Raritan 911: Robocop

Carson

Sport Bacon
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Most mental health calls are people doing harm to themselves. Not a person with a gun threatening a neighborhood...those two calls are wildly different than what I was saying.

Two mental health workers responded (instead of police officers; newly defunded) to a man in crisis in Seattle. One of the MH workers was shot and killed by the man in crisis.

Now what? There is no easy answer and every call is different.
 

Carson

Sport Bacon
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Two mental health workers responded (instead of police officers; newly defunded) to a man in crisis in Seattle. One of the MH workers was shot and killed by the man in crisis.

Now what? There is no easy answer and every call is different.

In Hunterdon County, crisis workers respond only if LEO are on scene. If shit goes south, the crisis workers beat feet. They are also now wearing light duty body armor.
 

Carson

Sport Bacon
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Definitely agree they need more training. My brother in law who's a lt agrees with that fully. As it stands it's minimal training at best.

I still stand by they don't need to be called to every situation they're currently drawn to.

I agree completely. It was YEARS before I really felt like I had a good grasp of the job and understood how to talk to people and when the gloves needed to come off.
 

mtn

Well-Known Member
Not to mention the fact that until there are emergency personnel on scene, there is very little, if any correct info about what is actually going on. I've had multiple issues from the fire service side of things and the most notable one was when I was dispatched to a pedestrian struck call in a community. 20yr old me gets on scene and determines that there is was no person hit by a car, but there were a group of not friendly dogs running around from the one house and neighbors yelling. And the "patient" who apparently banged on the hood of the neighbors car in apparent rage was now on her deck making borderline verbal threats. The rest of the fire dept arrives. She then began throwing items like forks and chairs in our vicinity. And then we waited for about seven troop cars to show up and handed it over. You just never know and police are rightfully dispatched to most things. You know how many officers are killed responding to domestic disturbances? What would a counselor be able to do and what counselor would actually go in there knowing about the hazards?
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
One failure is the lack of coverage of all the wins.

Officer talks the person off the edge of death.
Officer saves someone because they are the first on the scene
Officer disarms someone without further incident.

I don't know what info they receive before arriving - previous contacts?
records? violent history? local knowledge probably dominates, but in a bit city.....

even with that info, who in the periphery wants to take a shot a a cop?
unreal what we ask them to walk into.
 

johnbryanpeters

Well-Known Member
I hate to dig in, but policing needs to be reinvented/reengineered.

There are departments that are better and worse. Some, e.g. the Massachusetts State Police, are deeply corrupt.

Police culture tends to insularity. This was made worse across the board by events in September of 2001. Police buildings don't need to be fortresses, and if one walks in, one should meet a person, not cameras and microphones. Automatic weapons, body armor, and armored vehicles are inappropriate.

Training wants revising. In the rare event that shooting might be justified, multiple rounds directed at center of mass should not be the norm. Racism's built into our culture and training should address and counter that.

High speed pursuits should just stop.

Officers should spend more time on foot interacting with ordinary folk.

Etc., etc. I could turn this into a thesis, but it'd be boring to most. I have had a lot of friends over the years who had chosen to be officers. Much of what they did was good, an lot of what they were required to do was just stupid. The insulated culture became evident to me over many years and many interactions.

All institutions petrify over time and require reinvention or to be discarded.
 

serviceguy

Well-Known Member
You hope that the dispatch can make a decision which is appropriate. Not every situation requires an officer like not every situation requires the fire department. That's where progress gets made.
And what information is the dispatcher given that would grant a fully informed and 100% spot on decision on who to send on the scene? The reality is that a police officer is often called to a situation that can be totally different that what was described to the dispatcher or simply escalated since the call was made. What about training the general public and the perps in how to interact with a police officer and with others in general in order not to create life or death situations to begin with? I’m not saying there are not errors and blatant abuses made by police officers, but it seems to me that most judgement on police operations and expectation of what the evolution of a crisis involving the police should be has become more and more uninformed and unrealistic on the part of the general public, as wisely advices by leaders and media (shoot ‘em in the leg).
 

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
And what information is the dispatcher given that would grant a fully informed and 100% spot on decision on who to send on the scene? The reality is that a police officer is often called to a situation that can be totally different that what was described to the dispatcher or simply escalated since the call was made. What about training the general public and the perps in how to interact with a police officer and with others in general in order not to create life or death situations to begin with? I’m not saying there are not errors and blatant abuses made by police officers, but it seems to me that most judgement on police operations and expectation of what the evolution of a crisis involving the police should be has become more and more uninformed and unrealistic on the part of the general public, as wisely advices by leaders and media (shoot ‘em in the leg).

Two mental health workers responded (instead of police officers; newly defunded) to a man in crisis in Seattle. One of the MH workers was shot and killed by the man in crisis.

Now what? There is no easy answer and every call is different.

I'm not advocating that every situation involving a dangerous mental ill person should default to mental health workers. Not every situation needs a person with a gun. When in doubt, send the cops (with better training for situations like those).
 

Carson

Sport Bacon
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I hate to dig in, but policing needs to be reinvented/reengineered.

There are departments that are better and worse. Some, e.g. the Massachusetts State Police, are deeply corrupt.

Police culture tends to insularity. This was made worse across the board by events in September of 2001. Police buildings don't need to be fortresses, and if one walks in, one should meet a person, not cameras and microphones. Automatic weapons, body armor, and armored vehicles are inappropriate.

Training wants revising. In the rare event that shooting might be justified, multiple rounds directed at center of mass should not be the norm. Racism's built into our culture and training should address and counter that.

High speed pursuits should just stop.

Officers should spend more time on foot interacting with ordinary folk.

Etc., etc. I could turn this into a thesis, but it'd be boring to most. I have had a lot of friends over the years who had chosen to be officers. Much of what they did was good, an lot of what they were required to do was just stupid. The insulated culture became evident to me over many years and many interactions.

All institutions petrify over time and require reinvention or to be discarded.

On paper, I agree with almost all you stated. Real world application is so much more difficult. I'm really not looking to debate anything with you, but I will say that anytme the press or a professor is put into a life-and-death scenario, their theory on things changes a bit.

See here:

 

Carson

Sport Bacon
Team MTBNJ Halter's
One failure is the lack of coverage of all the wins.

Officer talks the person off the edge of death.
Officer saves someone because they are the first on the scene
Officer disarms someone without further incident.

I don't know what info they receive before arriving - previous contacts?
records? violent history? local knowledge probably dominates, but in a bit city.....

even with that info, who in the periphery wants to take a shot a a cop?
unreal what we ask them to walk into.

Agreed.

We had a suicidal male who was hallucinating get up on a 2.5 story steeply pitched condo building (actually @Robin's development) on a 90 degree day. I was the OIC as patrol sergeant. After an hour of talking to him out a window (one of our Millennial officers), I learn that mom delayed calling as we (Raritan Township PD) had used force the last time her son went off his meds, so in actuality he's already been up on this roof for 4 hours. He's clearly unstable (both mentally and physically) and dehydrated.

I call for Crisis Intervention, the mobile outreach behavioral health agency in Hunterdon County. I shit you not, the dude shows up, talks to him out the window for 10 minutes, and tells me, "hey, he won't come down...there's nothing I can do." Well FML.

I call FD who sets up a ladder truck to access the roof. I make the decision to NOT walk onto the roof as it could mean a tussle and an officer AND the BH patient end up rolling off the roof. I make the call to wait him out, knowing he could trip and fall off the roof anyway. We maintain contact and give him some food and water.

All while Mom is still barking at me about "you all better not beat up my boy".

5 hours on scene, and he finally came down on the ladder truck safely and he was transported to hospital for evaluation.

I earned my pay that day. No good decisions to make. It worked out but could have easily gone badly and ended up on the news.

OH, and he gets to the hospital and the dude had a horseshoe tied to his penis. I have no explanation for this. But you want me to reason with people like this? LOL, I try but it's kinda hard sometimes.

And I did write up the officers on scene (2) who interacted with the BH patient for commendations. Which kills me because they don't take the K-cups out of the machine at the station but can stand on a ladder truck for 5 hours being heros.
 
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serviceguy

Well-Known Member
I'm not advocating that every situation involving a dangerous mental ill person should default to mental health workers. Not every situation needs a person with a gun. When in doubt, send the cops (with better training for situations like those).
Wouldn’t it be great to know in advance how’s a bad situation will end up!?! The wrong decision in this cases can cost lives, are willing to take that chance with your own life?
 

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
Wouldn’t it be great to know in advance how’s a bad situation will end up!?! The wrong decision in this cases can cost lives, are willing to take that chance with your own life?

Same could be said for sending in an untrained cop with a gun who escalates a situation that didn't require that much force.
 

johnbryanpeters

Well-Known Member
On paper, I agree with almost all you stated. Real world application is so much more difficult. I'm really not looking to debate anything with you, but I will say that anytme the press or a professor is put into a life-and-death scenario, their theory on things changes a bit.

See here:


Yeah, If we were ever to meet, I'd love to discuss this sort of thing because it is of interest to me. Discussion in forums tends to become, let us say, loopy.
 
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