I know they put people in psych wards for observation.
Highly unlikely for some lady who was a pain in the ass to a workman, or even to the police.
I believe they have to have reasonable belief the person could be a danger to themselves or others.
Being a pain in the neck does not meet that standard.
If her call was abusive, I could see her receiving a fine.
I like to point out that a lot of people who are killed in “defensive gun use”, could have easily stopped what they were doing, or better yet, walked or run away; but instead decided to continue with their behavior, or worse, ignored the gun and continued to approach the gun handler in a menacing or threatening manner. And this is key.
They were not shot for what they had been doing up to that point, but for *refusing* to discontinue doing what they had been doing, or exacerbating the situation by being even more aggressive in their actions.
This same rule of thumb is used by the police when deciding if someone needs temporary non-criminal institutionalization. Unless someone is incoherent and acting in a deranged manner, they do not immediately arrest them for psychiatric evaluation.
It is *only* when they are “out of it”, and represent, in the opinion of the police, a threat to themselves or others, are they subject to detention. That is, “being an irrational asshole” is not enough. “Being an irrational asshole and threatening to do something about it”, seems to be the criteria.
The same as with the aforementioned shooting, if she felt threatened by the workman she believed menaced her, she should have left the area to go to some safe place, not hung around and berated him.
As with a domestic abuse call, a priority of the police is to separate the brawling people in such a way as to at least for a time, stop the brawl.
If she was irrational, they could find out if she was drunk or on drugs. If not, outside of evidence to the contrary, it is a psychiatric issue, and police, not being psychiatrists or psychologists, are obliged to turn the situation over to experts. And for the time being, to detain one or both of the brawlers to protect them from each other.
Since she had not yet broken the law, which would at least have allowed a 48 hour detention, a two week psychiatric county detention is optimal, and many states have agreed.
But bottom line, it is up to the police to make the judgment call.