Re: Family calls 911 for help with special needs daughter, cops show up & shoot her d
BlackLeaf posted a BBC program...Madness in the Fast Lane...it was amazing to see two slender woman (who had been hit by cars) with the physical ability to take on multiple police and still escape. It was almost unbelieveable to watch what focused determination can do. One of the women did eventually days later stab a man to death. It was an eye opener.
So once this young woman produced the knife she was a danger to everyone certainly. BUT there are other ways to deal with this other than gun fire if one is trained.
de-escalating someone who is mentally ill...takes a certain approach...you need the training to call upon to do this because once the situation occurs you have to go on instinct and with no skills that could be a disaster as it was here...anyone can do it if they approach it correctly but there are ways to handle such occurrences and some just don't work. It certainly didn't here.
exactly right...a knife from the kitchen depending upon what type of knife can do a lot of damage quite quickly...once someone moves in on another with a knife it could be difficult to intervene depending upon their mental state.Rubber bullets, maybe. Shooting in the arm? No. I know very little about guns and hitting targets, but I do know that is not realistic as a plan of action.
See I can't throw all the blame on the police officer here, if, as the article states, she came at deputies with a knife then in that situation he was justified in defending his life and the lives of others.
But I do agree that there needs to be more thought and planning into how to deal with mentally ill individuals before the 911 call comes in.
This is how I look at it. An individual who is not mentally ill can also be in an agitated state and potentially dangerous but they can, possibly, still be reasoned with. So a threat of force from police, stated or simply implied by their presence is often enough to get through to said individual. Sometimes not, but then they are making that choice of their own volition. Someone who is mentally ill probably can not be reasoned with. But at the end of the day someone coming at an officer with a knife or other weapon is still just as much of a threat, irrespective of whether they are mentally ill or not. Knowing ahead of time that a potentially mentally ill individual may need to be confronted and having some kind of plan in place to try to subdue such individuals without deadly force is the best that can be done.
But whatever that plan is, it still may come down to someone being shot and killed.
BlackLeaf posted a BBC program...Madness in the Fast Lane...it was amazing to see two slender woman (who had been hit by cars) with the physical ability to take on multiple police and still escape. It was almost unbelieveable to watch what focused determination can do. One of the women did eventually days later stab a man to death. It was an eye opener.
So once this young woman produced the knife she was a danger to everyone certainly. BUT there are other ways to deal with this other than gun fire if one is trained.
de-escalating someone who is mentally ill...takes a certain approach...you need the training to call upon to do this because once the situation occurs you have to go on instinct and with no skills that could be a disaster as it was here...anyone can do it if they approach it correctly but there are ways to handle such occurrences and some just don't work. It certainly didn't here.