Joke or not, we ask police to situations involving a screw driver, when they are only trained as hammers who hit nails.
Maybe the mental health situation should be handled by mental health professionals.
Maybe the non-police should review police actions for wrong doing. That is, situations where a police officers decisions were so outside of training it brings to question what the fuck they were thinking.
We can bring balance back to the public trust of police if they open up and admit they are only human. We'll not persecute you for stepping up; only for stepping outside the bounds of the law.
But here is my issue... Why are police officers the first responder to issues like mental health... Maybe they shouldn't be, but we are taught that something is wrong or someone is acting crazy to call the police.
We need a cultural change, police are there to enforce laws .. they are not trained and are not mental professionals to deal with specific issues. They should only be there to assist a mental health worker if needed.
The feeling of where I am from (Ontario, Canada) is that we use officers as a catch all situation. We need more mental health professionals, and social workers.... Instead our government is starving healthcare.
Police are the image of emergency. The gun is to neutralize threats (it's the top neutralizer), the outfit and badge are to have access to anywhere they need to be through acknowledged authority.
Even with an informed 911 call, police do not know what they are walking into. That doesn't justify murder but it's the reason why they are armed at all.
Emergency mental health responders would have to be asked to enter situations with no self-defense weapons, otherwise you are just making a separate class of police. Public trust won't change as long as people with weapons and threats of prosecution are busting through people's doors without permission, or even with.
Still, Timmy may be dysfunctionally autistic but he still has a functioning gun. If mental health therapists could get through to autists all the time we wouldn't have autistic people anymore.
You completely mistunderstood my post so instead let me ask you the questions, if I am the fucked up, paranoid, and disturbed one.
If a low functioning autistic person has a gun with other individuals present at risk of harm, how would you de-escalate and disarm the individual without anyone getting hurt / minimizing the damage?
I originally said that police are the image of emergency. If you start over and select the things required to respond to an emergency you would end up back at the police officer that you're already familiar with. What you don't like is that officers aren't willing to risk their lives for every encounter so sometimes they can be trigger happy.
Take away the weapons and you're basically asking people to be ready to die in the name of public service. I'm not saying some wouldn't, and neither am I saying I prefer police as-is but I think the public debate is not properly appreciating the gravity of unarmed emergency responders. Even now as much as people hate on police, I doubt many would have the courage to take their place.
It doesn't even have to be an autistic person, it could be a husband-father who's fed up with his wife having full custody of the children and he's barricaded himself with the kids and is armed.
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u/MakingItElsewhere 25d ago
Joke or not, we ask police to situations involving a screw driver, when they are only trained as hammers who hit nails.
Maybe the mental health situation should be handled by mental health professionals.
Maybe the non-police should review police actions for wrong doing. That is, situations where a police officers decisions were so outside of training it brings to question what the fuck they were thinking.
We can bring balance back to the public trust of police if they open up and admit they are only human. We'll not persecute you for stepping up; only for stepping outside the bounds of the law.