What a cunt of a human being. He used a child-like level of insulting language, escalated at evey situation, tazed needlessly and without warning, and made zero attempts to do anything but bark orders to a person who is CLEARLY in a distressed mental state and unable to comply.
As bad as it is, situations like these make me do a little cheer in my head every time I see an article where a police officer dies.
They kill so many people compared to every other civilized nation, hopefully they die at increased rates as well. It’s only fair, right?
I admit I feel guilty to feel that way, but it’s the result of seeing the police betray the public at every turn. Crushing protests, shooting people running away, beating people senseless for seemingly nothing, slamming a man to the pavement walking to work which broke his skull and left him with life long brain damage. Shouting at EVERYONE for EVERYTHING. Illegally arresting people shouting “STOP RESISTING” as the person is contorted and unable to move. While raining punches and knees down on men, women, children (especially black children) who are face down on the ground. All while communicating like impatient children. Expecting the public to bow to them without question. It’s all so old and ubiquitous.
There are thousands of these videos at this point. They’ve been terrors for long before we all had cameras. Now we just see it.
Just remember, if you have a problem and call the police, now you have two problems.
The guy who created Killology, and anyone else who has created training which teaches cops that everyone else is a dangerous enemy, should be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder (or similar) every time a cop who received their training kills someone.
Conservatives should not be permitted to hold positions of authority. They lack empathy, which makes it nearly impossible for them to de-escalate or treat mental health crises appropriately.
But therapists and psychologists won’t come to your house in a mental health emergency with someone acting out violently for free, so people end up calling the cops out of desperation. One of many reasons we need a robust public healthcare system.
We also need people trained to de-escalate these crises on the public payroll, available for emergencies 24/7. And boy did the “defund the police” slogan not help with that.
Maybe we’re doing this all wrong. Maybe we need to use reverse-psychology on these simple-minded cops and start begging them to murder our loved ones when they’re having mental health crises.
Yeah, that’s just one of many horrible facets to consider when considering mental illness. I am so sad for their family. Those high pressure situations like that can be so dangerous. I just hate all that for him and for them.
I mean, realistically, the police are trained in combat enough to disarm a mentally ill civilian with a pair of scissors without having to resort to murdering him.
So you’re not qualified to give advice on these situations, but you advise not calling the cops…?
Look it’s not that I don’t enjoy the debate equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, but my point is that you don’t have any idea what people should do instead. Nobody does, because there isn’t another option. So why not stop being such a smug little prick, stop using other people’s tragic deaths as an (attempted) mic-dropping soapbox, and start thinking about what you say before you comment.
Wow. That’s pretty direct. You can fuck off. I know that cops are not the right solution to mental health crises. I am a person with mental health issues who has had cops called to “save” me and was lucky that it went well. Why don’t you affix your mouth to my asshole because I know that cops are not the right solution to a person having a crisis while I choose not to suggest my lay advice about something that is pretty important. Fuck you.
Yeah, but you’re offering advice while at the same time talking about how you’re taking the intellectually righteous option by not offering your lay advice. You can just state your opinion. But you’re trying to come in and present your opinion as absolute fact on an issue where you’re unequivocally wrong. Not about the fact that the system is broken or the cops aren’t by and large evil bastards, but in implying there’s another option people can choose, which I fucking wish was the case.
Listen. All I’m hoping to have happen here is that you’ll recognize that nobody, not one single person, calls the cops on a family member because that’s the easy option, or because they think it’s even slightly a good option. They call them because their kid is having a manic episode but this time he somehow found a gun and is taking his cousin hostage so they can go get taco bell. Or because they’re screaming that if someone tries to stop them cutting themselves they’ll kill them - and they’re already down to the bone on their thighs.
Those aren’t made up examples, those are real mental health calls from the last month that we had to address. The first one, the police were called and managed to talk him down. I hate that I assume he wasn’t shot because he’s white, but that’s absolutely the reason. He might get help in the next three months. Until then he’s in jail. The second one, the paramedics were called. They tried to talk her down, deescalate like any sane person wants them to do, but it didn’t work. So, they called the police & eventually between two cops and two medics they managed to restrain and sedate her. She’ll live, somehow, but before they called for help she’d stabbed her mom and now she’s being prosecuted for battery. Which is just… awful.
I’m pissed off at you because you’re oversimplifying the most unpredictable situation anyone might have to experience in their lives with a patronizing, moralizing quip that is so detached from the reality of the situations people are put in that it’s actually kind of stunning. People have one life-line, and it’s the cops. They never, ever, ever choose that option lightly, and they are absolutely aware of the potential consequences. But sometimes people need fucking help, and it’s the old “lesser of two evils” choice. It fucking sucks. Maybe it’ll get better, but I think we both know it won’t.
(Seriously, if you ever want to get absolutely beyond pissed off at how broken the system really is, dm me. I have shitloads of stories on how this system is much more fucked up than you think. Like, even if you think it’s fucked up, it’s so much worse than you’d believe. Ask about how many jails there are, that’s a classic!)
(Also, give me that asshole. I will blow you up like a Sonic OC and carry you around like a balloon on a string.)
Ah, the old “taking your ball and going home” approach. Sometimes it really does work to get a rise out of the other person. Hopefully that’s not what you’re going for, though. It’s kinda sad if you pin that much self worth to getting the last word in an internet argument you claim to be too busy to read… not that I’d know anything about that. Really selling your argument here though friendo. I do recommend reading that wall of text though, it might actually be useful to you. You know. If you’re not too busy being so cool and uninvested.
Our society is broken. It doesn’t give a lot of great alternatives. I’m trying to do what I can about that. But I can’t change the fact that you really shouldn’t call the police on somebody unless you’re prepared for them to be killed, because that’s what the police do. That much should be clear by now.
If you want your loved ones in crisis to be murdered, by all means, call the cops on them.
No you’re Just Asking Questions, right? Why should you have to provide a justification to where you get off victim blaming on these issues?
Ignoring that Win called the cops on himself (isn’t it depressing how reliable a method of suicide that’s become…) because that’s a whole different issue, what you’re telling people to do is that they should just… cope? Maybe there’s a homeopathic cure for mania! I sure haven’t found one, but if someone’s got a clue they can stick it up their ass, fuck homeopaths please let me know, because I’d love a cure for my manic episodes.
I’ve had the cops called on me, and I can’t blame my family for doing it. They weren’t, and aren’t, equipped to deal with that. I hope you’re never in the position to find out exactly how scary it can be when someone you love is having a “severe mental health crisis” (in most cases, that’s a cringy euphemism for “being a terrifyingly unhinged, violent lunatic”). I also work in forensic mental health management (that’s what “trying to do what I can” actually looks like, btw) so I can professionally say that calling the cops on family is never: someone’s first choice, an easy choice, a choice that in a similar situation you wouldn’t also make.
You’re not equipped to deal with this kind of disaster, nobody is. That’s a big part of why it falls on the police, because at least they’ve got the tools to maybe stop it without killing someone. It’s like the godzilla threshold - the situation is so bad that maybe calling in godzilla as backup will do slightly more good than harm. It’s going to be a disaster either way, but maybe it will be a smaller one. This isn’t the way it should be, and my god do I hope the few attempts to fix this we’re only now able to implement might prove to start working, but it is the way it is right now.
I know this isn’t going to change your mind, I’ve talked to enough people like you to know that you’re not going to be predisposed to introspection, but I just sincerely hope you never get put in a situation that makes you realize what an ignorant tool you sound like when you talk about this issue.
Who the fuck is victim blaming? Who the fuck is Just Asking Questions? I’m just saying, calling the cops on somebody at this point is like pointing a loaded gun at them. Absolutely do not do it to anybody you are not prepared to kill.
Yes, the situation is insane. Yes, it should not be that way. But that is the way it is.
That’s actually really cool. At least in the US, there’s few places that have public ambulance services, which you need because there are no private crisis response units in the country. There’s not even a framework to certify them. So what winds up happening is that you call an ambulance, the paramedics arrive and are neither trained nor equipped to handle a serious mental health crisis, they call the police and then we’re back to square one.
But I’m glad you live somewhere that both has crisis response units and funds them enough that they are actually capable of doing anything.
In this case, it was the person experiencing the mental health emergency who called the cops. Based on their repeated actions with the pair of scissors, it looks like suicide by cop, which is something police need to be trained to predict and prevent.
It’s almost as if a militarized police force trained to shoot first and shoot to kill shouldn’t be in charge of wellness checks, mental health emergencies, or even nonviolent offenses.
In fact, we could use some of the budget assigned to police and use it to train non-violent emergency response teams, since the police won’t be doing that work anymore.
Just to be clear, if you are shooting someone you are always “shooting to kill”. You never so much as point a firearm at someone unless you are ready to end their life. If someone happens to be incapacitated but survive being shot then that is a happy accident but it should never be the expected outcome.
ACAB of course and I agree with everything else you said. I just get really tired of the “why didn’t they shoot the in the leg or hand” comments. Real life isn’t an action movie. That isn’t how things work. If you are shooting someone you are aiming center of mass so you have the best chance of hitting despite the high stress scenario which it will be if you’re not a sociopath. And you keep pulling the trigger until they drop because gunshot wounds will rarely drop someone in one hit. Even of it winds up being a lethal wound it can take a while to kill or even be debilitating to someone who is almost certainly running on adrenaline; until then all you’ve done is piss them off and make yourself a threat. In high stress situations people are known to be able to sustain fatal gunshot wounds and not even realize that they’ve been shot until the adrenaline starts wearing off.
I just get really tired of the “why didn’t they shoot the in the leg or hand” comments.
This was not the intention of my “shoot first and shoot to kill” comment.
My issue is with the “warrior mindset” training adopted by many police forces that assumes every situation is a life threatening encounter for the officer and warrants an escalated response in order to preserve their own safety.
You are right, a firearm should not be raised unless the intention is to shoot to kill. I am saying that being trained to shoot to kill is not the appropriate background to respond to mental wellness check.
I don’t disagree with you. They have been militarized with surplus weapons, gear, and vehicles. All of which they were handed with wildly insufficient training, under a system with little to no repercussions for excessive use of force. It’s no surprise we’re in the situation we are today.
Judge: When she yelled out please don’t shoot, why did you shoot?
Officer: What I thought she said was “Please, shoot! He has an AK hidden underneath his shorts! Also they identify as a black FTM gay atheist!”
Judge: Understandable, I think I can hear that as well upon reviewing the footage again, case dismissed!
/S
I feel for the family, mental health issues are not an easy thing to handle even when being treated. My grandmother had issues later in life including dementia and a few times we had to make sure to keep sharp objects out of the picture. It’s not easy. I hope that this helps improve things for others down the line in some way, improved police training, improved awareness, something.
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