Reply to Cautionary news story about the risk of calling cops on out of control family member

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Reply to "Cautionary news story about the risk of calling cops on out of control family member"

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[quote=Anonymous]Thank you for posting, OP.  I have a MI family member, and I worry about one day having to call the police and something going tragically wrong.  It can happen whether or not the MI person is or has a history of violence.  Aside from violence, serious depression can also be a factor in these types of incidents, so much so that family members often call these incidents "suicide by cop," i.e. the depressed person consciously or sub-conciously knows that a threatening move on their part will result in their killing.

Unfortunately, generally speaking, police officers are not trained in how to deal with the mentally ill, how to speak with the MI, interpret their behaviors and de-escalate the situation.   Sadly, this can result in injury to the MI person, a bystander or the police themselves.  That's why I support increases in training about mental illness for police officers and the judiciary, as well as increases in "crisis intervention teams" within the police force.

As the parent of a SN kid without MI, I also think about the way in which my kid may respond to police interaction in a way that could easily be mistaken for insubordination or non-cooperation.  The WaPo article a few days ago about an autistic male teen caught up in the justice system was frightening to me.  Even though the incident didn't result in immediate confrontation and death like the story you posted, IMO, it is yet another example of the police forces' limited understanding of mental issues (whether SN or MI) which can often cause injustice.  [/quote]

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