Police should not be involved in mental health incidents, Australian report says - eviltoast

Presence of officers can increase distress, according to a study in which people with lived experience suggest they could be talked down

  • nevernevermore@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    After police failed to talk him out of the booth, they set police dogs on him and swung batons at him from either side of the booth, leaving him with lacerations on his forehead and hand, as well as dog bites on his leg.

    How can you call that the “role of protector”? Who was being protected? I’ll concede that i’m sure it’s difficult to identify people who are having mental health episodes and those who deserve to be attacked by dogs—hang on, nobody deserves that. I’d imagine it’s much easier for a trained mental health professional to identify a situation that needs intervention, instead of people whose first instinct is to bludgeon. Imagine feeling scared and isolated, and the first responders response is to beat you. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m unfairly lashing out at you, but I’m struggling to grapple with the fact that you can read that article and go “I hope sufferers can understand that”.

    • O_i@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I live in Canada and there’s definitely been talks of social workers filling that roll (I feel I should mention - most likely highly trained) or being accompanied by police for protection and general crowd control if needed. Cops are thugs, we should be sending them after fellow thugs, that’s the most I’ll move out of my ACAB stance