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this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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Don’t call the cops for mental health emergencies. They end in death or slightly better (shot and charged).
It's almost as if a militarized police force trained to shoot first and shoot to kill shouldn't be in charge of wellness checks, mental health emergencies, or even nonviolent offenses.
In fact, we could use some of the budget assigned to police and use it to train non-violent emergency response teams, since the police won't be doing that work anymore.
If only we had a catchy slogan for it.
I would prefer the Police actually had military training. The military actually teaches de-escalation.
Edit, source: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504718239/military-trained-police-may-be-slower-to-shoot-but-that-got-this-vet-fired
https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/police-officer-wins-settlement-city-fired-him
I don't disagree with you. They have been militarized with surplus weapons, gear, and vehicles. All of which they were handed with wildly insufficient training, under a system with little to no repercussions for excessive use of force. It's no surprise we're in the situation we are today.
Just to be clear, if you are shooting someone you are always "shooting to kill". You never so much as point a firearm at someone unless you are ready to end their life. If someone happens to be incapacitated but survive being shot then that is a happy accident but it should never be the expected outcome.
ACAB of course and I agree with everything else you said. I just get really tired of the "why didn't they shoot the in the leg or hand" comments. Real life isn't an action movie. That isn't how things work. If you are shooting someone you are aiming center of mass so you have the best chance of hitting despite the high stress scenario which it will be if you're not a sociopath. And you keep pulling the trigger until they drop because gunshot wounds will rarely drop someone in one hit. Even of it winds up being a lethal wound it can take a while to kill or even be debilitating to someone who is almost certainly running on adrenaline; until then all you've done is piss them off and make yourself a threat. In high stress situations people are known to be able to sustain fatal gunshot wounds and not even realize that they've been shot until the adrenaline starts wearing off.
This was not the intention of my "shoot first and shoot to kill" comment.
My issue is with the "warrior mindset" training adopted by many police forces that assumes every situation is a life threatening encounter for the officer and warrants an escalated response in order to preserve their own safety.
You are right, a firearm should not be raised unless the intention is to shoot to kill. I am saying that being trained to shoot to kill is not the appropriate background to respond to mental wellness check.
In this case, it was the person experiencing the mental health emergency who called the cops. Based on their repeated actions with the pair of scissors, it looks like suicide by cop, which is something police need to be trained to predict and prevent.
So... what are people supposed to do instead?
Where I live you call an ambulance.
That's actually really cool. At least in the US, there's few places that have public ambulance services, which you need because there are no private crisis response units in the country. There's not even a framework to certify them. So what winds up happening is that you call an ambulance, the paramedics arrive and are neither trained nor equipped to handle a serious mental health crisis, they call the police and then we're back to square one.
But I'm glad you live somewhere that both has crisis response units and funds them enough that they are actually capable of doing anything.
The $15,000 weewooo taxi? No thanks, I'll walk.
Yeah I figured it's not really an option in the US. Here it doesn't cost anything.
How do you specifically call for an ambulance and not cops? How do you stop the 911 dispatcher from sending cops?
There's a different number. 110 gets the police, 112 emergency services (so either fire department, ambulance, or an emergency doctor).
Anything else.
Sure but what specifically?
I'm not qualified to give advice on how to handle those situations. I only know that calling the cops is not it.
So you're not qualified to give advice on these situations, but you advise not calling the cops...?
Look it's not that I don't enjoy the debate equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, but my point is that you don't have any idea what people should do instead. Nobody does, because there isn't another option. So why not stop being such a smug little prick, stop using other people's tragic deaths as an (attempted) mic-dropping soapbox, and start thinking about what you say before you comment.
Wow. That's pretty direct. You can fuck off. I know that cops are not the right solution to mental health crises. I am a person with mental health issues who has had cops called to "save" me and was lucky that it went well. Why don't you affix your mouth to my asshole because I know that cops are not the right solution to a person having a crisis while I choose not to suggest my lay advice about something that is pretty important. Fuck you.
Yeah, but you're offering advice while at the same time talking about how you're taking the intellectually righteous option by not offering your lay advice. You can just state your opinion. But you're trying to come in and present your opinion as absolute fact on an issue where you're unequivocally wrong. Not about the fact that the system is broken or the cops aren't by and large evil bastards, but in implying there's another option people can choose, which I fucking wish was the case.
Listen. All I'm hoping to have happen here is that you'll recognize that nobody, not one single person, calls the cops on a family member because that's the easy option, or because they think it's even slightly a good option. They call them because their kid is having a manic episode but this time he somehow found a gun and is taking his cousin hostage so they can go get taco bell. Or because they're screaming that if someone tries to stop them cutting themselves they'll kill them - and they're already down to the bone on their thighs.
Those aren't made up examples, those are real mental health calls from the last month that we had to address. The first one, the police were called and managed to talk him down. I hate that I assume he wasn't shot because he's white, but that's absolutely the reason. He might get help in the next three months. Until then he's in jail. The second one, the paramedics were called. They tried to talk her down, deescalate like any sane person wants them to do, but it didn't work. So, they called the police & eventually between two cops and two medics they managed to restrain and sedate her. She'll live, somehow, but before they called for help she'd stabbed her mom and now she's being prosecuted for battery. Which is just... awful.
I'm pissed off at you because you're oversimplifying the most unpredictable situation anyone might have to experience in their lives with a patronizing, moralizing quip that is so detached from the reality of the situations people are put in that it's actually kind of stunning. People have one life-line, and it's the cops. They never, ever, ever choose that option lightly, and they are absolutely aware of the potential consequences. But sometimes people need fucking help, and it's the old "lesser of two evils" choice. It fucking sucks. Maybe it'll get better, but I think we both know it won't.
(Seriously, if you ever want to get absolutely beyond pissed off at how broken the system really is, dm me. I have shitloads of stories on how this system is much more fucked up than you think. Like, even if you think it's fucked up, it's so much worse than you'd believe. Ask about how many jails there are, that's a classic!)
(Also, give me that asshole. I will blow you up like a Sonic OC and carry you around like a balloon on a string.)
I don't have time to read a wall of text. My answer stands. Don't call cops for mental health issues. Goodbye.
Ah, the old "taking your ball and going home" approach. Sometimes it really does work to get a rise out of the other person. Hopefully that's not what you're going for, though. It's kinda sad if you pin that much self worth to getting the last word in an internet argument you claim to be too busy to read... not that I'd know anything about that. Really selling your argument here though friendo. I do recommend reading that wall of text though, it might actually be useful to you. You know. If you're not too busy being so cool and uninvested.
When I check replies before work my time is limited and someone who is clearly attempting to goad a reaction will not get high priority.
People should give MORE Tax Dollars to the Police so they can continue Killing us INSTEAD of using that money to fund Mental Health Crisis Teams!
Well that's certainly... one perspective? Not sure what you're on about.
I perceived the comment you're responding to as blatant sarcasm.
Something that won't end with your loved ones being shot to death.
How unhelpfully vague.
What am I, the answer man?
Our society is broken. It doesn't give a lot of great alternatives. I'm trying to do what I can about that. But I can't change the fact that you really shouldn't call the police on somebody unless you're prepared for them to be killed, because that's what the police do. That much should be clear by now.
If you want your loved ones in crisis to be murdered, by all means, call the cops on them.
No you're Just Asking Questions, right? Why should you have to provide a justification to where you get off victim blaming on these issues?
Ignoring that Win called the cops on himself (isn't it depressing how reliable a method of suicide that's become...) because that's a whole different issue, what you're telling people to do is that they should just... cope? Maybe there's a homeopathic cure for mania! I sure haven't found one, but if someone's got a clue ~~they can stick it up their ass, fuck homeopaths~~ please let me know, because I'd love a cure for my manic episodes.
I've had the cops called on me, and I can't blame my family for doing it. They weren't, and aren't, equipped to deal with that. I hope you're never in the position to find out exactly how scary it can be when someone you love is having a "severe mental health crisis" (in most cases, that's a cringy euphemism for "being a terrifyingly unhinged, violent lunatic"). I also work in forensic mental health management (that's what "trying to do what I can" actually looks like, btw) so I can professionally say that calling the cops on family is never: someone's first choice, an easy choice, a choice that in a similar situation you wouldn't also make.
You're not equipped to deal with this kind of disaster, nobody is. That's a big part of why it falls on the police, because at least they've got the tools to maybe stop it without killing someone. It's like the godzilla threshold - the situation is so bad that maybe calling in godzilla as backup will do slightly more good than harm. It's going to be a disaster either way, but maybe it will be a smaller one. This isn't the way it should be, and my god do I hope the few attempts to fix this we're only now able to implement might prove to start working, but it is the way it is right now.
I know this isn't going to change your mind, I've talked to enough people like you to know that you're not going to be predisposed to introspection, but I just sincerely hope you never get put in a situation that makes you realize what an ignorant tool you sound like when you talk about this issue.
Who the fuck is victim blaming? Who the fuck is Just Asking Questions? I'm just saying, calling the cops on somebody at this point is like pointing a loaded gun at them. Absolutely do not do it to anybody you are not prepared to kill.
Yes, the situation is insane. Yes, it should not be that way. But that is the way it is.
You seem to keep missing the fact that they called the cops on themselves.
I agree that calling the cops during a mental health crisis could end very badly, but this person apparently wanted it to end very badly.
You can't really stop someone from calling the cops to report themselves.
That is true. I was more replying to some_guy's post and the conversation that came off of that.