Thursday, March 17, 2016

Report states that half the people killed by police are disabled.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Almost half of the people who die at the hands of police have some kind of disability, according to a new report, as officers are often drawn into emergencies where urgent care may be more appropriate than lethal force. 

The report, published by the Ruderman Family Foundation, a disability organization, proposes that while police interactions with minorities draw increasing scrutiny, disability and health considerations are still neglected in media coverage and law enforcement policy. 

"Police have become the default responders to mental health calls," write the authors, historian David Perry and disability expert Lawrence Carter-Long, who analyzed incidents from 2013 to 2015. They propose that "people with psychiatric disabilities" are presumed to be "dangerous to themselves and others" in police interactions.

I have actually had some experience with this, and on at least two occasions been called into to deal with a situation that the police have only escalated with their ham fisted approach.

Often police officers believe that due to the fact that they are authority figures people are supposed to automatically respect them and succumb to their will.

However mentally ill people respond in all kinds of unexpected and even inexplicable ways that police have not been trained to identify or deal with effectively.

I will say that police are being better educated these days than was the case even five or ten years ago, but the training they receive is quite inadequate for the challenges they may face in their communities.

This is why I was so pissed off that the conservatives were blaming gun violence on mental illness, and then paying lip service to the idea that we need to increase mental health funding.

They are NEVER going to do that willingly, and the fact is that we desperately need that money.

I do not believe in any way that fixing our mental health system will decrease the number of civilians shooting each other with guns, but it most certainly WILL keep police from gunning down so many mentally disabled people in the streets.

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:22 AM

    Thanks a bunch, Ronnie.
    Saint? HARDLY.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:48 AM

      Yup! Once again, the shitstorm that has become 'Merika can be traced back to Ronnie Raygun!!

      Delete
  2. Anonymous7:26 AM

    Check this out, Gryph, everyone. I've lived in Portland for 37 years and this case was one of the most gruesome and caused so much uproar here from the public.

    http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/the-tragic-legacy-of-james-chasse-jr/Content?oid=8396266

    ReplyDelete
  3. Boscoe7:48 AM

    Well, that's what you get when you've got a police force that is only trained to escalate situations and has no idea what "protect & Serve" means.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:18 AM

      Portland lady here again. That's what they do here. I work right across the street from City Hall and, any peaceful march, the streets are lined with cops in full riot gear with batons. It's like they're begging for it...welcome to life with TRump as prez if he is elected.

      "Morale is at its lowest in the PPB. They find it hard to hire any new recruits." Ya THINK?

      Delete
  4. Anonymous8:26 AM

    OT-?
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/7-facts-about-drugs-that-will-make-you-question-everything_b_9484744.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous8:38 AM

    OT-http://news.yahoo.com/beyond-record-hot-february-astronomical-140020152.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous9:02 AM

    OT, but violence-related info. As horrible as Jared Fogel, the ex-Subway pedophile is, Bristol is cheering--on her religious site Patheos blog--that he was beat up in prison, and she says he deserves "more," suggesting, I suppose, that he be beat until killed (after some raping, I imagine she'd like done).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:31 AM

      She said the same thing about Josh Duggar, right?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous7:12 AM

      People, these things are turn-ons to her. Then again, what isn't?

      Delete
  7. The police are traumatizing to many people, but especially to those with disabilities which make dealing with the world hard to begin with. SAMHSA is trying to teach many including police what they call the Trauma-Informed Approach. In Alaska there is no one teaching this to the police.
    http://www.samhsa.gov/nctic/trauma-interventions

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous9:23 AM

    OT-http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/17/politics/bowe-bergdahl-documents-released/index.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous9:55 AM

    OT?
    http://thinkprogress.org/education/2016/03/16/3760305/gay-straight-alliance/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anita Winecooler4:30 PM

    In Italy, and I believe Portugal, when the police are called or a car accident happens, they send out mental health professionals along with the police, and if signs of mental illness are observed, the dogs are called off, they're taken to the hospital for evaluation. If not, they're taken through the penal system. I understand these countries are small, but their recidivism rates are low, they have hospitals in place that care for the mentally ill, and the homeless population is extremely low.
    With what we spend on Police, Courts, Jails, etc, why can't we find a way to do the same thing here? They have clean needle programs, sex education and free condoms to curb the spread of stds and aids, and it's an investment that saves lives and pays off in the long run.

    ReplyDelete

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