Dealing with crisis in an institutional setting is totally different. The subject has been searched, they are not armed, and there are secure doors to retreat to and isolate the subject. As well as orderlies and co workers for back up. On the street at 4 am? Or in the subject home? Mix in relatives, the subjects dog, possible weapons, traffic driving by... it gets a wee bit more complicated.
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@GlenE.Meyer, my son has a Psychology undergarad and is doing his PHD now... seeing him graduate a few years back it was 75-80% females in the Psych program... He has ZERO desire to do cop stuff or crisis response. He is a lab rat, studying lab rats in the Neural Biology program.
“A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.” - Shane
The people who can have a foot in both worlds are in extremely short supply. You'll mostly find them in institutional settings, where they learn to build relationships with patients, earn trust, but still have to handle any situation that comes up, at least until backup arrives. It will be different on the street, where there are a lot more variables. Also, at least in my state, only police officers can do psych holds. That means if a non-LEO team shows up, and the patient denies service, there is nothing more they can do. Even if the client agrees to go to the hospital, the system there is broken too. I've had people taken to the hospital after repeatedly self-harming and assaulting staff, then get discharged from the ER after an hour, 45 minutes of which was spent waiting on paperwork. The criteria to compel someone to receive mental health services is very narrow, especially outside of the criminal justice system. No matter how good the crisis team is, if there is not follow up then they are probably just delaying the inevitable.
100% agree.
I once heard some nurse say something like "We interact with the mentally ill all the time and never kill anyone."
My response is was something along the lines of "Yeah, but they're searched for weapons, there's a building full of medical experts, burly security guards, and you have a room full of drugs that you can give. And even then, you almost made it happen that one time the intensivist had to intubate your patient after you snowed him like a Minneapolis January, so don't get too high on that horse Dawn/Linda/Cheryl."
(Those are the three most common nurses names in my experience)
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I can see where it would have worked on a friend's brother who had some sort of breakdown, but it worked out with just the two cops who responded. For the full on, batshit crazy, it won't work, but if the subject stabs a social worker first, the OIS is good.
The main issues I can see after some thought are that unless there is a useful mental health system available post-response, it's all just another waste of time. The problem on the LE-FD side is how officers and medics are assigned. I can tell you, in the city I worked in, in either department, it would have been a punishment detail or a place to dump some dead wood.
I also suggest red Star Trek shirts as the uniform for the mental health people.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
In my thirty years as an Leo I cannot count the number of times we received a call from EMS or FD that they were not going into an area or call until the police got there.
Tell me about the rabbits George. Of Mice and Men
I'm sure there will still be a lot of that even if this program works.
Nobody's claiming that this type of program eliminates every need for a police response. If a police response is not the default option for a behavioral issue, it's still going to be an option.
If the folks involved know the area and know the population, they'll have a good idea of which "frequent fliers" are likely to be a problem. If they're street-smart they'll have a good sense of when something isn't right and it's time to back out and call the troops.