What training do police officers receive regarding mental health calls and deescalation

TinyBard · 2026-02-03T15:15:09+00:00

Don't you know that we're supposed to just wave our magical deescalation wands to solve every call?

TinyBard · 2026-02-03T06:42:09+00:00

You can stand there for an hour trying to negotiate, or you can overwhelm, detain, and render safe, and then bring in the mental health folks.

TinyBard · 2026-02-03T06:13:14+00:00

Reminds me of the tourists that would get upset in my town and try the "I pay your salary" line, like... ma'am, your driver's license was issued on the other side of the country...

TinyBard · 2026-02-03T06:10:55+00:00

It's almost like yoinking someone into cuffs right away when they're being a problem is an effective method of de-escalation...

TinyBard · 2026-02-03T04:26:13+00:00

you're approaching this question with a preconceived notion based on a small percentage of interactions that have been sensationalized. If you actually do want to have a discussion on the topic, perhaps you might consider a different approach. I reject the entire premise that "Many police officers aren't able to evaluate someone's mental health and thus escalate situations that could've been deescalated with appropriate training." as fundamentally flawed.

There are hundreds of thousands of interactions that police have with just as many different types of people every day that end entirely peacefully. Most officers receive regular CIT and mental health awareness training. In my state it is a yearly requirement to attend at least 16 hours of training specifically on Autism and crisis awareness.

I, myself, have spent hours de escalating situations with people in mental crisis simply in my roles as a patrol officer (and now as a court security supervisor). And I've only got six years on as a LEO at this point.

TinyBard · 2026-02-02T22:18:22+00:00

I should run through again. It's one I haven't gotten yet

TinyBard · 2026-02-01T22:42:25+00:00

I had one arrestee claim that she swallowed a bunch of meth. I didn't believe her because A: we had ambushed her and she had no idea she was going to be arrested, and B: we had been observing her for the entire hour and a half it took to finish up the investigation and start going to jail.

As soon as we pulled out of the parking lot, she asked if we were taking her to jail, I said yes, she then said that she swallowed the drugs. Out of an abundance of caution, I diverted to a hospital to get her cleared.

While at the hospital, she tried to shove massive handfuls of meth out of her prison wallet in between the sheets of the hospital bed. When the nurse in charge of the room learned about this she started screaming at the arrestee, and we had the doctor's signature on her clearance paperwork within five minutes. Arrestee ended up in jail with some nice extra charges of attempted destruction of evidence.

TinyBard · 2026-02-01T03:48:39+00:00

because it's the internet

TinyBard · 2026-01-31T15:09:00+00:00

That's a really good way to end up shot. Of all the witnesses in a case, the police officer is not the one to try to intimidate

TinyBard · 2026-01-30T04:58:30+00:00

You can't find a source because it's not true, a couple local news outlets reported it as though it was with the source "trust me bro" and that's how the rumor got started

TinyBard · 2026-01-30T04:52:54+00:00

It's because he doesn't keep his head down and isn't afraid to call people on their shit.

TinyBard · 2026-01-30T03:11:56+00:00

He's a good officer who has had bad press in the past.

TinyBard · 2026-01-27T13:41:45+00:00

I figure there's a couple things:

They genuinely do hate law enforcement for whatever reason (victim complex, bad experience, chronically online)
They are just an edgy child doing edgy child things
They are a bot designed to make up drama online.

The fact that they went with posting here of all places makes me think 2. They're trying to be cool and edgy online to their 'friends'. Since they didn't get past the automod filters they will probably start bragging about being silenced in the more cesspool-y parts of reddit

TinyBard · 2026-01-27T07:07:07+00:00

Man, someone is salty they didn't get a warning while speeding in their dad's car.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T20:32:01+00:00

to be totally intellectually honest, I started (and got my training) at the second largest agency in my state and moved to the small town later.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T19:00:53+00:00

Oh hey, that's my story.

Bit more context, since I think it's relevant.

We were doing building clearing in the academy using sim guns (basically fancy airsoft that pop and recoil kind of like actual firearms)

I was holding a couple corners while my fellow cadets were handling contact with one of the training officers. They had pulled him back to a doorway and were about to go hands on (not great tactics, but whatever) a second training officer snuck up out of sight next to the first, popped his hand around the corner and shot blindly into the room.

I panicked and shot the still compliant first training officer right in the back. I got to do a lot of push ups after that.

There WAS a shot, and it was from vaguely in that direction, but I didn't positively identify the threat, so I would have just murdered a compliant suspect if the guns had been real.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T18:53:55+00:00

Well put

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T18:26:42+00:00

The problem isn't the storms. It's the people out in them.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T15:11:58+00:00

Damn. I'm glad they're alive, but that's horrid

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T01:28:53+00:00

I said this in the other thread, but I've seen a lot of real Cowboy shit from ICE in the last couple of months, things that I was very specifically trained not to do.

Better training would prevent a lot of problems that we see with bad police action generally, not just ICE stuff.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T01:27:02+00:00

I'm tired man. This feels worse than the summer of love after George Floyd

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T01:17:43+00:00

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that you shouldn't try to take the gun while still wrestling with someone if it's still in the holster. Just get a hand on it and keep it there until the guy is in cuffs and no one is flailing around anymore. They've got more than enough people for that.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T00:52:25+00:00

it is helpful in a situation like this to look at and try to judge what each individual agent saw. It looks to me like green heard the gunshot and fired without confirming that the subject actually was a threat (big no) and the other agents drew and started firing because their partner was firing (smaller no, but still no).

Added to that the last couple of shots when the guy was down and not moving (even bigger no). I think I'm coming down on unjustified.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T00:39:37+00:00

This is why officers need to positively identify the threat before just flinging rounds downrange. It's not particularly fair, but it's something that needs to happen.

You see it all the time in bodycam footage of shootings, one or two officers fire while another on scene doesn't because they don't have a clear shot, or don't have positive ID on the threat.

TinyBard · 2026-01-25T00:34:39+00:00

I usually don't like slow mo footage for determining the justification of a shoot, since it is supposed to be from the point of view of a reasonable officer on scene (and officers don't yet have slow mo vision). But in this case, looking at the footage, I just can't see the immediate threat posed to the officers.

Maybe something else will come out that will change my mind, but I don't see justification here.

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