Posted on 12/04/2013 8:50:51 AM PST by BenLurkin
Matthew apparently reached out for help on iFunny, a mobile app with comedic photos and videos he often frequented, posting on July 16 that he was going to take his own life.
According to Matthew’s mother, a girl named Ana was perusing the site when she saw the teen boy’s post. Ana immediately called the Suicide Prevention Hotline, whose operators said that without Matthew’s address they wouldn’t be able to help him. They advised Ana to find out which city he lived in and call local police.
The girl was able to trace Matthew’s iFunny post to his Facebook account, where she saw he lived in Huntington Beach and attended Liberty High School. She called the Huntington Beach Police Department, and officers were able to track down Matthew’s home address. They assured Ana they would “take it from there” and that she needn’t do anything further.
Police submitted a report on July 16 stating officers weren’t sent to check on Matthew Cline because they had two addresses on file for that name.
(Excerpt) Read more at losangeles.cbslocal.com ...
Back in the day, folks used to say that if you needed the Cleveland Police to come, the last thing you’d want to say is that there was someone with a gun.
They would take an hour to get there.
The question boils down to whether, in a free society, police have a “duty” to protect people from themselves; more particularly, do police have a duty to mothers to protect the mother’s child from himself.
Can I sue the mom for being a rotten mother that did not stop her son’s suicide?
The actions of the kid and the actions of the police are separate. Just because the kid made a poor choice does not make it OK for the police to make poor choices.
I never said that it did.
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