Parents devastated after man shot by police during mental health crisis

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FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WXIX) – Parents of a man shot by police during a mental health episode say things should have been handled much differently.

Susan and Paul Hubbard harbor no ill will toward officers. But they question the answer. Wednesday night in Fairfield Township who put their son, Brian Hubbard, 29, in the hospital in critical condition.

Officers responded to Camargo Park around 8 pm to assist the Butler County Mobile Crisis Team after Susan called Brian, who was experiencing emotional distress.

At one point, according to body camera footage released Friday, Brian walked out of the residence and approached Officers Adam Green and Richard Coy with a knife and hammer.

Officers repeatedly told Brian to drop his weapons, but he kept moving toward him. They also warned him that they would shoot him.

The officers opened fire, striking Brian before the 29-year-old man fled back to the residence. The officers chased him down, subdued him, and then performed first aid on him.

“If I had known he was going to be shot,” Susan said Friday night, “I would have taken those bullets for him any day.”

Susan says that she initially made the call because Brian was saying things that just didn’t make sense and it scared her. She says that she has called for crisis intervention at least five times in the past.

Paul describes the Crisis Team as a 24/7 resource for mentally ill patients experiencing a mental health crisis. “An intervention person can go out and talk in a very calm and peaceful way with a mentally disabled person.”

Paul says the officers’ visible presence immediately outside Brian’s residence played a role in escalating the situation. He wonders what might have happened if they had parked out of sight around the corner.

“Instead, he got a chance to look out the windows and see them,” Paul said. “They were outside for several minutes talking to us, asking us questions, just having normal conversations. They were not on high alert.”

That gave Brian the opportunity to grab “whatever he could” at the residence. “Unfortunately he grabbed a kitchen knife, which was long, and a hammer.”

Paul says he tried to get between his son and the officers and joined their pleas for him to drop his weapons.

“I was between him and the officers for a few moments, I mean seconds. And I said, ‘Don’t hurt my son, he just uses a taser please!’ Because, I’ve said this before, ‘Don’t hurt my son.’ And when they’ve come many times, I’ve said, ‘Whatever you do, when you come, don’t hurt my son. Do what you can, but let’s not hurt him. So I have room for them to electrocute him.”

Officers say they didn’t use their tasers because someone in an emotionally disturbed state often doesn’t respond to them.

His praise for Brian laying down his guns doesn’t work either, and Paul says there’s a reason for it.

“Being autistic or mentally ill, many people don’t respond to audible cues,” he said. “They freeze. His mind doesn’t work.”

The officers then opened fire. Paul counted three shots. He says there may have been more.

“I stopped listening around three because I started going into shock.”

As Brian fights for his life in the hospital, Susan and Paul want what happened to be a lesson.

“There is no hate,” Paul said of the officers. “I support them, a lot. And I would like to see something good come out of my son’s tragedy.

Officers Green and Coy have been placed on administrative leave.

The Ohio Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation.

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