The mother of a man who was fatally shot by police last month in Pineville is calling for the public release of law-enforcement videos and says she believes police were aware that Dennis Bodden suffered from mental health problems.

Cleopatra Bodden also said Monday that she wants the Pineville Police Department to change the way officers respond to people with mental illnesses.

“They did not see Dennis as a human being, but as someone that could be discarded,” she said at a press conference. “Just another Black man being murdered without impunity.”

She was joined by her sister Julia Bodden and brother George as well as Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP.

Pineville police have said that Dennis Bodden “lunged” at a police sergeant on May 14 outside an apartment complex to try to grab the officer’s gun.

Bodden was unarmed. The sergeant who shot him earlier said Bodden bit him during the incident.

Cleopatra Bodden said that in the narrative police provided to the media about her only son, they left out his mental health struggles.

“Over the past weeks, I’ve observed with great distrust how the Pineville Police Department portrayed my son as a criminal without mentioning his illness,” she said.

She said in an interview that her son, who struggled with depression, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which began to manifest during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cleopatra said her son, a law school graduate, enjoyed reading and running marathons. A friend of Bodden’s said he volunteered with a suicide prevention hotline.

What Pineville police say

The shooting took place after a 911 call in which someone reported Bodden concealing items inside the Food Lion on Johnston Road in Pineville. Police issued a news release the next day saying Bodden wouldn’t follow orders to stop in the parking lot, and as police followed him, officers Tased him twice, and he lunged.

That May 15 police statement said Bodden “was very well known to Pineville Police as being a chronic shoplifting suspect at this Food Lion” and said Bodden had “violent tendencies towards police and the public.”

After Cleopatra Bodden’s news conference in Charlotte on Monday, Pineville police issued a new statement saying they were not aware of Dennis Bodden’s mental health issues. They said police had only made contact with him one previous time at the Food Lion because, in previous 911 calls, he left before police arrived.

But a recording of a 911 call and a recording of police radio communications from that day showed the police and the store’s familiarity with Bodden. The arriving sergeant asked a dispatcher, “Is he wearing underwear again?”

“I got the same guy who keeps coming in here, shoplifting,” a 911 caller said to a dispatcher. “Right now he’s in the produce department, making his rounds. It’s the same guy your officer keeps coming for.”

Bodden took food and wine from the store and was walking back to his apartment, which was across the street and located in the city of Charlotte. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are now investigating the shooting, and the district attorney’s office will determine whether the sergeant should be charged.

Pineville police have not released his name, nor his disciplinary record.

Need for mental health resources

Julia Bodden, Dennis Bodden’s aunt, questioned at the news conference why the police didn’t have a person or team trained to handle someone suffering from a mental health crisis.

The police they while they do not have a mental health crisis response team, the officers were Critical Incident Team-certified through Mecklenburg County.

The county’s website said that is an effort between police and mental health professionals to train officers in how to respond to people experiencing mental health struggles.

Cleopatra and Julia Bodden said in an interview that Dennis Bodden would hear voices in his head if he didn’t take medication.

And more than once, said Julia Bodden, Dennis would go into the store thinking it was his home, and take items believing they belonged to him. The voices in his head would tell him he was allowed to take them because they used to belong to his father, and he was entitled to them, she said.

“When he was living with me, it wasn’t a problem. But I think once he got out on his own, he thought that he didn’t need [medicine],” Julia said. “And that’s where the problem came in. He thought he could do it on his own, and he couldn’t do it on his own. He needed that medication in order to live a productive life.”

Julia Bodden said Pineville Police Chief Michael Hudgins reached out to her and Cleopatra, which was “wonderful,” but that doesn’t bring Dennis back.

A police statement said the chief’s phone call “was out of compassion and empathy for the Bodden family. We as police officers all have a high level of human decency and wish to treat everyone with dignity and respect.”

The sisters said they chose to reached out to the NAACP because they weren’t familiar with Charlotte or Mecklenburg County, and wanted someone local who could help them.

“This case really hit me harder than most,” Mack told the Observer after the press conference.

In addition to the public seeing video footage, the family wants information about the officers. Under North Carolina, police videos can be released via court order from a judge.

“When it’s the officers shooting, they’re quick to put up all of the past information about the victim, and especially if they’re a Black victim or a victim of color, but no information is ever given about the officers,” Mack said.

Drew Farrar, a friend of Dennis’ who lives in Charlotte, said Monday in an interview that he thought Pineville police must have had some awareness of Bodden’s mental health struggles. Farrar pointed to the 911 caller recognizing Bodden, the sergeant’s familiarity in the radio communications, and that the store had banned him.

“This situation not only took everything he had, but it took a huge chunk out of a lot of people that he touched.”