Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/13/watch-police-contact-the-youtu.html
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Video gets ultra weird around 29:30. Does she turn into a robot, have seizure? What’s going on there. It’s also weird how the cops just don’t acknowledge it.
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What in the world is she doing? A prime example of why law enforcement needs better training spotting and dealing with mental health issues - I have had almost zero training in this and it’s evident she’s nuts at this point. All I can think is that the chest mounted camera shows what they could not see from their elevated position. Of course the whole time she is in gross violation of the law and probably waiting for them to order her out and search her vehicle and person finding her gun… that would make anyone a little nuts.
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Which law is she violating in that footage? It’s legal to sleep overnight in a Walmart parking lot. She was super cooperative the entire time, didn’t do a thing to raise any suspicion, and her answers to the officers’ questions jibed 100% with what they learned before waking and engaging her.
I have to say, I was very impressed with the Mt View cops in this interaction, kudos to them. (Though I have to add, they should know Android better than iOS, given that Google is right down the street in their hometown, and iOS is the next town over!)
It’s unfortunate that they didn’t do the 5150 (just learned what that is), which would have saved the woman’s life, and the well being of some YT employees. I also feel bad for the family back in SD, to get thrust into a national conversation about social media this way, just as Zuck’s about to go in front of Congress.
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It just looks like she’s stretching.
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That’s some spastic ass stretching followed by psychotically dangling a key ring around on her pinky.
Well, she was trying to sleep in the back of a recent make of Pontiac. That would give anybody muscle stiffness. Not to mention she was roused from sleep only a few minutes before. I need at least a half hour and some caffeine before I desire to speak to anyone.
Additionally, the key ring thing is simply a physical manifestation of worry. Skip ahead a few minutes, and you’ll see her doing the same thing people do with “worry stones”.
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I move like that when I’m tired and cold.
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Stretching and fidgeting, I don’t think it’s that weird, just a way to dump some anxiety.
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The trouble is that that’s of limited use when being nuts isn’t illegal, rarely leads to violence; and has no particularly available solution(even if one was comfortable with cops institutionalizing people off the street because their affect seemed off; good luck getting an impatient psych bed if you aren’t at least harming yourself or others in the grip of major delusions, right now).
When filtered by “people who subsequently did a tepid job of shooting up Youtube”, the crazy is evident with this one; but in absence of that information I suspect that she’s barely average for the level of crazy you’d find in late night walmart parking lots.
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The NRA and their apologists love to say, “It’s a mental health issue not a gun issue” which is another way of saying, “It’s not my problem, so it’s not a problem”.
Its absurd to think the police could have stopped that shooting from happening just based on this interaction. The only way that shooting could have been prevented, was for her not to have had the gun in the first place. Stop treating mental illness as a scapegoat/red herring, it was never about the crazy, it was always about the guns.
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Even if they did suspect she had mental health issues that alone probably wouldn’t constitute a legal justification for detaining her.
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point of view
maybe the force needs a waist level camera with periscope capable
jives… that makes you think ‘what’s all those feet on the ground’
Admitting a person for mental evaluation against their will, apparently. It’s kind of strange to hear myself say this, but cops have it hard, too. They are not trained mental health professionals. She looks a bit weird, but does not appear to be an obvious danger to herself or others. So usually, I would consider such an action to be an overreach and intrusion on a person’s liberty. Hindsight is 20/20, and it looks like these cops were trying to be helpful and do the right thing.
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What the flip are you talking about?
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I’m pretty sure she had Asperger’s. You can see her stimming with her fingers around 15:40, which is something that autistic people do under stress.
Not sure if it’s appropriate to discuss all that now, but somehow, she’s the first shooter I ever feel sorry for somehow. Looks like she really lost her mind and became very delusional at some point.
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The professional, caring, respectful behavior of the cops feels so strange to see in a body cam video. That got me wondering how to get people to see videos like this more often. It would be a good balm for a small part of what ails our society. A start would be figuring out how to get videos released by citizens willing to pay for the necessary review and editing, instead of just when courts have to step in.
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I agree, though they find themselves on the front lines, as first responders, to mental health crises all the time. It’s not clear to me how much mental health training cops usually get, but most likely, it’s not enough. And I agree with everything you say here, @anon85905360
Same here. And the editing quality of the video, upon which you also touch, is very good. I was most surprised to find that toward the end, we see the same several minutes of the encounter, but from the other officer’s cam. Does that prove that none of this was cooked up? Maybe not, but this was all displayed in generally chronological order, then again I’d have to say it was a really good, stand-up quality police work. They did their homework before waking her, getting all the info, they even moved their spotlight away from the car so as not to disturb her in her sleep while they were gathering all the info (though I realize there is more than one reason why they’d do that).
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I’d have to say the same. From context, it seems that she probably had a family dynamic that was hard to deal with, perhaps from a dominant old-school father who has issues with culturally-bred misogyny?
ETA: Despite what was going on with YouTube, hats off to her for trying to take some initiative for herself by removing herself from the home. I’ve done the same, and it’s hard to get by without family to rely on.
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For 26 years my job with a public agency has required nearly daily interactions with people clearly dealing with various kinds and intensities of mental illness. Yet I have no formal training. Nobody I know does. I’ve had to read, talk to professionals, learn from my own (gutwrenching) misjudged strategies to cope.
(A person visited once who refused to look at anyone directly. They held a hand mirror to their face and you hadda converse thru that. Thats one my more lighthearted anecdotes.)
My mother also suffered serious mental illness for 14 years, prior to her passing. Coupled with her serious physical ailments we went through hell seeking coordinated health care (crazy people’s legit physical pains can get overlooked because…theyre crazy).
Trust me, law enforcement officers don’t get enough training to meet the expectations. We encountered ER staff who didnt know how to handle Mom. But our society offers few affordable practical options for individuals suffering mental problems or for their family.
Several comments above are accurate: unless a person threatens to harm themselves or others or violates noise or indecency ordinances, law enforcement probably can’t do anything. Unless the city involved has that horrible Illegal Sleeping law discussed on another post.
Being crazy isnt against the law: it’s ignored, ridiculed, reviled, misunderstood, feared and rejected.
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