Simple things to avoid cases like Walter Wallace’s:
When a call for help is placed to 911, the caller must say if it involves a person with mental health issues so the police does NOT respond.
Then the 911 operator will contact the appropriate county or state Mental Health responders so they can take the call and avoid tragic endings.
If the caller is less than truthful and police arrives to a case of an individual with mental issues, the officers must leave immediately to avoid the use of force (deadly or otherwise) against such person. The officer will immediately notify dispatch of the type of call so Mental Health responders are called to the location.
Neither the officers nor the local PD department will be held liable for not engaging the patient if he becomes or is dangerous to the public.
Whomever calls 911 and lies about the mental health condition of a person so police goes to the location, should be charged with a felony resulting in a conviction of no less than 5 years in prison. If somebody dies because of the false call, the caller should be charged & tried for murder.
I am not sure how many EDP calls police departments get every day, but not having to respond to them should prove to result in substantial savings in the budget that can be used for better equipment and training, maybe even hiring new personnel.
Just an idea.
…did someone hack this site?
(I would have expected the caller having to knowingly lie about the mental state of the problematic person if they are to be charged with a felony.)
In Florida the charge of filing of a false police report is a misdemeanor of the 1st degree, punishable by a maximum of one year in jail and a $1,000.00 fine.
Upgrade to a felony with 5 years an suddenly people get religious.
I agree that police are bad first responders to mental health crises. They will tell you that. Suicide by cop is more common that people think. But they should be there as backup unless you want a lot of mental health counselors killed or taken hostage.
No police back up. The state/local mental health orgs should take care of that.
And I am sure BLM will offer their help …OK that was sarcasm.
The “abolitionists” (spit on them for taking that name) claim the presence of police is itself an escalation. It’s a given for the left that, for example, riots only happen because riot police are there.
Wait, what? This is a joke, right? Sounds like Defund the Police talking poinr of having social workers respond instead of cops. If someone is wandering around with a knife in a manner that suggests that he’s going to hurt someone, what difference dies it make if they are emotionally disturbed, high, or just a garden variety criminal? And what’s the little old lady social worker going to do in a case like that besides get herself cut into ribbons? And why punish 911 callers unless malicious? That reeks of “If you call 911 on a person of color, you’re racist.”
Sometimes, the best way to learn a lesson is to let the person or group have what they wants….fully.
Be careful what you wish for and all that.
Good article in the same vain as Jonathan Swift. It is always the same with the left, the choice made wasn’t the right one if the choice is made by a person with the wrong political viewpoint or color of skin or occupation.
George W Bush was responsible for the planes hitting the Towers because he could have ordered the planes shot down! If he had, he would have been called a murder because he didn’t know for sure that those hijackers were going to actually crash those planes into a target.
The police are murders because they shot a man attacking them with a knife. So they stood and were attacked with a vehicle (see earlier article about gun vs. SUV on this site).
They don’t want the police to respond to EDP calls, but they would eviscerate the police if that same person with a knife went on to kill people.
The narrative isn’t about “doing the right thing” the narrative is about “what every the police/conservatives/Trump/gun owner does is bad.”
The anti-police loons routinely claim that a person driving a vehicle and aiming it at police is “unarmed”.
The goal is to create a movement to end all local police departments in favor of a single, national police force. You know, something as professional and incorruptible as the FBI, answerable only to DC, and responsible for everything from speeding tickets to counter-terrorism.
“The narrative isn’t about “doing the right thing” the narrative is about “what every the police/conservatives/Trump/gun owner does is bad.””
Otherwise known as The First Axiom of Politics.
Yeah, I was going to quote you, but was to lazy to find the quote.
Many years ago I visited one of the most horrific places in the US. The US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. It was horrific because of the history it showed. It is so many horrors stacked one atop the other that the mind becomes numb.
One of the things that stood out to me was a display of German uniforms on mannequins. The mannequins were slightly smaller so the uniforms fit loosely in order to not stress the uniforms.
But I remember looking at those uniforms and thinking “But they are so small. Not much bigger than children. How could people like that do so much evil? How could anybody be afraid of children?”
We exist in a place where the rule of law provides stability. We know we can call on the police to protect us from the violence that could easily surround us. We know we can protect ourselves within the limits of that same law.
I believe that what we are seeing today is the rule of law being torn asunder. And with that, the children, the little people that were kept in check, are free to roam our cities, towns and villages, forcing compliance.
Hitler became very wealthy as the leader of Germany. He became wealthy through the sale of his book. Every family in Germany owned a copy of his book. It was a way to signal virtue. To perhaps survive the arrival of the men in brown shirts, looking for a reason to break heads. And later to signal to the men in black uniforms and jackboots that they really were part of the in crowd.
We are seeing our police become unable to perform their duties. This has gone from police reform, perhaps doing away with qualified immunity and methods for removing bad individual police to an attack on the structures of society.
I remember when the Detroit Lions (Or the hockey, or the baseball team) one the “world series/super bowl/ice cream eating contest”. And they city burned. Today it burns in rage, tomorrow it will burn in happiness, and the day after it will burn because it was 5 o’clock someplace.
I hope and pray my country survives this election. I hope and pray that the uncivil war I see coming doesn’t.
The only hope is that people start looking at people on the other side of that great divide and see people, not monsters.