Odd, I thought Mental Health Response Teams (MHRT) was pretty standard now. My county has it and has for years.

I guess I was mistaken in thinking it was a standard tool for most large departments.

But wait, this is a Zoom call. Yea, that's different from the MHRT that I am aware of locally.

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Originally posted by 92fstech:

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:
My dept has been doing this for 3 years. Mixed success. With calmer people dealing with depression it has helped a few times, including with a coue vets I have dealt with.

Most of the time, when the person is amped up it is not going to work at all.

The real practical issue is the people who are calm and rational enough to do this, are also calm and rational enough to be talked into going to the hospital and seeing a counselor in person anyway.

This. You can't help somebody who doesn't want help...and those who do actually want it will cooperate and let you take them somewhere to get that help.

Our local FD recently started responding to mental health calls, and they've all been trained in this new "Cares" program to help them do whatever it is they're supposed to do with these people (I assume it's probably what we've been doing all along, except they're unarmed and have no legal authority to detain anyone, so I'm not sure how that's supposed to work). Just this week I heard them go on one and five minutes later they were hollering for the PD on the radio, lol. Sounds like it's working out really well .

Beyond even that, I'm more talking about what is practical or even possible..

Mental health calls run the entire spectrum.

The vast majority of the time, it is a "cry for help" type call, where a person threatens self harm, suicide, or whatever. Most of those are honestly bullshit. The person has ZERO intention of actually doing anything, and just wants a rise out of the person they are arguing with, or want's attention. Lots of teenagers doing this, or one party in a domestic breakup threatening this to get the attention of the other person. BUT... you never really know.

The complete other end of the spectrum, are the REALLY disturbed folks. The stereotypical "naked, feces covered, high on meth, male weilding a samurai katana threatening his family and kids."

Now, having a social worker in the vehicle with the officer, on an iPad, or whatever media you want.... That social worker isn't going to be able to do a goddamn thing with folks toward the latter end of that spectrum. NO ONE CAN!!!! They are absolutely unpredictable and anyone who says otherwise is at best a fool, and at worst a liar (usually both).

The folks at the former end of the spectrum, can 99 percent of the time be reasoned with. Really, in MY experience, which is a lot at this point in my career, 90 percent of that spectrum can be reasoned with given enough time, distance, cover, empathy, and solid tactics...

The folks that want to criticize the police always seem to focus on the incidents that happen with the other 10 percent of the spectrum.

I'd challenge ANYONE to have a better success rate. No, seriously... I'm actually asking. PLEASE... ANYONE ELSE... come deal with that 10 percent. Those suck. Those are almost always going to go poorly and I don't want to do that anymore. Send the social workers. Just don't ask me to cover their ass and then second guess me when it goes badly.

Because just like it goes badly for us... It will go badly for them. Don't hold us responsible if we didn't do it.

Kevin

quote:

The folks that want to criticize the police always seem to focus on the incidents that happen with the other 10 percent of the spectrum.

I'd challenge ANYONE to have a better success rate. No, seriously... I'm actually asking. PLEASE... ANYONE ELSE... come deal with that 10 percent. Those suck. Those are almost always going to go poorly and I don't want to do that anymore. Send the social workers. Just don't ask me to cover their ass and then second guess me when it goes badly.

Because just like it goes badly for us... It will go badly for them. Don't hold us responsible if we didn't do it.

Right there with ya, brother. Couldn't agree more!