The February death of Natasha McKenna, a woman who died after a Fairfax County sheriff's deputy shocked her four times with a Taser while she was handcuffed in jail, was recently ruled an accident. McKenna had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to the autopsy report. She was also black — the sheriff's office Facebook page is littered with comments posted on Monday questioning the department's integrity.

McKenna's death continues two narratives about police in the United States that have gained notoriety in recent months: that officers kill unarmed black people with alarming regularity, and that they struggle to handle the mentally ill. Both topics have recently garnered national attention, but police brutality toward those with mental health issues has taken a backseat.

See also: Many police forces have often used excessive force against mentally ill

And yet it's not difficult to find high-profile incidents in which a mentally ill person was killed by police.

A selection of comments from a post on the sheriff's Facebook page. Image: Facebook, Fairfax County Sheriff's Office

Officers shot and killed an unarmed woman with mental health problems after she drove through a White House barricade in 2013. Officers in Dallas, Texas, shot and killed a mentally ill black man last June after his mother walked out of the house and told them he was "acting violently." An officer near Atlanta shot and killed a naked black man named Anthony Hill in March who was continually leaping from his balcony. In 2014, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man as he turned his back to them, leading to protests.

A damaged Capitol Hill police car is surrounded by crime scene tape after a car chase and shooting on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Oct. 3, 2013. Image: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

In much the way the Department of Justice has found that police departments across the country treat minority residents poorly compared with white residents, the DOJ has found that many departments mistreat the mentally ill.

A 2014 DOJ investigation of the Albuquerque police showed that they often resort to unnecessary force when dealing with someone having a mental health crisis. They also unnecessarily use Tasers to shock people who may be mentally unable to obey officer requests. The DOJ concluded that Albuquerque officers "show a clear lack of appropriate training on mental illness."

The DOJ found in 2014 that Cleveland police use many of the same practices on mentally ill citizens, including excessive force and tasers against people who might not be able to recognize what an officer is asking. A similar investigation of Portland police in 2012 recognized that police are forced to make up for a lack of mental health professionals and facilities, but still found that officers often resorted to excessive force when handling those with mental health issues. The DOJ concluded that officers needed better training.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, center, holds a roundtable meeting with law enforcement, local officials, and community leaders on Dec. 4, 2014, in Cleveland. Image: Tony Dejak/Associated Press

One of the most sophisticated mental health training programs for police in the U.S. is run by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The program, called Crisis Intervention Training, is a 40-hour course made available to police across the country. Departments use it in 46 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Rhode Island and West Virginia are the exceptions). According to Laura Usher, who manages the program, 2,800 American communities have an intervention program, which amounts to about 15% of U.S. law enforcement agencies. That number—2,800—may not seem small, but it often amounts to just a handful of counties per state.

"Either they train the police officers to have the needed training or they send out teams of police officers with psychologists," Allison Redlich, a criminal justice professor with the University at Albany, told Mashable. "That's kind of the beauty of these crisis intervention teams."

Riot police stand guard in front of protesters in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, on March 30,2014. Image: Russell Contreras/Associated Press

According to The Atlantic, the amount of mental health training required of officers in different states ranges from nothing to 40 hours per officer, even though some 10% of calls officers respond to involve someone dealing with a mental health issue.

But some have problems with the argument that officers simply need more training. Certain departments, especially smaller ones, may struggle to afford it. And others have suggested that police officers should perhaps not be sent to deal with mentally ill persons in the first place.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in The Atlantic, "Police officers fight crime. Police officers are neither case-workers, nor teachers, nor mental-health professionals, nor drug counselors."

San Antonio, Texas, may provide a good example for how police officers can look to the future for dealing with mental health on a wider scale. Officers there undergo the 40-hours required by the intervention training program, but the city also built a Restoration Center, a facility that provides citizens with mental health services. It provides psychiatric care, housing for mental health patients, job training, and the kind of coordination Usher believes is necessary for modern policing.

"I think it's true that there's this whole array of major social issues that we've just entirely neglected," Usher told Mashable. "When something reaches a crisis point and it's dropped on the feet of the police, we realize it's a problem."