A young man in crisis dies in a police shooting in Carmel.

The details of what happened in the final weeks of James Marshall’s life remain spotty, but we know he was suffering. There are breadcrumbs in the official record. For example, a Carmel Police Department log entry summarizing briefly a response to a call to the home Marshall shared with his mother on a tree-lined block of Carmel-by-the-Sea at 5:37pm on Thursday, Oct. 3

“Subject reported to be having a mental health episode,” the entry reads. “Subject did not meet criteria and refused help with resources. Family member stated they had the situation under control.”

In some such cases, maybe the family member is right – the situation is under control. In other cases, it is not.

Three weeks later, around 8:40am on Friday, Oct. 25, a neighbor called 911 to report Marshall had a rifle. Then his mother called to report that her son was experiencing a mental breakdown and threatening suicide-by-cop – in which someone provokes police to shoot them – and that he was armed.

As these calls came in and Carmel police mobilized, Marshall walked around the neighborhood. He lived roughly across the street from the Golden Bough Playhouse, PacRep’s newly reopened venue that is still under construction. Workers out front told Executive Director Stephen Moorer that a man pointed a gun at them. Moorer saw Marshall pointing a rifle in the air with one hand, holding a crowbar in the other. He dragged road-closed barriers across the pavement. He wore a tactical vest and a helmet.

Moorer pulled out his phone to document what was happening, and part of what he captured was a woman – Marshall’s mother – walking alongside him, appearing totally calm.

It’s puzzling at first, to see one figure dressed for battle, and another standing by, calm and collected.

Marshall roamed the street, walking down the PacRep driveway to Casanova Street a block away, then back up the hill, where Carmel police officers approached him.

Marshall failed to comply with their commands and as he retreated back toward his house, things escalated, per early reports from law enforcement. An officer fired bean bag rounds and a Taser, but neither was effective. Another officer fired his handgun, striking Marshall. He was transported to a hospital, where he died from his injuries. He was 27.

“It’s just a tragedy all around,” says Joe Livernois, board president of NAMI Monterey County (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

While Livernois cannot speak to specifics of this shooting, he can speak to some general circumstances around a crisis like this, because it is a heartbreaking pattern that repeats.

“When you call the police, you are turning a situation over to something you have no control over – and you already don’t have a whole lot of control about what is happening to your loved one,” Livernois says. “It is difficult to know exactly what to do. I encourage people, when they call 911 in a situation like this, to always ask for officers who are trained in crisis intervention.”

(Livernois advocates for 24/7 crisis intervention teams that can respond rapidly countywide.)

In Marshall’s case, a crisis intervention team did respond, but too late to connect with him.

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office is investigating (protocol for an officer-involved shooting) and the investigation is still underway. But Chief Assistant District Attorney Berkley Brannon says what appeared to be a high-powered assault rifle was in fact a BB gun.

That’s another caution in a story like this – to be patient in judgment, and in what we actually know. Weekly staff writer Katie Rodriguez and I joined a gaggle of local press who gathered at the crime scene to report on what had happened. While we waited for an update, misinformation spread quickly, with all falsehoods circulating on social media, such as claims that multiple people were shot. In reality, only Marshall was shot. His mother was treated for a knee injury, and an officer was treated for an injury other than a gunshot wound.

Even as more details come to light, it will be impossible to know exactly what interventions upstream and when might have saved Marshall’s life. But if you or a loved one needs help, don’t be afraid to ask. The suicide crisis line is 988.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.