I never felt closure with this story.
My recollection of events were essentially Ian gets drunk, knocks on neighbors door and makes noise. Police come to "Deal with him"
If his twitter rant was honest then the police beat him possibly causing a concussion.
Whether you want to say that's his fault for being belligerent is up to your personal principles.
He gets concussion and starts strange rant. AFAIK Ian never had a history of this kind of behavior. Maybe his family stated differently. Maybe if they stated he had a history it was of alcohol abuse and not the kind of schizophrenic behavior he was portraying on Twitter.
I take it everyone didn't really look into it much further because lack of options. "Police report says they had a drunk belligerent man come in and then they released him."
Personally, given modern videos of police behavior I believe it is possible he was "acting foolish maybe even violent" at the station due to intoxication and one or more cops decided to shut him up.
Then it kind of ends up being like an Aaron Swartz situation. They weren't murdered but I think they were both victims of improper justice.
Maybe I get down-voted for being a bit brash here or ignorant of more facts with the story but I think people kind of takes on this attitude of "Well, I'm alive... moving on".
His tweet about spending the rest of his life fighting injustice is the kind of chilling reality of this mentality.
No-one really cares until they or their family have suffered injustice, prejudice, or unfair bias.
Or maybe he really was an Ahole (behind closed doors) if his tweets were an honest realization of his inner self and that's why no-one cares to defend a racist.
So, I think you're right. I think we will never know and I think maybe people don't talk about it because there's a certain kind of professionalism expected of people.
As John Stewart said, you can have great respect for police and simultaneously hold them to a higher standard.
Or maybe we should be talking about alcoholism. I don't know but like you I also feel uncomfortable with people saying "Dedicated to this guy" because it feels phony on some level.
If he had a history of mental illness; as much as I wish his family peace I think society is better if we know the full story.
Recently read the Wiki page on Jim Carey giving his ex-girlfriend (who comitted suicide after he broke up with her) S.T.D. allegedly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey#Relationships
As much as I want to ignore reality like everyone else, I think we have a huge problem with phoniness that just makes things harder to cope with.