Quote:
Originally Posted by whitev70r
Really simple actually, have police trained in wellness check procedures. Or, someone mentioned this in another thread, what you need here is an empathetic, kind, gentle social worker or trained counselor. Hell, hire a few of these on the police force and on calls like these, bring one of these SW or counselors along (in plain clothes, not uniform) with an officer to deescalate the situation.
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POCO RCMP has two clinical counselors that are apparently in their offices for the most part of the day, despite the number of calls related to mental health that general duty officers attend to. My neighbour wished they had gotten educated in understanding and supporting these folks in a more meaningful way during their 6-month training because it would make their day-to-day much more pleasant. There needs to be something to bridge this gap for policing (or re-distribute to fund other solutions as mentioned above). SW's within the communities I work in are swamped with enough cases, resulting in some being neglected or ignored overall. This affects officers directly because they are stuck with trying to deescalate situations they're uncomfortable/uneducated in doing, but have no choice as the SW can't attend.
Pretty shitty for both ends...but when organizations or certain sectors within the province aren't allocated enough funds to support vulnerable folks within communities, you'll potentially get an officer with a great amount of resentment, misunderstanding, frustration, and incompetence from the years of not knowing how to handle someone with mental health struggles. This officer in the video seems to be an example of that. We don't hear about 24/7 counseling or bigger SW teams on the clock. Our society believes that mental health problems only occur during working hours. Lol.
Regarding bodycams, finding a solution to store an enormous amount of data for a minimum of 2 years is a current barrier they're facing...many officers are open and welcome the idea.