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Why is it so hard for city officials to accept the fact that they need to bolster their budget for police officers in an effort to fight crime? They always seem to come up with these secondary solutions to solve the problem, when, in fact, they could actually make things worse.
I’m talking about Seattle officials recently deciding to stop police and fire departments from answering mental crisis calls, instead letting unarmed “crisis responders” handle the matter.
City officials note how this system has been in the works for the past three years, following what occurred with “defund the police.” Democrat councilwoman Lisa Hebold tried to explain her actions in a statement to City Inside/Out: Council Edition.
“Well, you know, usually I’m complaining about how delayed we are and how frustrated I am that we’re not meeting our benchmarks for developing this program,” she said about the program. “But today I’m really, really happy to report that the city is hiring for the six positions for its first pilot alternate response team. It’s going to be a way for 911 operators to dispatch calls to somebody other than police, somebody other than fire, a crisis responder who is unarmed.”
I don’t think Hebold understands what she’s doing.
Police and fire departments are trained to deal with all sorts of mental crisis issues. These “crisis responders” that she’s hired are not. They may be able to deal with someone in terms of potential mental turns. But…what happens if they turn violent?
Chaos, that’s what. And now, because of that, these innocent, unarmed civilians that are called upon to deal with these “mental crisis” patients run the risk of being assaulted – or worse yet – murdered. We’ve seen it in the past, when someone loses their grasp of reality and, as a result, snaps. And if you don’t believe me, take a look at the rise of “active shooter” events over the past couple of years.
And yet Hebold thinks this is a “good idea,” instead of simply giving the police more money to deal with the increasing crime rate in her city. That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a heavily bleeding wound, insisting that will solve the problem. It won’t.
The real question here should be who will be legally responsible for the lawsuits arising from social workers that are unarmed being murdered, to mental patients injuring/killing individuals because they were not restrained, to all kinds of wrongful deaths. Because a program like this opens that door.
Hebold is simply handing situations that would be better left in the hands of law enforcement to those that think talking is going to resolve everything. In my 30 years of experience in law enforcement, I can tell you – it won’t. There are some people out there that aren’t looking for talk to resolve their problems.
It’s just stubborn Democratic thinking. “Oh, the ‘defund the police’ people are right, we can’t possibly give them the money they need to bring crime down. I know, let’s bring in six civilians.” Does that sound like it makes sense to you?
And we’ve seen this kind of resolve before. Last year, a small town in California did away with its police force, instead calling on unarmed “enforcers” to patrol the streets to keep crime down. To no one’s surprise, it didn’t. In fact, it got worse, to the point that the city had to relent and attempt to hire police officers instead.
The moral of the story here is that Seattle needs police. Period. Not “crisis specialists” or “crisis responders” or therapists that are armed with nothing more than a pad and paper. They. Need. Police. I could practically write explanation after explanation to Hebold to get this point across; but knowing her, she would simply throw them away, insisting she’s right.
You have to wonder if she’ll keep that opinion going after so many of these “crisis specialists” end up injured or dead. Perhaps she should consider her own level of therapy before putting her endangered city into further peril.
Michael Letts is the Founder, President, and CEO of InVest USA, a national grassroots non-profit organization that is helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. He also has over 30 years of law enforcement experience under his belt, hence his pro-police stance for his brothers and sisters in blue.
puzzled is puzzled: The progressive democrats seek to rid the police from the face of the Earth, while at the same time they demand that everyone obey the democrat dictates.
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The democrats HATE the police but love POLICE STATES AND WANT TO CREATE ONE IN THE USA.
Will she send paramedics when her “crisis responders” are violently assaulted by these “mental crisis” maniacs, or is there a plan to create “bandageless medical response workers”?
FJB
Don’t worry, when some violent lunatic murders one of these “crisis responders” they’ll just blame it on Trump.
This concept is already failing spectacularly. There’s a video of two California de-escalator/crisis interventionists standing on the corner doing nothing while someone is dragged out of their car and beaten at an intersection. These people will be worse than useless, delaying the arrival time of real help.
It took them three years to get this up and running? And that was AFTER they defunded the police, brilliant!. I wonder how much time and money was spent on ‘consultants’ in those three years? Their “benchmarks,” should be entertaining, if they’re even public.
They should be wearing body cams, but don’t be surprised if those were overlooked in this extensive detailed professional planning.
Actually, it was in the works for quite some time. It will fail, for sure. It will fail spectacularly too.
One small indication would be the (dimwit) Seattle City Council woman who lives in West Seattle. She loudly supported defund the police. Until, until a homeless dude banged on her house door. She automatically called for police help and, unfortunately, the cops came to her rescue. She did not learn one iota of a lesson because she continued calling for defunding and downsizing the police dept.
Actually, the problem in Seattle, just one of many, is voters are too dumb to learn from history. They keep voting Dem Party even after rise in crime and police officers retiring or moving to better communities to get away from dumb politicians.
We should not forget, it was the Seattle Council and Mayor and the King County Exec who developed the brilliant tactic of giving heavy drugs to street scum. Even now the City supports tent life in Lake City and other areas of the (once) decent City.
It’s only a question of time… One wonders what the response will be, knowing it will be the wrong one.
The left needs to DOCUMENT their SUCCESSES with this program by having LIVE TV of their “encounters”! Vegas could get in on the action by taking BETS on how the “encounters” go! If people flock to watch COPS or the other shows then I’m sure they’ll be right there to gaze at the “hand holders” as they attempt to get a psycho to put down their crack pipe and machete and just “calm down” and wait their turn at Starbucks for their latte and bathroom key!
Something tells me that a number of social workers are going to get hurt or killed. But hey….defund the cops.
I have to say that in fact police are generally very poorly trained to handle mental health crises. But I agree that one can’t know what one is getting into when answering ANY emergency call.
The right response is by police always, with a MH crisis worker as well when the call is evidently a MH crisis.
its the passage of time , and it comes in the morning !? quote by mentally failed social worker .