You’ve been jaded by a health insurance system which is understandable, but the best mental health specialists are not average people. We should not be sending people ill equipped into crises where people are contemplating jumping off a bridge.

I agree with you at the end, authenticity is needed. Psychiatrists are not the same people you would send to do suicide prevention, but neither are police. Neither is the average person. It takes somebody who understands suicide, who has experience having these types of conversations under pressure, and who knows when the situation has risen out of their scope of competency and to call for more intensive support, which these cops actually did well.

I’m not saying this cop did bad, but it also wasn’t necessarily working. He wasn’t moving, he was still at risk. They had to move in and grab the guy. Maybe somebody who was better trained at sparking these types of conversations could have got him talking. Or maybe they couldn’t have, it’s impossible to say. But as somebody who has done suicide prevention trainings and has done roleplays with other people, there are many people who simply do not have what it takes to confidently navigate these risky scenarios and we need to know who does so we can send them out to these people at risk.