Parents called for mental health help. Police arrived and fatally shot their son.

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 771 points – Parents called for mental health help. Police arrived and fatally shot their son.
nbcnews.com

Less than 10 seconds after officers opened the door, police shot Yong Yang in his parents’ Koreatown home while he was holding a knife during a bipolar episode.

Parents in Los Angeles’ Koreatown called for mental health help in the middle of their son’s bipolar episode this month. Clinical personnel showed up — and so did police shortly after. 

Police fatally shot Yong Yang, 40, who had a knife in his hand, less than 10 seconds after officers opened the door to his parents’ apartment where he had locked himself in, newly released bodycam video shows.

Now the parents of Yang, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder around 15 years ago, have told NBC News exclusively that they are disputing part of the account captured on bodycam, in which police recount a clinician’s saying Yang was violent before the shooting on May 2.

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Got a problem?

Call the cops.

Now you've got two problems!

Just to be clear, the family didn’t call the police. The mobile response team did, which is typically done when there’s a weapon.

Ok, that's fine. We'd need more details about what actually transpired and what the support team told the cops.

But it sure seems like in a situation where the support team calls them, it should be with the understanding that they're there for backup, not to barge in and fire.

But looking at the report, that's what happened.

Also:

On May 2, 2024, at 10:58 a.m., Olympic Division uniformed officers responded to a radio call at an apartment in the 400 block of South Gramercy Place to assist the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) who were attempting to place an individual, later identified as 40-year-old Yong Yang into custody.

Why was the Department of Mental Health "attempting to place him into custody"? They were trying to detain him and take him from the premises, under the law...which sounds an awful lot like an arrest with a different set of paperwork.

So basically these were just cops without guns...who went ahead and called the cops with the guns anyway.

I said it another comment but where was the emergency here? Why did they need to get him into custody immediately? He could not hurt anyone but themselves locked in an apartment alone. He was showing aggression when people tried to enter, but could not hurt them if they stayed out.

Why did they enter and give him someone to hurt? Seeing as how all that was going to do was give them justification to hurt him.

The police also tried to calm him down by whining about how “hard” their job is and tried to bitch about him “making a scene”. They really have zero empathy and probably aren’t even capable of understanding how the entire outcome was their fault. The definition of “why did you make me abuse you?”.

1: They want to hurt themselves or others.

2: They said how they'll do it.

3: They said they'll be doing it NOW or at a definitive time.

If these 3 things aren't answered with any definitive answers, they'll leave you alone.

You can say who you'll kill, you can say how, but if you don't say you plan to do it NOW or on May 23rd, you're going to stay at home unless you have insurance and plan to go somewhere voluntarily.

=

Use this life hack to never have to deal with police and kill yourself if you want to as long as you've exhausted all real options. Pro-Choice all the way. Ain't nobody but you gets a say on whether you want to live or not.

Set time? Set how? No person? No 51.15.

Don't know when? Set how. Set kys. No 51.15

Say it's tomorrow? Don't know how. Say you'll kys. Maybe 51.15, just don't convince them differently.

E: Forgot the obvious. Don't threaten anyone while you have a weapon in your possession. No, the police can no longer leave you alone. They are not allowed to just let you kill yourself without being sued into oblivion. Yes, if you threaten them with a weapon at close distance, they will kill you. No, it doesn't matter if you're mentally unwell, don't threaten people with lethal weapons. Being unwell doesn't give you carte blanche to PHYSICALLY threaten and/or hurt people.

I'm telling you, cops work. Anytime I had a problem and I called the cops, boom! Right away, I had a different problem.

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I honestly don't know what the hell you're supposed to do in America if a loved one has a psychotic episode and threatens you, because calling the cops for help could be a death sentence for them, but not getting help could be a death sentence for you. Maybe make some sort of plan with neighbors in case something happens? But then you get the neighbors all worried that they're living next to someone who could get dangerously psychotic. I'm not talking about what should be done if things were more ideal, I'm talking about what people with such loved ones should do if it happens today, May 22, 2024. Because it sounds like someone has a good chance of dying no matter what.

You just have to fucking deal with it yourself basically, our social safety net is a bad joke. If you're a minority, neurodivergent, queer, or anything else they decide they don't like, you have a much higher likelihood of literally being murdered by the people who are supposed to help and protect society.

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I have a family member who had a wellness check called in for her and the cops came in and immediately beat her ass. Don't let these fuckers into your house. Ever.

Never call a wellness check on someone if you aren't cool with them being killed.

Wellness checks are notorious for being lethal, it's absurd.

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It sounds like what it is, Flying. Not a tasty pill to swallow but these are the dues of the division modern society has allowed.

No more Village raising the children. No more respected elders, trusted craft people, or neighborly bonds.

For the illusion of connection and its subsequent gamification and for the enrichment of those who say what we want to hear, these are the dues to be paid.

We live and die alone, bemoaning a loss of bonds that could be mended at any time; let he who is lonely lay their cynicism down first.

No, I don't believe it's that easy (and recognize the risks of being first) but it probably is that simple. No clue how the message is amplified back through time in a manner that gets enough likes though.

Such an insightful comment. /Gen

Sometimes, others share their opinions and lived-in experience not to give you insight, but because to speak is to human. Sonder on that, whatever your generation.

I am aware the oldest writing is of a merchant swindling. I am aware of the atrocities respected elders have carried out against the Village children, all villages.

I am not here to insight you; use your own faculties for that.

I am aware the oldest writing is of a merchant swindling.

You are an arrogant fool. Blah blah blah. BTW the oldest written text is probably the Code of Ur-Nammu. It's not the Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir, as I assume you're comment referred to.

I was being genuine. That's what "/gen" means.

I am genuinely sorry I was genuinely a reactionary idiot earlier, but thank you for teaching me a new one!

We had to ride out a number of suicidal episodes and drug overdoses over COVID. I have PTSD from childhood abuse that flared up during the lockdown and PTSD from previous encounters with the police (I was tased and arrested during a welfare check about a decade ago).

Thankfully my gf is good at holding space but it was still very stressful for both of us. And there were a number of times I would have gone to the hospital if I had any faith in the system.

You've got to get really fucking friendly with the cops and you've just gotta hope. You want to take your child to the local precinct office and introduce them and their disability to officers in a calm setting and discuss how to deesclate situations... especially if you can talk clearly on certain trigger scenarios and double especially if your child can voice these things himself. Then you've got to hope they create a file on your child and hope they fucking remember this shit if your child goes off.

Written by the step parent to a child with bipolar disorder and autism - though we're in Canada things are extremely similar wrt policing culture up here.

You want to take your child to the local precinct office and introduce them and their disability to officers in a calm setting

This might work in a smaller town, but this family was in LA. I've never lived there, but I have lived in NYC and I doubt anyone in the precinct would care. They would just file some paperwork and move on to the next thing. There's probably less than a 50/50 shot that the paperwork would be communicated to any officer in a crisis. And back when I lived there in the stone age, that chance would have been zero.

Maybe if your precinct does community policing, it would be beneficial to introduce yourself to any officers you know are local, but that assignment can change on a whim.

Big cities are composed of smaller divisions covered by local precincts - there's still luck involved here but you're really misunderstanding how policing works.

they asked me and others to leave the house when i called (active suicidality and psychosis). i told them we would not, that i was sitting next to him on the floor and two minors were in their rooms nearby. i hoped they would be less likely to do something stupid when they knew there were three other people here and one actively witnessing and close to him.

i think it ensured they were more thoughtful entering my home, and he was calmer when they entered because i remained.

fortunately, i had calmed him enough and taken the weapon that this was even a possibility. i suspect it doesn't hurt that we're white.

Some places have mobile response teams for mental health issues. Florida has a few programs being piloted right now. They have direct numbers. So, the police are not necessarily involved in reported events.

And that's great, but mentally ill people are everywhere, not just in the places in Florida with pilot programs. There are many ideas with how to deal with this problem in the future. Meanwhile, cops are killing mentally ill people today.

I'm not disagreeing. My comment was solution focused. Some areas have teams set up to help. Not everyone knows about them or even to look for them. So, I was providing information that might lead people to look around for programs that might help.

I mean if you need help, you can always ask a neighbour for help. Would be useful if everyone had a mancatcher pole as well, as messed up as the implications of everyone in society having a mancatcher is.

I can't speak for anyone else, and I am not in this situation myself, thankfully, but I wouldn't know my neighbors well enough to ask them, sad as that is.

I'm in no better spot, but this is the crux of the problem, isn't it - too many of us don't have a strongly-enough bound local community to get assistance with stuff like this without involving the cops.

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We had this happen in my town a couple weeks ago. Cop got called for a mental health check because a 19year old with a knife was acting erratic. Cop pulls up and gets out the car, the kid runs at him yelling "shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me!" so the cop pulled out his gun and shot him. Didn't go for the tazer or the his mace, just right to deadly force despite being called over specifically to prevent the kid from dying.

Cops should neve, under any circumstances, be called in for a mental episode. All they will do is escalate the situation and cause harm.

The family didn't call the cops in this case. They called a mental health crisis team, and that team called the cops due to the presence of a weapon.

At the same time you can call social services and you end up with them being dead instead because someone having a psychotic episode slashed/shot them...

Edit: Thanks for the downvotes, you can now take the time to go two replies down for a bunch of examples

That sounds absurd. Please provide one example of that happening.

It's absurd to think that never happens. It's not absurd to think that doesn't happen as often as cops killing someone.

I never claimed it never happened. It's just not something I ever recall hearing of. I spent 20 years in the medical industry and a few of those in the mental health space. I've heard of a lot of violence on mental health professionals but the characterization that the people I replied to didn't fit with my understanding. I haven't made it through all the articles but I'm still not convinced it's a thing that happens enough to consider it anything but rare.

Please provide one example

Kind of implies that you think it never happens...

https://youthtoday.org/2023/02/murdered-on-the-job-a-year-after-a-child-welfare-investigator-was-killed-little-has-changed/

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/mobile/we-re-not-giving-up-friends-of-social-worker-killed-on-the-job-continue-calls-for-justice-1.4783551

https://people.com/teri-zenner-social-worker-murdered-widower-honors-memory-7557328

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/01/09/social-workers-field-safety-remains-concern-after-killing/

https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/b-c-ministry-of-children-and-family-development-worker-shot-to-death-in-prince-rupert

Yeah, social workers are never put in danger, right?

Cherry picking data does not a compelling argument make.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics in 2022 the total number of deaths for community and social services in the US was... 19. (That's on page 8, in case you want to check.)

I found a CBS article from 2017 that cited another BLS study which said that social workers were the 20th most dangerous job category in the US, with a fatality rate of 1 per 100,000 people. That's fewer deaths than architects and engineers, which was the 19th deadliest job.

On the other hand, American police have killed more than 1000 people every year for the past ten years. To put that another way, the police killed more people last year than social workers died of job-related causes in the past decade.

It's really funny that by almost every metric you can think of, policing in the US is systemically flawed and needs major oversight.

You should compare the number per 100k for the people killed by the police if you want to make a comparison that makes sense

1000 out of 330 000 000, that's 0.3 per 100k, looks like police officers are less deadly to the population than the population is to social workers!

Also very funny that you would accuse me of cherry picking data when only situations where officers kill people during mental health checks get reported on, right?

So you're trying to normalize your ass-pulled estimate of the entire population of the US to compare it to the normalized full-time equivalent workers (which obviously isn't the entire US population)? You can understand why using people who had no interactions with the police would be an inaccurate comparison, right?

My dude, until you get a better understanding of statistics I'm not going to engage with you further.

Ass pulled estimate of the US population... I mean, the number is easy to find my dude if you want to confirm it.

Not all social workers get in contact with people suffering a mental breakdown while armed either, how is that relevant to the situation then?

It doesn't happen because the social workers call the police, the paramedics call the police, the fire department calls the police...

The police are the catch all for emergency situations. "I don't know what's happening, send the police" is pretty standard practice.

There are some police departments with salaried social workers and "community specialist" officers that are employed explicitly to deal with issues like this. The problem is that a change to law enforcement in this direction must come directly from each individual community and must be supported by those in charge of the local department.

Cops should neve, under any circumstances, be called in for a mental episode

Yea I'm gonna have to disagree with you hard on this one. Just because you dislike police or have had bad experiences does not mean you should let someone having a crisis subject others around them to a very real possibility of imminent danger because "cops bad".

Do police need more training? Sure. Do they need major reform in many areas? Of course. But are they all bad? No.

The mere presence of a cop, even without a visible weapon, will escalate any situation regarding mentally unstable people. Period.

If you don't understand why a person going through a crisis would freak out when a figure of (ultimately violent) power appears right after they picked a weapon you have a serious problem with basic empathy.

For the record, I haven't had any bad experiences with cops, in fact every interaction I've had so far has been either neutral or actually pretty nice. I've had my fair share of breakdowns as a teenager tho, and I can assure you that a cop would've never helped a single time. Even the nicest one.

Look at the report for this case, for example:

The officers met with DMH personnel outside the residence who indicated that the DMH were called to the scene due to Yang’s erratic and threatening behavior. The officers were also advised that Yang did not live at the location, and had attempted to assault one of the DMH employees when they attempted to speak with him. Based on their assessment, DMH determined Yang was a danger to others.

In their efforts to assist DMH personnel, the officers requested additional units, a supervisor, and notified the Department’s Mental Evaluation Unit. Several attempts were made to communicate with Yang and encourage him to exit the residence; however, he refused. After formulating a plan and obtaining a key to the residence, the officers ascended a narrow staircase leading to the front door. The officers announced their presence and then utilized the key to open the front door. As they did so, Yang was observed standing in the living room several feet away, armed with a large kitchen knife. Moments later, Yang advanced toward the officers and an Officer Involved Shooting occurred.

Here's the singular question:

What was the rush?

They needed to take him in, but they are afraid of him acting erratic and wielding a knife.

Why the fuck do they push to enter the building? There was no one in there. He could not hurt anyone while he remained hold up inside other than himself.

Why couldn't they just wait him out?

By pushing to resolve the situation immediately and forcing their way in, they *exacerbated the situation.

I think they should have been called, but they should be there as backup in case someone is getting attacked. But no one was in danger here until they entered. There was no reason to push this. All they did was create a reason to kill him in self defense.

You missed the options of using "less lethal" force as well, why go for live ammo immediately?

Because when someone is rushing at you with a deadly weapon, you may only get one shot, and not all 'less lethal' options are effective, especially on someone in a mental health crisis.

I agree that the cops never should have entered the premises in the first place, but in this instance they did and the victim had already been a direct threat to others. This one instance really isn't a case of cops murdering an innocent person for absolutely no reason.

That really depends on how you look at it. They did murder an innocent person exactly because they made the wrong decision to engage in the first place. You can't put yourself in harms way when it isn't necessary then blame the danger you knew about in advance.

My opinion would be different if there was someone else in the apartment for them to defend, but there wasn't.

The cops made a bad call and now someone is dead.

One of my biggest complaints with police and why things escalate unnecessarily is because they are fucking impatient. They give "orders" and if you don't comply immediately you are met with force.

They are insecure, poorly educated bullies. Everything makes sense once you realize this about police in the US.

In my town having gone and served in Afghanistan basically allowed you to become a cop once you returned states side. No degree or special training needed.

TBF, I'd rather a soldier show up at my door than a cop. At least soldiers are usually better trained in discipline, situational awareness, and appropriately evaluating threats. They are also trained on rules of engagement and usually aren't terrified about every single engagement they find themselves in.

Maybe our police would be better if they received the same level of training as soldiers. And maybe that's it. Soldiers are more confident in their abilities because they've received adequate training.

Dude a soldier in this case is a 20 year old grunt that joined at 18. You're not getting 30 year old officers joining the cop force.

1 good cop isn't gonna stop the other 20 from shooting your family and pets.

Exactly how much training do you think someone needs to not unload a gun on someone within 10 seconds of seeing them? Somehow every other non-cop present managed to not use him for target practice.

The bastard in question is even a repeat offender:

Lopez had been involved in a 2021 nonfatal shooting of a man who had a replica firearm.

Cops are bastards because the non-bastards either get fired, harassed out, or murdered. Being nice to people while you turn a blind eye to the shit your coworkers do is still being a bastard.

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As someone who struggles with mental illness, but has been lucky enough to not need intervention or hospitalization in my life so far, this seems like another good time to say ACAB.

It's never a bad time to say ACAB. Occasionally, one does something decent, but even a serial killer might occasionally hold the door open for somebody at the post office or whatever.

Every time I see a positive police story, I suspect copaganda. They are class traitors, restricting our liberties in order to protect capital, and it's by design.

I've dealt with cops during bad mental health episodes. Honestly I've been extremely lucky - assuming ALL cops were bastards I'd 100% be dead right now.

ACAB

Please do not spread misinformation.

If you have a pit with a hundred snakes, and only two of them are aggressive and venomous, would you climb into that pit?

I sure as hell wouldn't

It doesn't matter if there are good cops, the few bad cops ruin all of them because it's a dice roll who you get.

If you have 100 doctors and 2 of them are incompetent would you never go to hospital? Trusting any unknown person is a dice roll.

Doctors are held to a higher degree than our police officers are, so yes. I'd take my chances with getting those two incompetent doctors.

Expecially since if I'm unhappy with my care, I can choose a different one.

Can I do that with a police officer?

No, no I cannot.

Even if something goes wrong with that doctor, if I'm still alive, I'll be able to take action against them, taking action against a police officer?

Goodluck.

They aren't literally saying anything about the marriage status of anyone's parents. More that cops are all offensive or disagreeable persons

Step 1) Find out the name of the cop who shot your son

Step 2) Call a mental health check on the cop

Bonus step) Call the cops over the previous cop's mental health

/s

Step 1) Find out the name of the cop who shot your son

Step 2) Become a cop

Step 3) ???

Step 4) Enjoy a paid vacation

I feel like I'm reading this same story once a month. There are so many people that need help and then the police show up and murder them. All the time.

That's not entirely true.

Sometimes they just shoot the family dog(s) for barking and go back to work like nothing happened.

There are countless stories of people cradling their dogs as they bleed out from bullet wounds weeping as the cops write up a ticket or something. Just constantly, all the time, and for some reason we don't DO anything about it. Like, as a group, we could end this nightmare tomorrow if we could all cooperate for one goddamn day without horrible shitty people trying to politicize and subvert every community action we try to do to make the world a little better.

So damn true on all points. And yeah we could do so much if we could organize but trying to get Americans off their ass just once to stand up for something is damn near impossible. I wish I was in France. Those mofo's start a riot the moment the government does anything even remotely stupid.

This is one of my biggest (hopefully irrational) fears. My dog is not violent but she is reactive, there's no way she wouldn't be shot dead if police ever had occasion to come into our house.

It sounds like the family did the right thing. They did NOT call the police, they contacted LA’s mental health team, who sent a mobile response unit.

The issue with mobile crisis teams (which most cities have by now) is that they won’t do anything if there’s a weapon besides call the police. That’s where things went south.

There needs to be more collaboration between mental health response teams and police to prevent this sort of thing. Also, wtf is the point of carrying a taser if you pull out your gun on a dude who is barely moving and holding a knife? Probably didn’t even need to be tased.

No repercussions, so they shoot to kill

Less chance of liability. A lawyer friend of my parents said to never use a taser or pepper spray for self defense at a home. Just use a gun and empty it into center mass, anything else increases a chance of a lawsuit. Trying to shoot to injur vastly increases your chance of losing a suit, because they can argue if you had the time to do that you didn't really think you were in danger.

Don't call police unless you want someone to die.

Google called police on their own employees. I keep saying this.

When? And why?

It was during a quiet sit-in in protest of Google abetting genocide. They also fired everyone in the area, even people who weren't directly involved.

More deets

"Don't be evil" was a canary clause. There's a reason it doesn't appear in any of their documents anymore.

It does, akshually.

They removed it from the preface of the Code of Conduct to being a footnote in that document no one will read.

Police should NOT be involved in the mental health process.

Currently they are legally required.

They should, they just need to be competent.

I doubt medical personel would be too keen to go alone in situations like these.

I think the point is that we have appropriately trained crisis response professionals, and those people should not be law enforcement. Cops have their role, and it is enforcing the law. They are not not should they be tasked with becoming mental health professionals.

I don't want cops showing up when I really need an ambulance.

I thought this was a repost from a while ago, but USA gonna USA.

I do that all the time. I go "oh there's an update on this case, cool. Wait, these names aren't familiar. Am I remembering wrong?" one google later "no this is a second time, and I also found a third and fourth that didn't make their way to me."

Would be curious about stats on how many wellness calls end in the person being checked on dying.

Off the top of my head ~50 or less officers in the US die from violence every year if you exclude traffic fatalities. At least according to this (178 killed in 3 years) that means police are killing the people they're called to help at a higher rate. Would seem to point to a person calling the police for help is in more danger than the police are on any random call.

Can always trust the cops to show up and make everything infinitely worse.

Yup. The way I like to phrase it is "there's no problem that cops can't make worse."

Cops aren’t your friend. They aren’t there to help you or protect you. They are there to oppress you.

Very genuine question: why do cops never use taser guns for situations like this? Presumably they knew the weapon was a knife, so no risk of a shootout.

Honestly this is what infuriates me when 2nd amendment enthusiasts say "UK cops should carry guns" - fuck off mate, we de-escalate and use non-lethal way more effectively than your wanker cops who only have a hammer and everything is a nail.

Give your cops a toolkit instead of just a hammer and you'll see the difference.

You're responding to someone asking why they don't use their tasers. They have a toolkit. They choose to only use the hammer from it.

Yeah my comment wasn't intended to be critical of the person I was replying to - it was infact highlighting their point.

American cops don't tend to use tasers when the suspect is wielding a knife because it's seen as a lethal weapon, to which they have a lethal response for. Or as another responder replied - the training is the issue, US cops are hardly short of equipment.

The typical service worker has more training time before doing their job than a cop gets before getting a gun and a badge. That's the other side of the coin.

HEY! Civilian, stop talking about stuff you know nothing about!

In dangerous situations and non-whites (same thing , right) we need LETHAL FORCE to control the situation. If someone us murd...I mean, fatally shot, so be it.

Tasers are just for torture. It's fun but we can't be always playing! We're working here!

/s

"police recount a clinician’s saying Yang was violent before the shooting on May 2"

Yeah, they knew that surely.

They knew they were going into an environment where someone with diminished mental capacity had access to bladed weapons.

They likely knew he was actively wielding bladed weapons.

They had access to less than lethal methods of self defence, tasers, body armour, mace, tranquilizers, superior numbers, training in hand to hand combat, fucking nets etc.

They chose to use firearms in lieu of these and shot a mentally ill person to death unnecessarily.

Guns should be a last resort, not a first resort

American cops are such fucking pussies

Acab tho but especially American ones

They likely knew he was actively wielding bladed weapons.

I watched the full video. They were repeatedly told he didn't have any weapons. The clinician just said the man was violent and kicked him.

I have no idea why they didn't use less than lethal first, they talk about it but I don't know which officer was tasked with it. It seems like they didn't expect him to be armed when they entered.

If a blind man were to ask a police officer for help crossing the road, the cop would probably shoot all the drivers.

Who are you kidding? They would shoot the blind man because he would be approaching with a stick like weapon

Depends on how well the blind man is dressed and what color his skin is.

I keep seeing a video come across my feed where this actually happens. The guy has a folding cane in his back pocket and he's walking down the sidewalk. Cops roll up and start accusing him of carrying a weapon and that he can't be blind if he's not actively using his cane.

Edit: here's the video

https://youtu.be/SMmiMbJeJjw

I hope this guy gets a payday for his illegal detainment, arrest and for the officers refusal to identify. Florida taxpayers will have to pay for it since the police have no accountability but at least those tax dollars will go to getting some justice. Fuck these cops. ACAB.

do not call the police. many countries outside the united states understand this already

Uhm, in Germany it's completely normal for police to assist in situations of mental health and instead of shooting them they talk to them, or, as a last resort, restrain people and bring them back to a care facility, unharmed.

Police receive proper 3 year training and most of them even have a required university degree.

this is the way. there is a place for policing in society, and it should be composed of highly trained, educated professionals held to a high standard.

While the cops in Germany are a lot better trained and won't kill you or harm you, many are still on power trips and try to screw you over. Some abuse their authority especially towards teens and they try to fine you if you're an adult. Society needs that job, but man I rarely hear about good encounters with police. I feel like older people had a better experience with cops and younger people in Germany like the police a lot less, but I could be wrong.

You're definitely right, it's still a place where people with fantasies of power end up. It's not all just sunshine and the media might be biased but compared to some countries it's still a pretty high standard which should be the minimum in the US as well.

It's normal practice in the UK for police to aid the handling of mentally unstable people. The difference is that British police don't shoot people. Ever.

The US only has 911 for emergencies AFAIK, who else would you call? Of course, police is basically useless here as opposed to an ambulance, particularly in the US when they know little more than brute force, but IDK how much say you have in what service they dispatch.

We have separate numbers for each service other than the central Europe-wide 112, and they are free unless misuse happens. A boarding school roommate had a mental health breakdown so severe an ambulance was called, with actual trauma-trained doctors who provided basic psychiatric treatment (sedation pills and further care advice to dormkeepers). So an ambulance is helpful for mental health crises but I cannot imagine cops helping in any way in this case - they have restraint tools that might thwart violence or suicide attempts but this situation did not need them, and a doctor on the phone (which you get immediately) can help with everything else better than the police anyway.

Just fyi, 112 is normally a GSM standard emergency number and should work anywhere in the world on a GSM network. (In theory, so always worth a try in case of need)

A boarding school roommate had a mental health breakdown so severe an ambulance was called, with actual trauma-trained doctors who provided basic psychiatric treatment (sedation pills and further care advice to dormkeepers).

Holy shit. PTSD from suicide attempts is common, at least in the US they send in the fucking cops! You’re having the worst experience in your life, and the first thing you see is a condescending prick putting you in handcuffs. I’ve had teens I care deeply about subject themselves to this experience, and it makes things significantly worse. I feel like my life would have been improved by having that experience.

988 - the mental health hotline that is supposed to be the alternative to 911 - will call the cops too. There’s no winning.

Edit: I can suggest the Trans Lifeline, and suggest other people look to warm lines, to be a little less nihilistic. They will not involve emergency services without your consent. Unfortunately, hours/availability are limited for most.

Eh no?

Most counties outside the US have actual police forces which are there to serve and protect.

Your Euro-centric bias is showing.

Uh huh, and that is bad because? Because I know it can actually work well?

Maybe in Europe. SA, Africa, Asia, Indonesia probably not so much.

Everyone say it with me, FUCK THE POLICE!

Anyone that had lose someone to yhe police knows how hard it is to get "justice." Especially if they are sheriffs.

The less interactions with Police you have the better. Even if a family member is having a mental health episode, you're better off trying to figure out something yourself at this point. This same thing keeps happening where people call for help during a mental health crisis and Police kill them.

At this point we need to treat Police with rules similar to the handling of a firearm. Always assume they can go off, only ever point them at something you're willing to kill, and be aware of possible collateral damage.

There needs to be a way to call for help from unarmed specialists. 😖

There needs to be a restructuring of the entire law enforcement system so blood-thirsty cops aren't required to show up at all 911 calls with guns drawn.

There needs to be accounting and actual oversight from the community, their bosses who pay their checks to ensure they are held accountable and the actual number of times a cop murders a beloved family pet in front of the children, or murders the children, is actually tracked and recorded so we can see how bad the problem really is.

It's almost as if we should, collectively, as a society, stop over-funding violent, tight-knit groups who cover for each other and ostensibly "uphold the public trust."

I will say, I work ambulance for a very right wing rural community. I have done this for a number of years now.

While I do have issues at times with our local LEO, they do a good job with not shooting my patients, or their dogs.

They have done a good job in my community with securing the scene without escalating and then standing back and let us deal with medical/mental health crisis.

These stories do happen to often, and there are policy changes that need to happen, but there are a significant number of communities that have law enforcement who are acting appropriately and therefore get no news coverage.

The problem is not with the police organizations who are doing everything right, the problem is that much of the time we wouldn't know if they are doing things wrong, because they cover for each other, because they are not incentivised to uphold their own standards, and run without enough supervision from local and federal bodies.

I'm sure there are millions of great police teams working in good communities out there. I think most people know that as well. We're not calling for the good cops to be run out of town, we're calling for the good cops to hold each other accountable.

The number of good cops doesn't balance the equation here. If a major auto manufacturer announced that 2% of it's millions of cars on the road had a fault where they may suddenly and spontaneously run off the road and seek out run over pets and dark skinned youths, but it's okay because the rest of the 98% of the cars are just fine, well the public would be outraged and rightfully so. We don't accept "some bad apples" in a lot of industries like doctors and pilots, so why are we accepting bad apples in police, the one organization that holds our society to account to follow laws and who're we're supposed to turn to in times of need?

It's such a nuanced issue and comments like this are just dumb.

If criticism of our current law enforcement organization makes you feel this frustrated, you probably are not one of the people who have the most to worry about from police.

I'm definitely not and make no claims to be. But I'm not talking about criticism of law enforcement, that doesn't frustrate me. I'm talking about no large scale societal problem is so easy to solve like I see posted here frequently relating to the police, government, climate change etc.

But unless you say 'hurr durr, acab' you're a boot licking cunt.

It's not the JOB of casual internet browsers to have all the answers, but it IS the job of the people we pay with our taxes to fix the problems with the systems we hired them to manage.

To say that normal, uneducated people on the internet have no voice unless they understand all the nuance and technical details of an issue, or that people who raise complaints against a system need to formulate an actionable and realistic plan? When you say that you are saying that you just don't like the issue, that you don't want to see people complaining and you don't care about the issue because it doesn't effect you.

If someone shoots me in the stomach, I will plead for help from medical personnel to fix the holes in my body, I may even have some suggestions like "Also, you will need to remove the bullet if possible, and maybe a round of antibiotics after!"

If the doctor rolls his eyes and says "Why do people think this is so simple to solve?" I will fucking go to different ER.

Instead of looking at the people who complain with disdain and impatience, ask why the problems of others are so ill-informed and see if you can figure out a way to help people foment better arguments. Otherwise you're basically shining the boots for licking.

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in the civilized world, there is. You call the police for an event like this, and they send their psych staff over with support. The issue where I am is that they work normal hours, so late night/weekends you'll get the support team only (who are still not regular, untrained cops).

There sort of is now but most people don't know about it yet. Instead of 911, dial 988. I don't think 988 sends people to you, but they are trained mental health specialists who can talk instead of shout and threaten violence.

Read more here: https://988lifeline.org/

Not likely helpful in a situation like this, but a truly helpful resource in other ways. Thanks!

TIL

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This keeps happening and it is infuriating. It's also scary for people with SMI/SEMI (severe and enduring mental illnesses) such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as if the fear of the illness itself wasn't enough.

Tale as old as time.