TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Joshua Barre's mental health was spiraling out of control before he grabbed two butcher knives and went outside. The 29-year-old black man with bipolar disorder had been off his medication and holed up at home, cycling through depression, anxiety and paranoia.

His mother pleaded for an intervention from Oklahoma's first line of defense for mental health: law enforcement. And Tulsa County deputies responded: Officers with the agency's mental crisis unit, trained in de-escalation techniques, went to Barre's house three times in the days before their final encounter on June 9....