General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "If you dress like that and you get raped and I'm on the jury, he's gonna go free." [View all]Mental health staff in hospital psych units work with acting out dangerous people all the time
and we don't need to kill them to get them under control. We have training on how to take down
out of control patients without hurting them. Get them in restraints and then sedate them if need be.
One of my family members works in a psych emergency dept of a hospital and is only 4ft 10 in tall.
With some help, she can take down a very big patient out of control who is threatening and dangerous.
I think if she can do it, police officers could too.
I did a bit of working with the police on domestic calls, it was not always a safe situation.
I worked for a county mental health clinic and was the liaison to the police and fire depts and courts.
This was 40 years ago and there were not so many guns back then but it could still be dangerous
when families are fighting. And once when I was riding with a police officer doing night patrol,
we happened to come across an armed robbery in progress, we were right at the scene by chance.
The officer I was riding with was a petite female, first female officer to be hired by the city.
And none of the males in her city dept would come to back her up just out of spite.
Thank god she was married to a man in the sheriff's county dept and help did come eventually from them.
But she apprehended the criminals by herself. My life flashed in front of my eyes during this situation.
I think if a mental health person is going to ride around with officers on patrol and going to domestics
they needs some police training as well in case the situation escalates.
Another option is for the police to learn how to identify mentally ill people and how to handle them
safely.