This is a thoughtful and logical step to take that other areas should really follow. A friend of mine is a state police officer in Virginia and has first hand experienced situations were mental health expertise was the real necessity and not just someone with full mental capacity committing an act that violates the laws, like they are trained to handle.

I don't like it. We need trained professionals not involved with police for positions like this.

Wait… Miff Co actually did something positive and good?

Yea these people shouldn’t be police department employees. They need to be completely separate.

Nobody with the authority to cut funding to police has the desire to push for it. So they think they can work around it by making the police the source of these services.

Greed and/or cowardice, either way it's a pathetic half measure that's going to do more harm than good in the long run.

Nope. They just made it look like they did.

It's still "Guns going in first" to take control. Not sure how this is an improvement on anything.

It at least might give the people responding better empathy… but they’re still cops with guns (we don’t need armed police officers responding to these situations). But even so, I doubt it.

I work in an ED that has cop supervision for security purposes. We had a schizophrenic man in a psychotic state who was stuck with us waiting for placement for over 2 weeks (a story in it of itself). And multiple different cops (I actually lost count in how many) came up to me on multiple different occasions and just said absolutely horrific things about a clearly mentally ill man.

“They should just lock him up and throw away the key, he has crazy eyes, you can’t fix that”

“He doesn’t deserve a hospital bed while he’s waiting, he deserves to be locked in a cell”

“You guys shouldn’t even be interacting with this guy. He should be in a locked room with no windows and cameras”

“I don’t even know why he’s hear, you can’t fix him”

And this is in an incredibly wealthy suburb with cops who are supposed to be trained in dealing with mental health crises. And EVERY TIME they had to respond to him acting out, they made the situation worse.

The sooner we as a society realize and try to actually correct the flaws in our police force (that is, start over) the better off we all will be.

I agree the police are not ideal, this requires a new position that is a hybrid response of someone trained in mental health and first deescalation. A key aspect that is often overlooked is situational assessment to know how to respond. My ex is a psychologist and many times said they would definitely not be effective to be sent by 911 into a mental health situation that has deteriorated into a dangerous situation because the ability to know how to prevent further escalation involves an understanding of the cause to know how to interact with that person first, an almost impossible task without that person seeking help beforehand. Introspection is extremely difficult because we are all different and there is no benchmark of perfect mental health to constantly compare ourselves to and when a mental health crisis has elevated to the point of the it effecting others in negative ways and in most cases someone directly involved not being able to be aware they need help or who to even call, 911 is the universally known place to call for help me is often called by someone who is not the person who needs the help themselves. A new mental health offering needs to be added to emergency services to go along with the fire, police and medical offerings that are currently the standard. But this is a step towards that, since such trained personnel are not yet available.

> because the ability to know how to prevent further escalation involves an understanding of the cause to know how to interact with that person first

I don't want to call this a nuanced analysis of reality, because it's much closer to common sense than nuance coming from a professional, but this is very accurate.

Sounds like your ex noped out of a hypothetical situation where they go out to 911 calls. Even EMS doesn't come on scene until it is secured by people with guns.

This idea that mental health professionals should arrive first at 911 calls is asinine. Not only would nobody want to do that, but any that did would quickly replace Alaskan crab fisherman from the #1 spot as the most dangerous job.

> but they’re still cops with guns (we don’t need armed police officers responding to these situations)

Are you saying that someone who is mentally ill and is going through a violent episode senses threat from men with guns and it makes it worse? Fine.

So by that logic we need to send someone who does not look like a threat? Who defines what that looks like? Does everyone in a mental crisis respond the same to what we define as non threatening? Is there any quantitative evidence behind any of these ideas?

No local politician will cut the budget of the police department. They will definitely cut mental health budgets or any other health budget for that matter.

Come the fuck on, you can find stories from all over the country about officers who didn't feel like dealing with a mentally ill person and just murdered them.
 
https://www.insider.com/cop-said-i-dont-have-time-shooting-keith-vidal-2020-11

 
The police are a violent gang who react to everything with violence. We shouldn't be sending violent gangsters to "help" people in a mental health crisis.

> This idea that mental health professionals should arrive first at 911 calls is asinine.

 
Why?

> The police are a violent gang who react to everything with violence.

Is this an organized gang? Who is in this gang? Federal police? State police? Local police? School police? Is this a voluntary membership? Do they have gang rules that they have to follow? Killing mental people is one of them apparently?

Unironic yes to all of that, Rampart at LAPD even had tattoos for killing people.
 
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-feb-08-me-62143-story.html

 
The police are a violent gang, you do not send violent gangsters to help people with mental health problems.

> Unironic yes to all of that

Fine. So who wants to replace them? Where are those people?

Literally anything other than a bunch of the dumbest fucking bullies in America who were given military equipment and told that they were Hero Warriors who are above the law and can bestow death on anyone they'd like with impunity. Quite literally anything.

The people replying to you are hysterical in how little they know about the world. You're absolutely right.

You didn't answer a direct question. Where are these 1 million people that you think are qualified and that are willing to replace the existing police? What are they doing it right now?

Are they nurses? Are they psychologists? Who are they now? Do they exist?

I answered the question. Literally anyone or anything else, because police as they exist right now in America are an armed gang that operates with impunity and reacts to anything with violence.

> Literally anyone

So why are they not applying to be police?

Are you a cop? You do a lot of bootlicking in various threads here.

 
Because policing culture in the US is rotten from top to bottom and keeps anyone who isn't like them out. That's why it all needs to be eradicated.
https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1620688616866611205

> Because policing culture in the US is rotten from top to bottom and keeps anyone who isn't like them out.

So the non gang members are kept out at the hiring stage? Do they flash secret gang signs in the interview? Am I getting this right?

You're a cop, aren't you?

 
Literally anyone would be better than the police we have, because police culture in this country is rotten from top to bottom. Other countries manage policing just fine without their police forces turning into gangs that murder with impunity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile

> You're a cop, aren't you?

You have mental illness yourself, don't you?

So you definitely are a cop. Color me shocked.

 
The police in this country are out of control, and everyone knows it but the cops.

> So you definitely are a cop. Color me shocked.

I'm not a cop. Or a mental health professional. But you are clearly a nut case. Not in a Reddit insult way. Like you should have it check out way if it wasn't diagnosed already.

Lol you're not even a cop but you're all over this subreddit licking cop ass for free. Amazing.

 

Here's some cops in California shooting a wheelchair-bound double-amputee to death.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wef4iuvSlrg

 

If you're fine with this sort of shit, you've got brain worms.

[deleted]

All we're asking for is cops to be less slave catcher and more officer of the peace.

You probably have paranoid schizophrenia or something related. Do you do drugs?

https://www.fox19.com/2022/11/05/fairfield-township-police-name-suspect-release-footage-officer-involved-shooting/

Except other countries are already responding to emergency calls with mental health experts and it's going well. Also your crab fisherman comment is pure fantasy, cops don't even make top 10 for most dangerous profession. You should write the next game of thrones spinoff, you've really got a mind for fantasy.