Originally Posted by
WhistlePig
That’s a very long-winded, misguided, rationalization for extrajudicial murder. Put Philando Castille through your rubric. Breonna Taylor? Tamir Rice? (Full disclosure: I ran around my neighborhood with a toy gun at age 13 and I never worried about being murdered by a cop. Can you guess what is different about me?) Forward thinking communities are responding to mental health and domestic calls with paramedic as and social workers and you know what? Citizens aren’t being killed by the State. Imagine that. A few bad apples spoil the whole bunch — if they are not dealt with by their fellow officers, then all of the officers are rotten. And, I’m sorry, there have been too many occurrences, for far too long, for your final sentence of victim blaming to hold water.
As far as officers responding to mental health calls, do you think the police asked for that mission? Nope, they got it when we de-institutionalized the mental ill, starting in the Kennedy Administration and continuing for the next 60 years. Police officers themselves will consistently say they aren't manned-trained-equipped to handle that...but they are given the mission set anyway.