A few years back I was first on scene at a minor accident. I called the Sheriffs Dept and a deputy arrived. I introduced myself and informed the deputy I was armed. He asked with a smile if I’d planned on shooting anyone and I replied no. He said “well, then we’re good”.
This is in a rural area of mid Missouri.
I do this part as well, but never offer any information. In the past few years I’ve been stopped once for expired inspection, and spent considerable time with officers following my wreck (2022). They’ve never asked, so I’ve never mentioned it. If I needed to reach near my holster, I would inform them beforehand and ask their preferences, though.
I fully agree. In my line of work (public works including water and sewer utilities), we are frequently required to use police officers for traffic control on city streets.
Despite having an traffic plan that is prepared by a traffic engineer and approved by the municipality and local police department, the police officer on site frequently wants to change the plan on the fly: often so that need only sit in their squad car all day with their lights flashing and not actually have to, you know, direct traffic.
Anyway, we have told our contractors and inspectors to never question the police officer on site. It never goes well. Any pushback whatsoever with a cop on site inevitably ends with the job getting shut down or someone getting arrested. Instead they are to call our traffic control police liaison, who is a retired cop. Who then calls the chief of police for the municipality.
This liaison gets paid a lot, but it’s deemed to be worth it to avoid having multimillion projects getting shut down on the whim of a traffic control cop. What a racket.
Not to mention having to pay for a set amount of hours even if the cop will only be there for half that time.
A couple of other things you have to accept. There aren’t enough mental health professionals to send out on every EDP call. Of the mental health professionals that we do have few want to be in uncontrolled situations that can go bad quickly. The ones that are currently working in those positions are very quick to call the police and let them handle it.
Also just because someone is in the mental health profession doesn’t mean they are good at it. Some of the few times we actually had someone come out to a possible commitment they escalated the situation and made it much worse.
And this is where I bow out. Yep cops are just executing everyone they see. When the thread turns to cops will just murder you anyway there isn’t room for discussion.
Over 25 years I would guess I dealt with an average of one EDP per day. That’s a lot of crazy. And it seemed to be getting worse. I don’t think I was atypical in any way. I worked in a relatively busy suburban area. Never shot anyone. Always got the people the help they needed as allowed by law. Everyone I worked with did the same. Everyone I knew about did the same. Everyone I heard about did the same. Yes sometimes in a dynamic situation dealing with emotionally disturbed people things get violent. When violence occurs mistakes can happen. When mistakes happen it makes the news. What doesn’t make the news is the thousands of incidents with EDPs a day when things go right. Ideally people in crisis should be handled by medical professionals. Unfortunately that isn’t often what is going to happen. Medical professionals are not equipped to deal with potential violence and there aren’t enough of them.
I’m surprised no one else interpreted the question as referring to drugs. “Yea, I got a baggie, but it’s not mine.”
I think you competely missed the point I was trying to make.
I did not mention it, but as is usual in certain areas, the farmers were white, the victim Black, and most of the cops on scene mixed race (what we call coloured in this country - no prejudicial meaning, cultures differ.).
There is a bunch of racial tension between the three groups, especially in the rural areas, where old beliefs still remain, and racism is still quite prevalent
Probably everyone at the scene was armed, except me and the unfortunate victim.
But the first thing the police did was to assist with the white farmer tending to the Black victim, performing first aid. Then they blocked the road, clearing off one lane (pretty soon after attending to the victim, they do not want another one). Then the paramedics arrived to deal with the victim. The police and paramedics were all coloured.
Then they attended to me, a fucking shocked person in dire need of support.
A completely charged situation that could have exploded.
But it did not, because, as shit as our police are at solving crime, they are at least trained to respond appropriately.
I know you said you would bow out, but I think you are doing me something of a disservice by implying i imagine “cops will murder you anyway” and I would instead encourage you to consider how police in other countries operate, compared to the USA.
For example, in the UK, police are not armed as a matter of course.
That’s how police in the US operate as well. Except for the rare situations that you hear or read about.
As a USAian who has been in many many similar situations your anecdote does is not seem unusual. That’s a daily part of the job and how things go here too. I’m not saying to myself we need to take a page out of the SA handbook. That’s my point.
True, but we could hire and train more to backup the police.
I know I’ve heard (likely on NPR) of communities that have adopted policies to more readily send out mental health professionals. So there are places that are trying this. Not sure how many you’d have to have on staff, or whether it would be sufficient to have contractors “on call.”
In so many of these situations, they do not seem to be terribly urgent. Cops could just sit back, chill out, and call for a psych/counselor similarly to how they call for a supervisor or canine unit. Mainly requires changing attitudes.
Yes, I concur. But the police still have to be called first, to at least keep a lid on things.
I would love to have been able to do this. The best we could get was someone on the phone. Mostly they would refuse to commit (pun intended) and leave it up to us. I would hear a lot of “it would probably be a good idea…” I’m speaking specifically about needed involuntary commitment of people in crisis. If someone asked for help it’s a simple procedure. Forcing someone to get help causes a lot of mental health professionals to want to look the other way. I get it. They don’t want to get sued and they have their hands full with those that are in the facility already. And we probably have it better than most. We have a facility within our borders. It’s not a simple solution. Yes some of it has to do with a need for funding. Even with funding it’s not like there are a lot of highly trained mental heath professionals working at McDonalds waiting to get hired. It’s a hard and mostly thankless job. One of the reasons why I retired this year is because it was a job I was being forced to do more and more.
I think it does not get acknowledged enough how much police - and teachers - are expected to do more and more tasks well beyond what were traditionally considered to be their roles. Must be tough for the good ones - and a potential disaster for the bad ones.
You know, as a mid-fifty-ish white male, I’d like to thank you (sincerely) for your service and for contributing here. We hear so much of the bad. I’ve been sucked into Youtube with SovCits and other craziness and I’m not sure how well I would fare day after day.
@Loach, in your experience, how common are the SovCit types?
Thankfully I never had to deal with one. I’ve had a few that skirted around the edges. They yell the loudest about knowing their rights. Arrested Development voiceover needed, “He did not know his rights.”
Yes, I concur.
Dunno where Loach served, but I live in a well-off semi-rural, semi-suburban area north of Boston, and when I asked an officer on traffic detail once if he’d ever encountered one, the look of contemptuous disgust on his face told me the answer before he even spoke. I guess they’re everywhere!