One year ago today, Christian Hall, an adopted 19-year-old Chinese American who was suffering from depression and who experienced a mental health emergency in Monroe County, was shot and killed by Pennsylvania State Police.

Although Hall was armed, and police said they feared for their lives, subsequent video evidence showed that Hall was shot and killed while his hands were in the air. Yes, he was carrying a gun, but when he was shot, he was not threatening police. The gun was in an outstretched hand to the side. The pellet gun he was carrying was made to look like a semi-automatic pistol, but the state police did not know this until the incident came to its untimely and violent end.

Hall, who lived in Stroudsburg with his multiethnic parents, Fe and Gareth Hall, stopped his car on a Route 33/Interstate 80 overpass in Hamilton Township about 6 miles northwest of Stroudsburg.

He got out, hopped up on the ledge of the overpass bridge, grabbing the attention of passing motorists. It turns out that Hall was in the midst of a mental health emergency as state police were called to deal with the “distraught and suicidal male” in what became a nearly two-hour standoff before the fatal shots were fired. It was later learned that one of these calls was placed by Hall himself.

State police in its official report said that Hall pointed the weapon at police, but his parents said this statement is inaccurate and that he was actually trying to surrender when he was shot and killed. The video appears to agree with this version.

Through their attorney, Ben Crump, the Halls have called for an independent investigation into the circumstances leading up to their son’s death.

At first, it appeared as if the case was going to be concluded last March with a ruling by the Monroe County District Attorney’s office as a justified shooting, but then several months later video from the police’s body camera was released which tells a different story.

State troopers from outside the Stroudsburg barracks were called to investigate the circumstances of the shooting and turned their findings over to Monroe District Attorney E. David Christine Jr., who made the ruling that the shooting was justified given the circumstances of the facts determined in the investigation.

At a March news conference, Michael Mancuso, an assistant district attorney, characterized Hall’s death as an example of a “classic suicide by cop scenario.” This means that a suspect acts in a manner where police are put into a position of shooting to kill, because the suspect apparently will not or cannot kill himself and provokes police into taking deadly action. According to Mancuso, Hall was a threat from the moment he pulled the weapon from his waistband.

I watched the entire video, including information from a narrator, that was put together by police, and I was beyond impressed at the number of times that police officers and a police negotiator tried to talk Hall into dropping his weapon.

Time after time, they told him that he was not in any kind of trouble, that they just wanted to talk to him about what was going on in his life, that they would help him and they had no wish to harm him.

During the video, it appeared on several occasions that Hall, who was consuming drugs during the episode, was going to give up the weapon, but toward the end he retrieved the weapon and started to walk toward the police, raising the stakes that he might want to harm the police officers. He never pointed the gun in their direction, keeping it raised in an outstretched arm to the side for 14 seconds.

“He was crying out for help,” attorney Crump said of Hall. “He needed a helping hand, but he got bullets while he had his hands up.” The family wants an independent investigation by the state Attorney General’s office or the Department of Justice.

This raises the broader question of whether police shootings should be investigated by police or even by county district attorney offices because of their close relationship. Police and the DA’s office work hand in glove in pursuing prosecutions, so it brings up the question of conflict of interest.

The question was debated recently during a special panel discussion sponsored by Spotlight PA, a nonprofit investigative reporting partnership of statewide news organizations.

Dr. David Harris, professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, agreed that police and prosecutors feel as if they are on the same team, which is why we have to ask: “Who guards the guardians?”

This is a case where the shooting was ruled as lawful but where the public found that the decision came off as awful. When this happens, the public loses trust and respect for the police, Harris said.

New laws in Virginia and Connecticut provide police with the tools to go the extra mile in mental health cases where the subject may be suicidal and dangerous. These laws might be extremely helpful in having Pennsylvania law enforcement re-evaluate the steps that are taken so we can prevent another Christian Hall tragedy.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.