2023-03-21 Officer involved

Man shot, killed with apparent rifle was "very special needs," had severe mental illness

A man with a rifle was shot and killed by Amarillo police on March 21, 2023. Police said the man threatened an innocent person, refused to drop the rifle and began top raise it towards officers. (Ash Albright/KVII)

AMARILLO, Texas (KVII) — The family of a man shot and killed by Amarillo police while armed with a rifle on Tuesday has issued a statement on his life.

Kevin Keith Langemeier was shot by Amarillo Police Department officers while brandishing what appeared to be a rifle and threatening to harm an innocent person, according to police.

His family said Langemeier was special needs and was treating his severe mental illness with Clozapine.

They said they within a short time of being off his medication, Kevin would talk about other dimensions and demons and would often need to go to the hospital to get himself stabilized.

Additionally, he had run out of Clozapine just days before the shooting, the family says, and the "tight timetable" to refill the medication caused by supply issues.

Langemeier had been nearly a week without his medicine and the family believes the fact that he had only been taking it for one full day at the time of the shooting may have been related.

The family also wants people to know that Langemeier was not in possession of a real gun and said before he left home that he did not intend to hurt anyone.

However, the family says they do not blame the police but wishes there were more resources available to deal with the mental illness before the tragedy occurred.

The full statement from the family emailed to KVII on Friday can be read below:

We wanted to put his story out there. Kevin was very special needs and had a severe mental illness that was being treated with Clozapine. Clozapine had been identified as the only medication that could help him, and it was his critical lifeline. When he was on Clozapine, he was literally child-like due to his special needs. He loved science and technology, games, silly jokes and making people laugh. He was gentle, sweet, and obsessed with helping others.

When he didn't have access to Clozapine, it didn't take more than a handful of days to take effect. He would get wild delusions about other dimensions and demons, stay up all night pacing, pounding on the walls, and he would often need to go to the hospital to stabilize and get 100% back to normal.

A handful of days before the shooting, he ran out of Clozapine. There is a tight timetable in which he can refill due to regulation surrounding the drug and the need for a blood draw. It's not something he can stockpile. His mother desperately tried to get his Clozapine restocked, but the Center in charge of his prescription had multiple delays for multiple reasons surrounding the government website supposedly being down, assigned staff being out, unanswered calls to them, mistakes made by other staff, and then regular closures on the weekend. She made multiple phone calls to the Center and also pleaded with multiple pharmacies to fill this prescription throughout the week before the incident. However, despite Kevin running out of Clozapine on Wednesday, it wasn't filled until Monday. This was the day before his death. By that point, his mental disorder had taken control and his mother didn't have resources to calm him down and stabilize him. We knew he was relapsing, but he hadn't done or said anything by this point that we could have him committed or arrested.

We wanted to make it clear, the weapon he had was very realistic-looking, but it wasn't a real gun. He never intended to hurt anybody else, and that's what he said before leaving. Based on what we know, we don't blame the police. We do wish there was some kind of emergency resource other than the police to intervene the night before.

We also wish to thank all the people both who knew him and who didn't know him for their kind words related to Kevin and his story. We believe this story is primarily about the failing of the mental health system, and we hope things will improve for others some day.