Unarmed mental health experts to
join cops on District 911 calls
Washington Times,
by
Emily Zantow
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
5/23/2021 11:33:09 AM
Police departments in the Washington area are turning to mental health experts to help handle certain emergencies as they grapple with the role of law enforcement in the post-George Floyd era. Unarmed teams of behavioral health experts in the District soon will be dispatched to certain 911 calls instead of police under a new pilot program. “The sooner we can identify what a person needs—whether that is an ambulance, a doctor’s appointment, or in this case, a visit from a behavioral health expert, the sooner we can help them,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement this week. Baltimore is taking a similar step
Reply 1 - Posted by:
anniebc 5/23/2021 11:44:45 AM (No. 794375)
They are actually going to pilot this foolishness for the problems they themselves have created. One way to tell if your nation is under God's judgment is the increase in foolish and idiotic thinking. God causes them to believe strong delusions and lies. These idiots have to power to push their delusions and lies; therein lies the bulk of the national problem. Utter fools they are.
15 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
sunshinehorses 5/23/2021 11:46:11 AM (No. 794377)
That's going end well. /sarcasm off
23 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Jerseyden 5/23/2021 11:49:31 AM (No. 794380)
Wonder how long it will take before one of these unarmed social workers is attacked and the police will be blamed for not being there.
33 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Stencil 5/23/2021 11:51:06 AM (No. 794385)
. . . post-George Floyd era. Similar, one supposes to Anno Domini? Surprised they haven’t had him roll away a stone.
14 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
PChristopher 5/23/2021 11:54:19 AM (No. 794390)
This is why the governing of DC should be returned to a committee of commissioners and all Ferals removed from the equation
10 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 5/23/2021 11:58:52 AM (No. 794394)
We used to keep the mentally ill in mental hospitals, not leave them funning loose on the rest of society.
14 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
jalo1951 5/23/2021 12:08:11 PM (No. 794407)
I assume this is going to get ugly very quickly with a hot summer a head of us. If they think "happy talk" from a social worker with a mentally ill person (who might be high on drugs or booze, or both) is going to talk the nut job into putting his weapon down they are mistaken. Or the drug deal gone wrong, or the habitual abuser. Do you really think they care who they shoot?
20 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Toby Ten Bears 5/23/2021 12:10:12 PM (No. 794411)
I'll wait for the official body count.
16 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Italiano 5/23/2021 12:13:02 PM (No. 794419)
Put the "mental health experts" out front and let them go in first. Clear the minefield, so to speak.
31 people like this.
I guess you could look at it this way: If a cop is forbidden to shoot someone lunging at him with a knife, better he step aside and let the guy stab the mental health expert.
I don’t call this smart public policy, but it’s what the experts want, so OK.
16 people like this.
Give it a try - it may work in a few cases but I suspect it will do more harm than good.You have to realize that when you call the police on a distressed family member you exposing them to the risk of death. It’s a call you may regret As much as I support the police they will not hesitate to shoot.
9 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Illinois Mom 5/23/2021 12:33:58 PM (No. 794441)
Our son-in-law is a 140 pound mental health expert. He's a wonderful guy but can't change a light bulb. I cannot believe that, if he were to, in the heat of the moment, respond to a crime in progress or a bad domestic situation that it would have a good outcome.
He's great for after the fact counseling.
13 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Venturer 5/23/2021 12:40:50 PM (No. 794446)
So they send a mental health worker to an Ambulance call, and the health worker calls the Ambulance and when it gets there the health care worker is not only in the way but will be pimping on the ambulance crew,
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
SALady 5/23/2021 12:45:39 PM (No. 794450)
Lie-berals just don't have enough working brain cells to make decisions based on logic, reason, or facts. They base all decisions on the one thing they do understand: Feelings!!!!
And when the results of their decisions are disastrous -- as they always are -- they honestly cannot comprehend why their feelings-based decisions simply did not work in the real world!!! See the "defund the police" disaster in all these Demon-Rat run cities for the latest example of these feelings-based decisions ending in the very disastrous outcome that people who looked at the decision with logic, reason, and facts (in other words "conservatives") warned them would happen.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
AlpineLace 5/23/2021 12:51:39 PM (No. 794458)
What happens when the first one is either shot by the person of need or taken hostage by the person of need?
12 people like this.
Wait! I have a better idea. Instead of health care workers, send lawyers carrying writs of don't do dat.
15 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Delilah 5/23/2021 1:29:31 PM (No. 794494)
I cannot imagine any social worker dumb enough to take a job that has them confronting furious criminals. My sister was a child psychologist and she refused to treat kids who might get violent. Instead she referred them to a man who was trained and big enough to handle bad kids.
5 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Luke21 5/23/2021 1:32:28 PM (No. 794497)
Many places already do this. I used to be a crisis counselor and if a guy was suicidal, the police would assess the lethality of a situation and we would interview the disturbed fellow to see if he needed psychiatric placement or could stay on his own or with someone. The police could leave when they were ready to. Many of the police officers are amazing at handling psyche situations. I don't know what this DC situation is about, because they are nuts, but BHP's have accompanied police in my community and it's no big deal. The thing is to give officers discretion to use them, so they can attend to other calls.
3 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 5/23/2021 1:55:25 PM (No. 794516)
What can go wrong? Anything and everything. Its mindboggling.
4 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
DVC 5/23/2021 2:16:54 PM (No. 794532)
Some percentage of police calls are for mentally deranged people, I get that. I have no solid stats, but I'll guess that it's 10% (use your own guesses, probably won't change my point). OK, so some of these 10% will be uncontrollably vicious and violent people who are armed with deadly weapons. Some might be people who aren't armed, and may be mostly a danger to themselves. The thing that people are missing, it would seem, is that if a person isn't dangerous, nobody is going to call the police. So the number of "nonviolent psychotic cases" that will get a 911 call is going to be VERY small.
Very few of the mentally ill where police are called will not be some form of incipient violence, or actual violence already committed. So, perhaps up to 1/3 of that 10% of police calls can benefit from having a 'mental health expert'. That means this MIGHT impact 3% of police calls. Your estimates may be higher, so maybe you might guess that it's 6%. Whatever....a TINY fraction.
OK, no problem with that...but expecting great changes from something like this is foolish. It will be, AT BEST, a bit of embroidery around the edges. And my bet is that most police officers already know enough about dealing with nutcases that of that 3%, very little will be done differently than is already being done.
5 people like this.
Experts? Who are they kidding? They will be sending mental health WORKERS into the field. Any true experts in their fields are not going to be answering 2:00 am calls. True experts in their fields really don't do front-line field work -- if they are experts, they've already put in their time and paid their dues long ago and are usually training newbies or in management or writing books. And if they are truly experts, they will not work for the wages these mental health workers will be offered.
1 person likes this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
hershey 5/23/2021 3:14:06 PM (No. 794562)
Oh yeah, that's gonna work really well...until one of them gets killed...
4 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 5/23/2021 3:23:09 PM (No. 794571)
I've found most mental health professionals to be only slightly above useless.
7 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
PESSIMIST 5/23/2021 3:59:46 PM (No. 794599)
All joking aside, this thing is incredibly dangerous to the cops. I confidently predict that some ardent progressive female social worker will wind up attempting to thwart the cop she's assigned to escort when he starts to make an arrest. Then you'll have a really charged "incident."
I wonder what the protocol is. Who's in charge of the team?
A nightmare for cops.
5 people like this.
I can see it now, mental health expert walks into the house and see's a woman all beat up and the husband standing over her with a gun and they say "take 2 valium and call me in the morning"
2 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
smokincol 5/23/2021 4:52:16 PM (No. 794635)
this should be interesting. wonder which one will collapse first when the true reality of life hits them right between their PH&D
1 person likes this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Strike3 5/23/2021 5:21:51 PM (No. 794657)
Good afternoon, sir. Can you tell me how holding that gun in your hand makes you feel? No, not in this direction, I was more comfortable looking at it from another angle. What would your mother think about what you are doing?
2 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Faithfully 5/23/2021 6:01:20 PM (No. 794684)
The fat assed over payed managers send recent graduates out to do the dirty work. I know this from experience. These kids will not stand a chance. This is not unlike sending kids to Africa for the Peace Corp. Managers stay safe at home and get all the accolades and money.
0 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Heraclitus 5/23/2021 6:37:19 PM (No. 794710)
Will they be paid "volunteers" or will they be sent on these missions whether they have chosen to go or not?
0 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
privateer 5/23/2021 6:57:02 PM (No. 794729)
I did find one---unintentional, I'm sure---grain of truth in all this. FTA: 'Unarmed teams of behavioral health experts in the District soon will be dispatched'. And then you won't find any willing to take this type of assignment.
2 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
Old Army Vet 5/24/2021 9:05:12 AM (No. 795153)
There are some social workers that are going to get killed.
0 people like this.
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Behold, the answer to the problem of how to necessarily skyrocket the cost and slow the response time of emergency calls (assuming they're not going to have psychiatrists riding around in squad cars). Psychologists associations probably push these programs behind the scenes; business must be down with general practitioners dispensing antidepressants like Pez and the mental hospitals shut down per leftist demands that crazy people should roam the streets.