When you call the police to help you deal with an elderly person who is likely experiencing mental health issues, they should not respond in the same manner as they do to a criminal assault.
I'm not finding a 93 year-old woman firing 2 shots into the ground to be tremendously dangerous. Yes, yes, potentially dangerous, but not likely. If I was there and the police weren't, I think I would have retreated and given her some room to diffuse. Most likely outcome would have been her going back in and taking a nap.
I suspect that the cop in this case had no idea what the situation was when he pulled up, which speaks to problems with 911. IMHO cops on physical disability should be put on 911 duty, where their experience would be very helpful.
Bottom line: If you have friend or family member who has a mental break and isn't responding rationally, don't call the police. They aren't apparently trained to diffuse such situations, move straight to confrontation, and use lethal force when your obviously non-compliant loved one continues to be non-compliant.
For the most part.... what cops really excel at is running a radar gun and writing revenue generation tickets to basically decent people who happen to be driving more than 7 mph over the posted limit.
“They aren’t apparently trained to diffuse such situations”
Actually most larger and medium sized agency officers are well trained and receive in-service training periodically on the subject. He had a person in a reportedly domestic disturbance fire two rounds in front of him. Arm chairing is easy. What if she kept firing and one of her rounds ricocheted and hit someone? What then?
“Bottom line: If you have friend or family member who has a mental break and isn’t responding rationally, don’t call the police. They aren’t apparently trained to diffuse such situations, move straight to confrontation, and use lethal force when your obviously non-compliant loved one continues to be non-compliant.”
We had a similar “incident” in the neighboring city of San Ramon, CA. A friend called the cops because she was concerned about a resident ( small Asian female) with whom she had just had a telecom. The caller asked the SRPD ( really the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Dept. because SR is a “contract city,”) to go see if the woman was o.k. She opened the door, saw the cops and ran to her kitchen and picked up a knife. Whereupon the cops shot her to death. There really isn’t any justification for these kinds of acts on the part of cops. It’s as though any pretext is sufficient to kill someone ( or their pet). I would not call the cops for anything!
I agree-in my former profession, we were trained to instruct relatives of clients who were emotionally unstable how to restrain the client, to call others familiar with the situation to defuse the situation peacefully-maybe some extra time and effort is better than a dead, innocent relative?
We never, ever advised they to call the cops for a family argument unless someone was being held hostage in a barricaded building by an assailant with an arsenal-it is ridiculous-cops are for real crimes, they are not mental health professionals...
Startled front desk personnel summoned the cops. When a lone officer arrived, he gave the man a proper military salute, addressing him as "Sir" and "Colonel." He told him he had been sent to assist the Colonel in securing the area and taking control of the situation. Returning the salute, the "Colonel" returned the weapon to his waistband.
From there it was just a matter of "tea and conversation" for a few minutes, while the Colonel agreed to a "weapons inspection" by the "Provost." Tragedy averted by sympathetic and well trained facility personnel who fully informed responders of the situation and its background, and a quick thinking young officer trained in the days prior to the militarization of U.S. law enforcement.