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Police frequently get called to suicide threats. While threatening to commit suicide is a horrible thing to do, it doesn’t warrant an armed response. Instead
by danielheath 5y ago
Police frequently get called to suicide threats.
While threatening to commit suicide is a horrible thing to do, it doesn’t warrant an armed response.
Instead of arguing over the edge cases, I suggest pushing for the part of the proposal that’s unambiguously helpful (eg: no armed response without a plausible threat of violence).
- accurrent 5y agoI'm not American. But I used to be firefighter for 2 years. Where I live both firefighters and police respond to suicides. In the 2 years I have attended over 100 suicide calls of various forms (in various stages). In none of them have we ever used an "armed response" unless you consider a bolt cutter/saw a weapon. It does seem to puzzle me why one would want to use weapons in a suicide case.
- throwawaysea 5y agoThe language used by the parent comment is ambiguous. By armed response they mean that the responding police officers carry a gun. I don’t see that as a problem, because you never know what kind of situation they will encounter and what the needs might be.
- danielheath 5y agoI don’t know about you but when someone with a gun shows up, my motivation begins and ends at “get rid of this person”. I am not going to have a productive conversation, because I don’t know what kind of situation I will encounter.