Kelsey Grammer's daughter, man slashed outside Manhattan restaurant, by black man

[Ghost of a Rider]

We are still forced to accept the fact that the police are striking out when it comes to the mentally ill.

You said: "Or maybe society is striking out by stigmatizing mental illness and not getting them the care they need."

Is this the case or isn't it? Obviously you can argue for the sake of it but do you believe what you just typed?

Yes.

Is it the peoples fault when an arrest of a mentally challenged person goes left and he/she is killed?

Nope. But the question is: Would the encounter with police have gone south or even occurred in the first place if the mentally ill person had received proper care and attention?

You said: "It’s a noble idea but unrealistic. Cops never know when they’re going to encounter someone who is mentally ill and often the situation does not afford the time to wait for a mental health professional to show up before the person can harm or kill someone."

One again you're incorrectly stating that police don't have time. This is wrong. Indirectly you are still parroting the fallacy that every situation requires cat quick definite reactions or someone is going to die.

That's not what I said or even implied. You're misconstruing my words. What I said was that any situation could turn into a life threatening situation. Most of them will not turn into a life threatening situation but the point is, you never know which ones will and which ones will not. This is why every situation needs to be approached this way.

Let me expand on this using my vocation as an example. I am a merchant mariner by trade and hold a U.S. Coast Guard captain's license. The industry I work in is offshore oil and gas exploration, drilling and production. For seven years I worked in Brazil in the oil industry down there skippering a cargo vessel. For four of those years we operated out of a major shipping and fishing port and the facility we ran from was a few miles up a river.

Being a commercial fishing hub, there were numerous fish processing facilities along this river and we encountered fishing vessels going up and down the river all the time. These fishing vessels were not always as diligent about adhering to maritime rules of the road as we were and as a result, we had numerous near-collisions and one minor collision.

These fishermen proved themselves to be overall negligent and unpredictable. I was on my toes the entire hour and a half run up the river because we never knew what these idiots might do.
They might angle for a port-to-port passing and suddenly change course at the last minute to pass starboard to starboard or - as on one occasion - suddenly veer right across my bow for no apparent reason. This required me to make a drastic heading change and throw the engines into full reverse to keep from running the idiot over. The Brazilian pilot on board taking us up the river was furious and stepped out on the bridge wing and called the guy a dick in Portuguese.

The point is, most of these meetings were uneventful, but I never knew if or when one might go south. Because of this, for the safety of the vessel and crew and the safety of other mariners, I was compelled to view each and every encounter and meeting as a potential collision situation in the making.

I grew up with a really good guy in Miami who became a cop(so I can't hate people for being cops), in 20 years he's drawn his service weapon 3 times and never shot anyone. He had a regular detail. Of course he doesn't represent every cop but he's also not an anomaly.

Great. For his sake I hope he never comes under fire. But it could happen at any time.

You said: "Protecting the public and defending themselves is paramount, mental illness or no. So if someone is behaving irrationally and waving a weapon around, he must be stopped."

You are half right, defending themselves is paramount, I already told you that protecting the public is not their job.

You said: "What does it say on the side of almost every police cruiser in this country? "To Protect and Serve". If they are not there to protect the innocents from those who would do harm, what the fuck are they doing?"

"Subject to narrow exceptions[2], the United States Constitution does not require law enforcement officers to protect you from other people, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. This notion contradicts our engrained perceptions, but it’s still the law today."

The Police are Not Required to Protect You — Barnes Law

To Protect and to Serve” – the ubiquitous creed emblazoned across millions of police cars throughout Los Angeles and indeed the United States. This motto is consistent with the common belief that police officers as well as other law enforcement officers are here to protect us.

www.barneslawllp.com

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This information is easily available to anyone who wants facts.

When talking about protecting the public, I think you're misunderstanding where I'm coming from. I'm not saying the police have a duty to protect the public from any violence or threat that is not yet manifested. I'm saying that they have a duty to protect the public when it IS manifested. If officers encounter a situation where there is an active threat, they have a duty to neutralize that threat for the safety of the public.

The criticism and indictment of the Broward County sheriff and police officers in the Parkland shooting bears this out.

I do see where your thinking is flawed though. When I say mentally ill patients you're thinking "Garland Greene", not your mom. Was your mom dangerous? I had a mentally ill uncle whose only vice was that he'd wander off sometimes. He was always recovered without incident. I believe majority of cases are like this one. Perhaps you know differently?

Once again, you're citing numbers when that is not what I'm talking about.

Let me give a hypothetical. When driving I always wear my seatbelt. However, up until a few years ago, I had never been in an accident or even a fender bender. Theoretically, I could have gone all those years driving without a seatbelt, never having an accident and would never have gotten hurt.

If you had driven for thirty years without a seatbelt and never getting hurt and then one day you have an accident. You've been thrown around the inside of the car and sustained serious injuries and could even have died. Would you or would you not start wearing a seatbelt from that day forward?

Most people go their entire lives never having had an accident or having a serious one. But it only takes that one accident to kill you if you are unprepared or don't take proper precautions.

Nope. But the question is: Would the encounter with police have gone south or even occurred in the first place if the mentally ill person had received proper care and attention?

No sir. That's not the question. It may be a question you want answered and you can ask it, but its not THE question. C'mon, you know that we can't mitigate every single situation with the mentally ill. There really aren't that many to begin with. The question we are all trying to solve is are police properly trained to deal with the mentally ill patients or the other sophisticated issues in their wheel house. Or would those situations be better handled by other professionals.

All that does is raise further questions in the other direction. Namely, would these "other professionals" be properly trained to deal with a suddenly violent mentally ill person or other tactical issues in their wheel house? Or would those situations be better handled by cops?

That's the answer I am searching for. Not excuses as to why police need to shoot first think next or always be on guard.

Uh uh, you're conflating things here. No one, least of all me, is suggesting they adopt a shoot first attitude. As for always being on guard? Absolutely. As an officer, if you want to make it home alive to your family at the end of each shift, you better be on guard at all times.

I don't know what an officer "being on guard" or approaching each situation as if it could be life threatening looks like to you but I'll bet it's a lot more dramatic and unrealistic with shades of Hollywood than the picture I have. The picture I have is not of an officer doing a broken taillight traffic stop with gun drawn shouting "Hands on the wheel!"

I'm saying an officer has to be mentally focused and observant. Watch for the tells that suggest a person or suspect is nervous or scared (frightened people are unpredictable and can be dangerous). Watch for sudden movements. Be mindful of your firearm in relation to the suspect's location and position so as not to allow him easy access to it. You know, standard precautions.

I totally understand the need for apprehension in their job but a scared, hateful or compassionless man with a gun and in authority usually makes thing worse. See David Chauvin.

Right. But a scared, hateful or compassionless suspect doesn't make things any better.

your words???

You said: "It’s a noble idea but unrealistic. Cops never know when they’re going to encounter someone who is mentally ill and often the situation does not afford the time to wait for a mental health professional to show up before the person can harm or kill someone."

You clearly said he often doesn't have time to wait. That clearly translates into the officer has to act now or he is pressed for time. Now you did mention officers viewing their job through a prism of mortality in every situation but not in this paragraph.

Again, you're conflating. I'm talking about a situation where the person is behaving in a threatening or irrational manner.

Are you somehow under the impression that I'm suggesting officers go into every situation with gun drawn and shouting commands? I'm saying that if a suspect - mentally ill or otherwise - goes off then something has to be done NOW.

The problem with what you and everyone else is suggesting is that one never knows when a suspect will go off. What do you think people will say if a mental health professional gets killed by one of these guys? I know exactly what they'll say: "How could something like this happen?!" Then they'll reverse themselves and say we need to train them in self defense or arm them or do away with them altogether. All the time forgetting that this was exactly what they wanted.

People who suggest or promote these types of measures almost never stop to consider the additional problems and complications it will create.

"When talking about protecting the public, I think you're misunderstanding where I'm coming from. I'm not saying the police have a duty to protect the public from any violence or threat that is not yet manifested.

I'm saying that they have a duty to protect the public when it IS manifested. If officers encounter a situation where there is an active threat, they have a duty to neutralize that threat for the safety of the public."

Its not their duty. They are not soldiers.

So officers are not obligated to say, stop an active shooter? Is that really what you're telling me?

That's why during riots officers are standing 2 hundred yards away in riot gear. They don't care about those who can't defend themselves, who might be getting beat up or robbed, they care about their own safety first. Its hard to see them as heroes like you do.

I never said anything about cops being heroes. Some are, some aren't.

I think I see now where you're coming from. You just revealed your true feelings on the matter. You pointedly told me you don't see them as heroes. This suggests to me that there is more to it than that. It suggests to me that you see them as a problem and maybe harbor some disdain towards law enforcement officers in general.

Me, I'm talking simple logic and practicalities. Officers get killed. This is a fact. Logic dictates that, since officers periodically get killed by suspects and they never know when a suspect might go off, they stay on their guard.

The Parkland situation is a bad example

He wasn't being disciplined because he hid. He was disciplined because the school paid for a resource officers and when he was supposed to do his job he was CAUGHT hiding. If the police did not discipline him Broward county schools and likely Dade county would say hey screw resource officers why pay for somebody to run and hide. We can hire former high school football players for that.

Cops don't get fired for cowardice.

Four officers were fired for not actively trying to stop the shooter, not just Peterson.