Teresa Sheehan was shot by two officers at a group home during a mental health crisis with the San Francisco Police Department in 2008, when Vice President Kamala Harris was serving as the District Attorney of San Francisco.
Police officers were called to a group home for people with mental illnesses after it was claimed Sheehan, a Japanese American woman who was then 56 and reportedly suffering from a schizophrenic episode, locked herself in a room with a knife. When police eventually opened the door using a key, Sheehan reportedly greeted them with the knife and ordered them to leave.
The officers apparently retreated, but later reentered the room due to safety concerns. Police used pepper spray on Sheehan, but she continued resisting the officers and was ultimately shot five times. No officers were reportedly injured during the incident.
After Sheehan recovered from her injuries, Harris’ office brought charges against the woman for her actions during the mental health crisis.
Eleven of the 12 jurors who heard the case against Sheehan ultimately voted for acquittal, leaving the trial deadlocked.
After a mistrial was declared, Sheehan sued the City of San Francisco, which paid her $1 million in a 2016 settlement after the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
How Sheehan spent the years between the settlement and current day are unclear, but Sheehan was apparently in poor health in 2022, when the San Francisco-based, Japanese American newspaper Nichi Bei Times reported she suffered a fall while close to the “Tenderloin single-room occupancy hotel” in which she was living.
Doctors reportedly found Sheehan “dehydrated and malnourished,” and her sister told the outlet the woman spent years living in “squalor” prior to the medical emergency.
Nichi Bei Times reported that Sheehan suffered from schizo-affective disorder, or schizophrenia, which the National Institute of Mental Health explains “affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.” Some with schizophrenia may “seem like they have lost touch with reality,” and its symptoms “may make it difficult to participate in usual, everyday activities.”
The outlet further reported Sheehan’s sister revealed a second illness, anosognosia, which the Cleveland Clinic explains “is a condition where your brain can’t recognize one or more other health conditions you have,” and notes is common among those with conditions like schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.
It is unclear what services were provided to Sheehan during her trial and lawsuit with the City of San Francisco.
Though the Harris campaign has regularly cited the candidate’s experience as a prosecutor on the campaign trail, often when noting the criminal cases levied by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice and partisan local prosecutors, she previously praised the “defund the police” movement after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Nonetheless, criminal justice advocacy group The Marshall Project declared Harris’ record on the subject was “mixed” in July, when it wrote, “Harris has billed herself as a ‘progressive prosecutor’ – but her record is complicated.’”
Other progressive organizations share a more optimistic view of the vice president, including the Felon Institute, which lauded Harris as a “fearless leader for criminal justice reform” in March, when the nonprofit specifically mentioned the Back on Track recidivism reduction initiative started by Harris during her time as San Francisco’s district attorney.
Beyond her praise for defunding the police, the Harris campaign declared “[r]eforming our criminal justice program” is “the civil rights issue of our time,” in a 2019 policy paper published to Medium.
“It is long past time to re-envision public safety by strengthening and supporting our communities and drastically limiting the number of people we expose to our criminal justice system,” the Harris campaign wrote.
The Harris campaign specifically promised, “As president, Kamala will fundamentally transform how we approach public safety.”
While it is unclear where Sheehan lives following her 2022 health scare, as the Nichi Bei Times reported she was relocated to “temporary” housing after the fall, other high profile individuals targeted by Harris’ office during her time as San Francisco’s district attorney remain in the public eye.
Jamal Trulove, who also saw a financial settlement stemming from Harris’ time as the district attorney of San Francisco after he was wrongfully convicted of murder and served six years in prison, recently stated that Harris was responsible for the time he spent behind bars.
Trulove said in a video posted to social media, “She’s the head of it, she overseen it. She had to, it was a murder case right?”
He added, “At the end of my paperwork it was stamped and sealed by the Office of Kamala Harris.”
In the same video, Trulove also confirmed he is “going with Donald Trump” in November, asking, “where’s my red hat at?”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Teresa Sheehan” by Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior. Photo “Kamala Harris” by Kamala Harris.
