When an independent investigator analyzed the interactions between Portland police and people experiencing a mental health crisis, they found 89% of interactions resulted in death or injury to the person or their family.
It’s much much worse to have cops present than to not have anyone respond. An actual expert improves those outcomes dramatically.
which proves – since they keep going for their guns – that the guns themselves are a key part of problem.
no. they do not carry guns and they don’t therefore have the choice to use them when in a crisis situation. they don’t even want guns because they know what kind of outcomes carrying a gun generate.
“We are passionate that the British style of policing is routinely unarmed policing. Sadly we know from the experience in America and other countries that having armed officers certainly does not mean, sadly, that police officers do not end up getting shot.”
But one thing is clear. When asked, police officers say overwhelmingly that they wish to remain unarmed.
A 2006 survey of 47,328 Police Federation members found 82% did not want officers to be routinely armed on duty, despite almost half saying their lives had been “in serious jeopardy” during the previous three years.
The cops complain about how responding to a call about a mental health crisis is not their job and they don’t have the training. Blah blah blah. Yet when cities try to divert a fairly modest amount of the policing budget to create a mental health crisis department, all of a sudden the cops are claiming that this makes it impossible for cops to do their jobs.
Vancouver Police Dept. wrote an open letter to the B.C. Ministry of Health a few years ago stating that the province needed mental health professionals to deal with a lot of the activity in the Downtown East Side because the larger number of police service calls are not regarding crimes, they are for mental health issues. VPD has a mental health police squad that deals with this stuff but they can only cover so many calls across the city in a shift.
Training, vests and batons work well together in knife incidents. A light tap across the knuckles with a hard object like the tip of an extendable baton will cause almost anyone to drop what’s in their hand. A big swing isn’t needed and the attacker won’t even realize what’s happened until they’ve flinched their grip open and withdrawn their hand as a protective reflex.
Like I said, they aren’t the best choice for the job. Some of them COULD do the job if they haven’t had all the humanity drilled out of them. I have been listening to a guy who was a cop and quit a few years ago after he realized the job was turning him into a terrible person. But I haven’t listened enough to recommend them yet.
Mea culpa, I missed the word “those” in your response. You’re right most UK cops don’t carry guns.
i’ve known a couple of people over the years who joined the police. they had the mindset of wanting to help people. i dont think they realized it was like a square peg in a round hole. you have to shave the edges off to fit.
if we if made different kinds of jobs available ( and ones that pay a similar wage ) it would be better for everyone.
and that changes the outcome. if the officer in the op didn’t have a gun, she would have had to make a different choice.
I used to think it was hyperbole, but truly, ACAB.
Two cops should be able to disarm one suspect, with one knife, without harming him
If we take an Aikido class it’s the first thing they teach us on the first day—WTF do they teach cops at cop school 
Wheelie bin, but a milk crate and a cafe chair works too. If you’re not a US cop.
Cops with training can achieve non lethal outcomes. Just look at what two NZ Police officers did after the Christchurch terrorist shootings. Those cops had weapons (unusual for NZ, but they’d just completed some armed response training). Guy was captured alive and is now facing the music.
Good nuanced post. Uvalde planted this idea in many people’s heads that an armed suspect is a time bomb that can only explode, can never be disarmed. Most situations with armed suspects don’t have hostages though, and all the police need to do is keep “civilians” away, regroup to protect themselves, and wait them out. Running away from danger needs a PR campaign.
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