Police presents at upcoming D2 Football Games?

[SW_Mustang]

Seens like everyone I had to deal with that was off their meds said that...I don't feel "right" when I'm on them. Typically these people were engaged in things like directing traffic on busy interstates or standing naked in their front yard at 2 AM threatening to kill the mayor because he's shooting microwaves into the heads of everyone. People left to deal with this are the police.

One of the major ways that people enter or reenter the public mental health process is via a police initiated psych hold. In FL its called Baker Act but every state has a similar thing. If the police engage with a person and the officer believes he presents a threat to himself or others, he can have them placer on a 72 Hr hold for a psych evaluation during which the doctor determins weather he has a history of psych treatment and medication and/or if he needs to held for further treatment.

Mental illness is complex and treatments dont always work. But it seems the person who most often has to deal with the outcome of a failed treatment plan is a police officer. And far too often, there is some sort of violence involved against a third party.

Sadly, the police have become the nation's father. Just as mothers used to say to unruly children, just wait till your father gets home. Dad would get home from work and meat out punishment and fix things. The police are responsible for telling people no and people now days don't like being told no to ANYTHING!

No doubt. Adding in some extra resources wouldn't solve the problem entirely, but it would hopefully deescalate some situations.

I'm not a cop but I do have some experience with the mental health system in this country. It fails a lot of people, all the time. If everyone it failed were crazy like your example, the world would burn pretty quickly. Only a small minority of people who struggle with mental issues will dance naked in their neighbor's front lawn - which is important to remember. Some folks struggling with intense depression and anxiety reach out to police for that 72 hour hold, and are sometimes unjustly shot upon arrival. They are not waving a gun around in someone's face, the officer just didn't know how to handle the tense situation.

Nobody in history has wanted to be told "no." I'm sure it's gotten worse with the internet age, but that's one aspect of people that's existed since fish crawled out of the ocean.

At the end of the day, my belief is this - police officers are representatives of the government. The government should not have the power to kill it's citizens at will without a good reason. There are many police shootings which are justified, but there are many that are not. What can we do to decrease the amount of shootings that are not justified? Lawmakers have sat on their hands for far too long on this issue.

[boatcapt]

That sounds like a horrible situation to deal with - especially on your last call.

I don't think anyone (in the thread at least) is arguing that police officers shouldn't have the right to defend themselves in those situations. You were looking out for yourself, your partner, and the other person in the home - which is very respectable. And yes - those situations do happen a lot too, and I get that. Having MHP's on staff at the local PD is not intended to tie the hands of officers behind their back. "I can't protect you because my social worker isn't here" is not what we're going for. It's a resource for officers to use to hopefully prevent certain situations from escalating. It's intended to make everyone's life easier - not harder.

That being said - while what you experienced is not uncommon, there are many situations in which the police are called to deal with non-violent people. It's not uncommon for people to call the police on themselves for help - maybe they are struggling with the idea of suicide, maybe they are just scared. It's the quickest way to get help. It's happened where the people who call the police for help, with no intention of hurting anyone, are shot in their own homes by the people sent to help. A lot of this can be avoided with training or with MHP's on staff. This is what we want to prevent.

Pills can be a powerful tool to help treat mental issues - but they are not the quick cure that we're told they are. As there's no blood test for depression or schizophrenia, people are often misdiagnosed a few times before finding what's correct. Taking pills for a condition you don't have is a very dangerous thing. Then there's also the side effects, which are sometimes harder to deal with than the actual issue itself. Some people do refuse to take them out of pure disobedience, but some people stop taking them because it limits their ability to function. Some feel they don't need the pills anymore and quit cold turkey. Sometimes the pills simply don't help, and sometimes people are afraid of becoming addicted.

I'm not discounting your experience, but I'm providing you with some of my own to share some perspective. It takes a lot more than a bottle of pills to properly fight a mental health issue, just like any physical ailment would. You can't cure a broken bone with a bottle of Tylenol. Honestly, the real tragedy sometimes is how the mental health system continually fails certain people.

Seens like everyone I had to deal with that was off their meds said that...I don't feel "right" when I'm on them. Typically these people were engaged in things like directing traffic on busy interstates or standing naked in their front yard at 2 AM threatening to kill the mayor because he's shooting microwaves into the heads of everyone. People left to deal with this are the police.

One of the major ways that people enter or reenter the public mental health process is via a police initiated psych hold. In FL its called Baker Act but every state has a similar thing. If the police engage with a person and the officer believes he presents a threat to himself or others, he can have them placer on a 72 Hr hold for a psych evaluation during which the doctor determins weather he has a history of psych treatment and medication and/or if he needs to held for further treatment.

Mental illness is complex and treatments dont always work. But it seems the person who most often has to deal with the outcome of a failed treatment plan is a police officer. And far too often, there is some sort of violence involved against a third party.

Sadly, the police have become the nation's father. Just as mothers used to say to unruly children, just wait till your father gets home. Dad would get home from work and meat out punishment and fix things. The police are responsible for telling people no and people now days don't like being told no to ANYTHING!

[SW_Mustang]

More funding is needed upstream, not continuing to spend resources to bandaid the crisis but on fixing the crisis. More police, more LaW aNd OrDeR etc is not the solution. It's the only tool those who can't problem solve seem to have in their toolbelt. A hammer for every job, regardless of what the issue is.

"People shouldn't commit crime" is one I hear a lot. While that's absolutely a true statement - it's also a reality that's only going to exist in the clouds. People are going to commit crime, and often times it's in response to some societal issue (but certainly not always). Sometimes it's peoples' only means for survival. They're good caring people fighting for their life. It happens, a lot.

Treating those societal issues would hypothetically reduce (but not eliminate) the crime rate. I don't have the answers for what that is, but it's a component that "Defund the Police" originally tried to argue for before their message got hijacked and spun into radical nonsense. Do they have the best way of going about it? Probably not, but it's a more effective strategy than telling people to just not commit crimes.

Someone out there thought they could fix homelessness by telling homeless people to simply buy a house - and they didn't get very far.

[SW_Mustang]

I dealt with a lot people with diagnosed mental condition. Just an observation on my part, the vast majority of those have been treated and prescribed a medication, and then became "non-compliant" (Doctor word for off their medications). The meds have been provided to them for free, but they have chosen not to take them. My last call for service was an individual who was stark naked waving a gun around terrorizing a lady inside the house saying that she was his girlfriend and he just wanted to talk to her to fix things up. I was able to talk him down but I got to tell you, when he pointed the gun at me and my partner, I pulled slack out of my trigger at least three times. Total encounter was less than 3 minutes...no way a social worker would have had time to arrive. And my experience on my final night of work is not unique or isolated. To be quite frank, I'm surprised that there are so few police involved shootings.

Police are asked to "fix" so many problems with society and the government that other much more "educated" and well paid people have been unable to do. Then they get spit on (literally), physically attacked , killed and "defunded" when one member of the approximately 1,000,000 officers across the country makes a tragic mistake.

That sounds like a horrible situation to deal with - especially on your last call.

I don't think anyone (in the thread at least) is arguing that police officers shouldn't have the right to defend themselves in those situations. You were looking out for yourself, your partner, and the other person in the home - which is very respectable. And yes - those situations do happen a lot too, and I get that. Having MHP's on staff at the local PD is not intended to tie the hands of officers behind their back. "I can't protect you because my social worker isn't here" is not what we're going for. It's a resource for officers to use to hopefully prevent certain situations from escalating. It's intended to make everyone's life easier - not harder.

That being said - while what you experienced is not uncommon, there are many situations in which the police are called to deal with non-violent people. It's not uncommon for people to call the police on themselves for help - maybe they are struggling with the idea of suicide, maybe they are just scared. It's the quickest way to get help. It's happened where the people who call the police for help, with no intention of hurting anyone, are shot in their own homes by the people sent to help. A lot of this can be avoided with training or with MHP's on staff. This is what we want to prevent.

Pills can be a powerful tool to help treat mental issues - but they are not the quick cure that we're told they are. As there's no blood test for depression or schizophrenia, people are often misdiagnosed a few times before finding what's correct. Taking pills for a condition you don't have is a very dangerous thing. Then there's also the side effects, which are sometimes harder to deal with than the actual issue itself. Some people do refuse to take them out of pure disobedience, but some people stop taking them because it limits their ability to function. Some feel they don't need the pills anymore and quit cold turkey. Sometimes the pills simply don't help, and sometimes people are afraid of becoming addicted.

I'm not discounting your experience, but I'm providing you with some of my own to share some perspective. It takes a lot more than a bottle of pills to properly fight a mental health issue, just like any physical ailment would. You can't cure a broken bone with a bottle of Tylenol. Honestly, the real tragedy sometimes is how the mental health system continually fails certain people.

[Wildcat Khan]

The world isn't black and white. It doesn't have to be either-or.

Minneapolis is a violent city. They need police, and the vast, vast majority of residents agree. That being said, they also want more accountability for these unjust actions such as what happened to George Floyd, and they want new measures in place to prevent similar situations from happening again. Both totally reasonable assessments.

Nicollet Mall almost burned last night. The police did a wonderful job preventing that from happening. Not only were they totally justified in what they did, the suspect took his own life (and they even tried reviving him at the scene). Morons used it as an excuse to try and start another riot. There will be no large scale rioting or protesting tonight, because reasonable people saw the video - they know what happened. Without them there, it would have been absolute chaos.

Here's the thing - not all mental health calls are for violent individuals. Not all people experiencing mental health issues are carrying weapons or are even capable of violence. Some mental health situations are escalated by the police being there. What can we do to prevent these situations from getting to the point of justified lethal force? That's what we want to solve. There's this idea that every mental health situation involves some dude running around town with no clothes on and a gun, and while that does happen - that's simply not the case for everyone. Sometimes people call the authorities on themselves because they are having a crisis - imagine calling the police to help you, and then end up getting shot by them? That's what we don't want.

We also don't want those people who do have guns running around and shooting other innocent people. That's when we want a justified use of force to be used.

Sorry for getting heated, it's got nothing to do with you personally.

I can agree with what you said there. Not all police are corrupt, not all police are good. It is just like any part of society, there are good and bad. I also want to say not all protesters are violent rioters, but the violent riots need to be stopped. The reason for stopping them shows up nicely in your post, the destruction of property that isn't police related and effects others lives such as destroying stores like that mall and the AutoZone.

[NWHoops]

Symptoms are what the police are left to deal with on a daily basis. On a daily basis, I had to deal with the failure of other parts of society...be it the education system, the mental health system, the drug treatment system, etc, etc, etc. And this is not a new situation...I delt with this across Democratic and Republican administrations and congressional majorities at the federal and state level. Both sides are equal failures.

I dealt with a lot people with diagnosed mental condition. Just an observation on my part, the vast majority of those have been treated and prescribed a medication, and then became "non-compliant" (Doctor word for off their medications). The meds have been provided to them for free, but they have chosen not to take them. My last call for service was an individual who was stark naked waving a gun around terrorizing a lady inside the house saying that she was his girlfriend and he just wanted to talk to her to fix things up. I was able to talk him down but I got to tell you, when he pointed the gun at me and my partner, I pulled slack out of my trigger at least three times. Total encounter was less than 3 minutes...no way a social worker would have had time to arrive. And my experience on my final night of work is not unique or isolated. To be quite frank, I'm surprised that there are so few police involved shootings.

Police are asked to "fix" so many problems with society and the government that other much more "educated" and well paid people have been unable to do. Then they get spit on (literally), physically attacked , killed and "defunded" when one member of the approximately 1,000,000 officers across the country makes a tragic mistake.

The number of unarmed African Americans shot and killed by police as of July was 14. That's 14 too many and the officers who took those shots should have to answer. Yet some would have you believe that the number is much higher and that it represents a systematic and racially motivated attack on the African American community. Meanwhile, 228 police officers took their own lives in 2019...and no one burned anything...

You just supported my entire point. Glad we are in agreement.

Another great example:
One summer in the village, the people in the town gathered for a picnic. As they leisurely shared food and conversation, someone noticed a baby in the river, struggling and crying. The baby was going to drown!

Someone rushed to save the baby. Then, they noticed another screaming baby in the river, and they pulled that baby out. Soon, more babies were seen drowning in the river, and the townspeople were pulling them out as fast as they could. It took great effort, and they began to organize their activities in order to save the babies as they came down the river. As everyone else was busy in the rescue efforts to save the babies, two of the townspeople started to run away along the shore of the river.

"Where are you going?" shouted one of the rescuers. "We need you here to help us save these babies!"

"We are going upstream to stop whoever is throwing them in!"

More funding is needed upstream, not continuing to spend resources to bandaid the crisis but on fixing the crisis. More police, more LaW aNd OrDeR etc is not the solution. It's the only tool those who can't problem solve seem to have in their toolbelt. A hammer for every job, regardless of what the issue is.

[boatcapt]

With those questions, you're still looking at the symptoms. When there is crime involved there will be need for police. What if there was less crime involving those dealing with mental health concerns because they had access to appropriate mental health care and medication? That will only be possible with more funding to support those initiatives. It would also help if we looked at healthcare as a public good rather than private business in this country like virtually all other developed countries have managed to do.

What if doctors only treated you for your symptoms but didn't try to find the underlying cause to eliminate the symptoms from ever happening? You would need to see the doctor over and over because the symptoms kept coming back. You would still need doctors because you are going to get sick but ideally you would treat the underlying issues, which eliminates symptoms from those issues, which leads to less visits to the doctor.

Symptoms are what the police are left to deal with on a daily basis. On a daily basis, I had to deal with the failure of other parts of society...be it the education system, the mental health system, the drug treatment system, etc, etc, etc. And this is not a new situation...I delt with this across Democratic and Republican administrations and congressional majorities at the federal and state level. Both sides are equal failures.

I dealt with a lot people with diagnosed mental condition. Just an observation on my part, the vast majority of those have been treated and prescribed a medication, and then became "non-compliant" (Doctor word for off their medications). The meds have been provided to them for free, but they have chosen not to take them. My last call for service was an individual who was stark naked waving a gun around terrorizing a lady inside the house saying that she was his girlfriend and he just wanted to talk to her to fix things up. I was able to talk him down but I got to tell you, when he pointed the gun at me and my partner, I pulled slack out of my trigger at least three times. Total encounter was less than 3 minutes...no way a social worker would have had time to arrive. And my experience on my final night of work is not unique or isolated. To be quite frank, I'm surprised that there are so few police involved shootings.

Police are asked to "fix" so many problems with society and the government that other much more "educated" and well paid people have been unable to do. Then they get spit on (literally), physically attacked , killed and "defunded" when one member of the approximately 1,000,000 officers across the country makes a tragic mistake.

The number of unarmed African Americans shot and killed by police as of July was 14. That's 14 too many and the officers who took those shots should have to answer. Yet some would have you believe that the number is much higher and that it represents a systematic and racially motivated attack on the African American community. Meanwhile, 228 police officers took their own lives in 2019...and no one burned anything...

[SW_Mustang]

This is actually happening in some police departments across the country.

And that's progress. That's a good thing.

[SW_Mustang]

I'm not sure you saw this, but a police officer in Vegas was shot in the head back in June. They fortunately caught the guy, but what would your proposed new system do for violence in that case?

There was also this: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/...LC7DOSOMJ6PGM/ which hit the news here. I really want to know what you propose for situations like these, especially as a person riding a scooter was injured also by the person that killed the officer in Bothel and injured another.

I'm all for getting rid of the corruption and racism, but I don't want to do so at the loss of safety if a crazy, drunk, or violent criminal is near me. BTW, I also had the police keep me out of my house for 2+ hours last week due to a natural gas leak in the area when they closed all the roads into it. I hope you would consider that protecting and serving me in keeping me safe from natural gas.

The world isn't black and white. It doesn't have to be either-or.

Minneapolis is a violent city. They need police, and the vast, vast majority of residents agree. That being said, they also want more accountability for these unjust actions such as what happened to George Floyd, and they want new measures in place to prevent similar situations from happening again. Both totally reasonable assessments.

Nicollet Mall almost burned last night. The police did a wonderful job preventing that from happening. Not only were they totally justified in what they did, the suspect took his own life (and they even tried reviving him at the scene). Morons used it as an excuse to try and start another riot. There will be no large scale rioting or protesting tonight, because reasonable people saw the video - they know what happened. Without them there, it would have been absolute chaos.

Here's the thing - not all mental health calls are for violent individuals. Not all people experiencing mental health issues are carrying weapons or are even capable of violence. Some mental health situations are escalated by the police being there. What can we do to prevent these situations from getting to the point of justified lethal force? That's what we want to solve. There's this idea that every mental health situation involves some dude running around town with no clothes on and a gun, and while that does happen - that's simply not the case for everyone. Sometimes people call the authorities on themselves because they are having a crisis - imagine calling the police to help you, and then end up getting shot by them? That's what we don't want.

We also don't want those people who do have guns running around and shooting other innocent people. That's when we want a justified use of force to be used.

Sorry for getting heated, it's got nothing to do with you personally.

[IUPNation]

Why should the cops get presents at a foosball game?

They get paid pretty well for being PUBLIC SERVANTS. They can afford to go buy their own presents.

[NWHoops]

Ideally, the mental health professionals would be on staff at your local PD and not called in from some random shrink's office. They'd have a basic amount of police training, and the officers would have a basic amount of mental health training. They'd work together.

This is actually happening in some police departments across the country.

[SW_Mustang]

Police being shot and killed garners almost zero national media attention. Guess reporting them would interfear with the current narrative being pushed.

Henry Washington, the shooter:

Part time resident of Washington, Texas and Arizona.
BLM supporter who's Facebook profile picture showed him holding a gun, dressed in black and over a BLM forground.
Long multi-state history including convictions for Making Terroristic Threats, Assault on Police, Evading Arrest, Stalking, Intimidation of Witnesses and Violating a Protective Order.

Don't know the validity of this reporting but supposed eye witness video shows a dark sedan that has just hit a scooter. Driver of the vehicle outside the vehicle. Police car arrives on scene. Driver walks quickly toward the driver side of the police car yelling "come on pigs" "come on pigs" then fires several shots into the police car. Police car "slow rolls" into the sedan then down the street.

The officer killed by Washington is Jonathan Schoop. A 37 yo, 1 year veteran of the Bethell Washington PD. Survived by his family and Fiance. Former Coast Guardsman.

And no one outside of Bethell Washington cared about his death.

The vast majority of people shot by the police aren't discussed nationally either. We only discuss the ones we feel are unjust.

As a first world country, we shouldn't allow our officers to execute people at-will, and we definitely shouldn't let them skirt the due process that would be imposed on any regular citizen for doing the same - at the absolute very least. But again - wanting officers to be held to standards makes me un-American.

I have no problem with officers using lethal force to protect themselves and others. I have a problem with officers executing people unjustly, and getting away with it.

[SW_Mustang]

*snip*

That's really how our government functions - we elect individuals who we feel best reflect our values, and then they vote on our behalf. We rarely get an actual say in anything that goes on - and those elected officials are not under any obligation to do what we want them too. Hypothetically they do so as to keep their jobs for the next go-around.

Yes, "defunding the police" does mean taking away resources - but there is a purpose to that which I've already explained. Constituents are tired of funding underperforming departments and they want accountability. If I do bad at my job, I get "defunded." Why are we holding officers to a lesser standard? As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. They should be held to a higher standard because they are given more power in our society, in my opinion. Same goes for politicians too - regardless of party.

Your questions regarding social workers - granted this is just my opinion and I'm not an expert, but it's what I got:

1) Why can't they be? The folks who fix your internet are on call 24/7, 365. Why can't social workers?
2) Who makes the decision to send a firefighter vs. an ambulance to the scene based on that inaccurate information? Why can't an officer arrive first and a social worker come second?
3) See #2 - but it would absolutely reduce the workload of an officer. Here's a hypothetical - a person with bipolar experiencing a manic episode is secured by someone trained to do so, preventing a car chase or a violent outburst. The officer is on scene in case things get rough, but heads back on patrol 20 minutes later with no altercation. Will that be the case 100% of the time? Absolutely not - but what if it's successful 20% of the time, or even 30%? That's a lot better than what we have now.
4) You'll have to elaborate - do you mean after the police arrest him? Intake, mental health evaluation to assess his competency, and administer corrective action whether that be jail time, the mental health ward, or some combination of the two. I don't think that's all that different than what happens now, based on my understanding. That opens up another can of worms as our mental health care system is ultra-flawed, but that's still ideally what would happen.
5) The job of the social worker would be to prevent a situation from escalating from calm to violent. In your example (which you are correct, does happen) - the officer arrives on scene to an already violent individual. My hope would be that the officer defends himself and those around him and doesn't wait for a social worker to arrive. In fact, I would argue a social worker shouldn't even be brought in at all - if the person is violent, the person is violent. Secure the situation, move everyone to safety - then deal with the mental health aspect. Safety first, always.
6) Hopefully not. That would cause chaos.
7) Good question. Hopefully the officer would assess the situation and make his best judgement call just as he would for any situation.

There are a lot of situations where the police are called to a non-violent scene, don't know how to handle it, and the scene becomes violent. The goal of having mental health professionals on staff would be to prevent that scene from escalating. Officers need to be aggressive, but at the same time that aggression can make a diffusible situation violent.

Ideally, the mental health professionals would be on staff at your local PD and not called in from some random shrink's office. They'd have a basic amount of police training, and the officers would have a basic amount of mental health training. They'd work together. The idea of providing more training for our officers doesn't seem to go over well though, unless it's on some new military equipment they don't need.

My stance throughout this thread (and life) is that there is no perfect solution to any given problem. Each solution will cause it's own problems. It's up to us to assess whether the gains of the solution vs. the drawbacks. Personally, if we can reduce situations by 20-30% with MHP's on staff, that's probably a worthwhile investment - and far better than letting things go as they have been.

Anyway- my point about asking for your sources was just out of curiosity. I'm glad you're getting your information from various places. A few of your comments teetered on the line of implying every moderate liberal wants to abolish the police, which is just not true. I just wanted to see where your information was coming from - I meant nothing personally by it.

[boatcapt]

I'm not sure you saw this, but a police officer in Vegas was shot in the head back in June. They fortunately caught the guy, but what would your proposed new system do for violence in that case?

There was also this: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/...LC7DOSOMJ6PGM/ which hit the news here. I really want to know what you propose for situations like these, especially as a person riding a scooter was injured also by the person that killed the officer in Bothel and injured another.

I'm all for getting rid of the corruption and racism, but I don't want to do so at the loss of safety if a crazy, drunk, or violent criminal is near me. BTW, I also had the police keep me out of my house for 2+ hours last week due to a natural gas leak in the area when they closed all the roads into it. I hope you would consider that protecting and serving me in keeping me safe from natural gas.

Police being shot and killed garners almost zero national media attention. Guess reporting them would interfear with the current narrative being pushed.

Henry Washington, the shooter:

Part time resident of Washington, Texas and Arizona.
BLM supporter who's Facebook profile picture showed him holding a gun, dressed in black and over a BLM forground.
Long multi-state history including convictions for Making Terroristic Threats, Assault on Police, Evading Arrest, Stalking, Intimidation of Witnesses and Violating a Protective Order.

Don't know the validity of this reporting but supposed eye witness video shows a dark sedan that has just hit a scooter. Driver of the vehicle outside the vehicle. Police car arrives on scene. Driver walks quickly toward the driver side of the police car yelling "come on pigs" "come on pigs" then fires several shots into the police car. Police car "slow rolls" into the sedan then down the street.

The officer killed by Washington is Jonathan Shoop. A 37 yo, 1 year veteran of the Bethell Washington PD. Survived by his family and Fiance. Former Coast Guardsman.

And no one outside of Bethell Washington cared about his death.

SAY HIS NAME - JONATHAN SHOOP

[Turbonium]

I'm not sure you saw this, but a police officer in Vegas was shot in the head back in June. They fortunately caught the guy, but what would your proposed new system do for violence in that case?

There was also this: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/...LC7DOSOMJ6PGM/ which hit the news here. I really want to know what you propose for situations like these, especially as a person riding a scooter was injured also by the person that killed the officer in Bothel and injured another.

I'm all for getting rid of the corruption and racism, but I don't want to do so at the loss of safety if a crazy, drunk, or violent criminal is near me. BTW, I also had the police keep me out of my house for 2+ hours last week due to a natural gas leak in the area when they closed all the roads into it. I hope you would consider that protecting and serving me in keeping me safe from natural gas.

Did I say anywhere that we need to completely get rid of the police? I said the current system is entirely broken. However, as far as keeping you out of your house for 2 hours due to a natural gas leak, is that really an argument for keeping the current police system? Did you need an armed and poorly trained officer to tell you there was a gas leak? Doesn't really seem like the best use of an officer's time to be honest.