere. And if we put them in the hospital, it’s not on us anymore if anything happens.
“It just furthers my thoughts on how everything is. Not wanting to go to the hospital, not trusting the police. Obviously, I’ve never been one to be like ‘Hey, we should call the police.’… Just because every time that they have been involved, nothing good has come from it.”
Although Coates’ forced visit to the hospital happened in August of last year, he is still struggling to pay off the debts he incurred from it.
Coates said that he felt isolated and intimidated by the police, instead of comforted and listened to. While he feels the situation could have been handled better, Coates ultimately hopes people hesitate before relying on the police at all.
“I hope that I put myself around people who know, if I get to a point like that, still, the cops should not be called because it’s not going to be helpful.”
Story by Daniel Davidson.
