MargaretDumont t1_irvyoye wrote on October 11, 2022 at 1:33 PM

Reply to comment by khinzeer in Mental health de-escalation hotline. by Blackulor

Not what I'm saying at all.

"I wish people had as much sympathy for..."

Yeah they do though. It's not a binary switch; you care for one and not the other and never the twain shall meet. You've gone and leapt to "non-coercively care for a violent predator on the street." Nope. Contain, approach in a calm manner and attempt to calm the person to increase the chances of removing the weapon successfully and without injury. Take off the street to protect from self and others and treat. The truth is, the cops have a history of rushing in with no de-escalation training and treating a suspect with a one size fits all approach. Some police forces are doing good work to train on this stuff but many aren't. The concern this person has is valid. No one is saying "Well, I don't want this guy to be harmed, so I guess I'll let him stab all these women and children." You're way oversimplifying. I'm one of the women who's been followed and threatened by a violent stranger on the streets of Providence just for going for a walk. So often nobody cares about that stuff until they're speaking on our behalf to make an argument like this.

Edit: And OP didn't ignore the situation. They're actively responding to it.

khinzeer t1_irw0vkl wrote on October 11, 2022 at 1:50 PM

What do you mean by treatment? The state ward? Are you at all familiar with these places?

This person is inevitably going to end up subjected to violence and locked away in prison or somewhere worse, where they will be subjected to more violence. The only question is how many people they hurt before hand.

You are not really suggesting anything. Unarmed social workers don't and won't intervene in situations like this (because they don't want to get stabbed). This is something that (unfortunately) can only be solved by coercive force. Calling the police is the least-bad of a bunch of unpleasant options.

MargaretDumont t1_irw16yn wrote on October 11, 2022 at 1:52 PM

Yeah the comment you commented on says that the cops come with mental health workers. So what do you have a problem with there? OP was asking how to get crisis intervention involved. Even if they're there with police it's better than just police. They had already called the non-emergency police number. Where's the ignoring you're complaining about?

Edit: You know what? We've walked away from my point. You can care how this person is handled and still care for who he might hurt. That's it.

khinzeer t1_irwgmmz wrote on October 11, 2022 at 3:40 PM

I was "complaining about" the original poster who didn't call the police for "obvious reasons" and then went on to call a non-emergency line.This is about as good as praying to god for the situation to resolve: it might make you feel good, but does nothing to help anyone.

I have no problem with having mental health workers with cops, but best case scenario for someone threatening random people on the street with a knife is a high dose of sedatives in a relatively-comfortable low-security carceral institution until they age out of violence (and using up resources that could be going to education, affordable housing, and helping young families).

The sooner you get authorities involved, the better chance for this. If they hurt someone (which sounds likely) they will be put in the ACI and probably get stabbed up by higher functioning convicts who don't want to deal with their predatory bullshit.

MargaretDumont t1_irwq9ht wrote on October 11, 2022 at 4:44 PM

It didn't stop there though. The poster was actively looking for a solution. And the consensus on advice was that the cops would be involved. Also, we have no idea what was up with this person. They could be on drugs or have a knife because they're suicidal. Not enough info.