Cops are too easily influenced by their preconceived notions about interacting with the public - they will tell you the public lies through their teeth at every opportunity but will take somebody's word as fact if it gives them justification for aggression or indifference.

How many of these cops are also licensed medical first responders? Even if she was a "run of the mill mentally ill person" (which I think you're exactly right about - they made that assumption).....is that how we want somebody to be treated by the police when they're having a breakdown? That's disgusting.

If police are capable of showing compassion to Dylann fucking Roof after he murdered 9 people by buying him a burger - I'd expect an equal level of professionalism and compassion to a mentally ill person......which again, she wasn't, the police were just flat out wrong with their assumptions (that what the hospital told them was a fact).