Posted on 08/15/2017 11:08:50 AM PDT by pharmacopeia
Yet since 2010, the two largest police agencies, the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County police, have handled 71,628 mental health-related calls—and have made only 138 arrests. Miami-Dade taxpayers were on the hook for millions of dollars from wrongful-death lawsuits; today, fatal shootings are down almost 90 percent. More than 20 percent of those in county jails had serious mental illnesses, costing many millions to keep them there. Recently, the decline in arrests and incarcerations enabled the county to close a jail and save taxpayers $12 million a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Elect the mentally ill to public office. They will fit right in.
Mental health evaluation should be required for article writers.
You can get rid of a Pacific fleet load of unstable accidents waiting to happen if you remove every idiot who shoots or defends shooting dogs to when not responding to calls where violence is happening right now.
Raise the standards at the academies back to what they were 45 and 50 years ago.
later
It does seem that the actual reality is that police officers need this training. It looks like the average cop is much more likely to interact with someone needing mental evaluation and appropriate response than needing shooting.
Simple fact, there are a lot of crazies because it is almost impossible to commit someone against their will to mental health facilities (a situation with plenty of blame to go around for). Cops are usually the first line of official interaction with them. It’s unfair to expect them to deal with these situations without the expertise.
De-escalation is the key to a positive encounter between LEOs and the mentally ill.
However, this DOES NOT mean that police are going to give the mentally ill a “pass” to throw the first punch or make the first stab.
I’ve had the training, and it is good, and point # 1 is that officer safety comes first.
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