Re:Zero arrests in 6 months of health care professionals rep...
by bluGill on Friday February 05, 2021 @09:59AM
(#26036970)
Because there are a lot of cops, and they are on-call at all hours, they need training in all emergency situations.
That means they need to know enough first aid to deal with a heart attack until the EMTs get there. Likewise they should have enough psychology training to deal with the mentally ill until the experts can take over.
Re:Zero arrests in 6 months of health care professionals rep...
by pessimizer on Friday February 05, 2021 @05:34PM
(#26042081)
This is not reasonable. Everybody should know enough first aid to deal with a heart attack until EMTs get there. It's not that hard, the course only takes a couple of long days. Dealing with every variety of mental illness is orders of magnitude harder. Social workers have master's degrees, not a certificate from a 2-day course.
Just let cops figure out how to do their regular jobs right, rather than making them the first responders to an embarrassingly terrible social safety net.
Re:Zero arrests in 6 months of health care professionals rep...
by bluGill on Friday February 05, 2021 @09:08PM
(#26043508)
We don't have a choice, cops will be first on the scene. If nothing else because until they arrive nobody even knows to call in someone else.
The police have more complete first aid kits than the average person, including such things as an AED. They also get a bit more than your standard firstly aid course.
Can you even say that with a straight face? Do you really think if these guys got sent to a robbery, they'd be all "the thief obviously needs Xanax!" instead of saying "This ain't one of ours, send a cop here please".
Cops have, for whatever reason, ended top being sent not just to criminal justice related incidents, but everything else as well, including mental health related incidents which they're manifestly untrained for and incapable of dealing with. But they "deal" in those situations anyway, in ways we're all tired of seeing from body cam footage and in the live crosses of news stories about police violence protests.
> One of these has a long history of strong checks and balances and improving itself over time
And yet "Some of those who work forces, are the same who burn crosses" is just as heavily quoted and relevant to 2021/01/06 as it was when it was written over 20 years ago... I do not agree with your claims about the relative track records of the two groups involved here.