After D'laontie Dee Lewis was arrested for referring to himself as Justin Bieber and allegedly refusing to leave a daycare Wednesday, some media outlets cracked jokes in their coverage.
To Tia Price, a friend of his, it wasn't very funny.
Price, a Clarksburg native who lives in Baltimore, remembers laughing once when she saw a woman with blood sugar problems rolling on the floor, before she realized she was witnessing a medical crisis. She said the experience reminded her of reactions to news coverage on Wednesday.
"He's sick," Price said. "It's no different than someone that has any other disease."
The people who now know D'laontie's name learned that he allegedly showed up at Dunbar Middle School Wednesday morning, and became upset when the principal wouldn't allow him to sing over the intercom. They also learned that after walking away from a hospital, Lewis, 26, of Dunbar, allegedly refused to leave a daycare, and was arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct.
But they also don't know that there is a lot more to Lewis than his struggle with mental illness, according to Price.
Lewis has a bachelor's degree from Alderson Broaddus and a master's degree, according to friends. They said he sang in The West Virginians singing group while in college and was very involved in church.
They said most recently, he was an admissions counselor with the University of Charleston.
"Everything about him is still the same," Price said. "He's just not showing himself right now. That's all."
Price was a classmate of Lewis when he attended Alderson Broaddus. She said Lewis took her under his wing when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore and they were assigned to the same work-study group in 2008.
Price suffers from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She said Lewis, along with professors and other friends, supported her through a particularly rough period.
"I would not have graduated without him," she said. "I was going through my own tough time, similar to what he's going through now."
It hurt Price to see disparaging remarks about Lewis, and TV news airing an interview with him at such a low point in his life.
He doesn't stand for that type of behavior himself, according to Price. She messaged him recently about a girl who was bothering her.
"He would always talk to me about how I should treat each person the same way, with the same respect," she said. "I thought she was annoying, but he was just a big-hearted guy."
Price said friends noticed about a month ago that Lewis' mental health seemed to be deteriorating and had planned to set up a time to meet with him, but the episode came on too quickly. They weren't sure of a specific diagnosis.
After they found out about the incident, they started a Facebook page, "Stand by D'laontie Lewis," to show that Lewis is a person not defined by his mental health condition.
Price got emotional when talking about the responsibility they feel they have.
"We're taking a stand because D'laontie was a person that stood up for us," she said, her voice breaking. "It's my duty as a friend and as a good person to do the same and so much more for him, because I owe him my life."
Isaac Mei, a graduate student at West Virginia University, also went to college with Lewis. Lewis mentored Mei in the singing group at the school.
"We don't condone his behavior ... but he is just someone who is in dire need of help," Mei said. "We don't want people to paint him as someone who was trying to hurt kids."
Price and Mei worried that the news coverage could be exacerbating the stigma that those with mental illness already face.
Mei said it seemed like Lewis was painted as "high and crazy."
"It just seemed like they make it laughable," he said. "This is a person's life we're talking about."
Dr. Pat Corrigan, a psychology professor who serves as the principal investigator at the Chicago Consortium for Stigma Research, confirmed their fears. He said the news media is "probably the single greatest source of stigma."
"It's especially clear in these flashbulb events ... because we have a need to try to understand it," he said.
Corrigan said he would have preferred the coverage focus on the alleged crimes, versus police officers' opinions on Lewis' mental state. He said when the news media ties mental illness to crimes, readers come to the mistaken conclusion that most mentally ill people commit crimes. He noted that many people assume mental illness after mass shootings.
"We quickly gravitate to mental illness by nature," he said. "Once you classify something, than it generalizes everybody in the group."
He suggested a better role for the media when it comes to combating the stigma surrounding mental illness - writing about recovery. He noted that most people with mental illness do recover.
Corrigan said people afflicted with the most serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, tend to fall in three categories - those who recover from it like it's a respiratory illness, those who get over it like diabetes and have to stay on medication, and those who need more comprehensive treatment, such as rehabilitation, case management and job coaching.
"Recovery is the mantra against stigma," he said.
About one in five adults in the United States experience mental illness in a given year, according to research cited by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Approximately one in 25 experience a serious mental illness that "substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities," NAMI says.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.