[Dragoon44]

The only training we got on the mentally ill was on the job training.

We had plenty of them around and when they closed down the local state mental hospital and turned them loose we were dealing with them almost on a daily basis.

 

[DaleGribble]

Do you guys feel the number of calls dealing with the mentally ill has increased or decreased over the last ten to twenty years? Also do you feel the amount of prescription drugs available these days has helped or hindered the situations?

When you say prescription drugs, you have to draw some distinctions in what you're talking about and what you mean by the word "situations".

Oxys and other pain meds don't cause crime. Criminals cause crime. Some criminals commit crimes to get prescription drugs, but that's not the prescription drugs fault.

As for psych meds, no, they don't make problems worse, at all. They make things better, a lot better for the people taking them. None of the prescription psychiatric medications on the market cause criminal behavior, quite the opposite actually, and if they did cause criminal behavior they wouldn't be on the market. Trust me when I tell you that antipsychotics are responsible for saving countless lives, both police and patients, every day. It's when people that need them stop taking them that problems arise. Police don't deal with the adverse effects of people taking antipsychotics, hospitals do.

And no, no matter what Joe Rogan says, psych meds don't cause mass shooters to be mass shooters. Mass shooters are mass shooters because they're often mentally ill and potentially violent, so they're put on psych meds to try and keep their behaviors under control. They don't go on psych meds because they're fine and then become mass shooters.

 

[Dragoon44]

When you say prescription drugs, you have to draw some distinctions in what you're talking about and what you mean by the word "situations".

Oxys and other pain meds don't cause crime. Criminals cause crime. Some criminals commit crimes to get prescription drugs, but that's not the prescription drugs fault.

As for psych meds, no, they don't make problems worse, at all. They make things better, a lot better for the people taking them. None of the prescription psychiatric medications on the market cause criminal behavior, quite the opposite actually, and if they did cause criminal behavior they wouldn't be on the market. Trust me when I tell you that antipsychotics are responsible for saving countless lives, both police and patients, every day. It's when people that need them stop taking them that problems arise. Police don't deal with the adverse effects of people taking antipsychotics, hospitals do.

And no, no matter what Joe Rogan says, psych meds don't cause mass shooters to be mass shooters. Mass shooters are mass shooters because they're often mentally ill and potentially violent, so they're put on psych meds to try and keep their behaviors under control. They don't go on psych meds because they're fine and then become mass shooters.

+1

Every violent mentally ill person I ever dealt with had stopped taking their meds before they became violent and had to be dealt with.

I can’t recall a single one that was taking their meds faithfully before they went off the rails and became a danger to themselves and others.

 

[Geeorge]

:flag:

 

[DaleGribble]

+1

Every violent mentally ill person I ever dealt with had stopped taking their meds before they became violent and had to be dealt with.

I can’t recall a single one that was taking their meds faithfully before they went off the rails and became a danger to themselves and others.

Same.

I saw it in the po-lease world and I see it now in the psych world.

Back when I worked at a psych hospital, we had several schizophrenics that would routinely stop taking their meds, go completely bat**** crazy, and then have to come back to us as a result. A few injections and about a week's worth of daily med intake and they were good as new and totally different people.

People like to bash psych meds without knowing how great they actually are and the benefits that they actually bring to people's lives.

 

[Dragoon44]

One thing you knew if the call was for a domestic disturbance and the caller said, “ he is being violent and he quit taking his meds.”

You knew you were in for a fight at the very least. And on one occasion in turned into a shooting. The mentally ill guy lost that one, he only brought a bayonet.

 

[686 AR15 G17Fan]

Or elected officials who do not even know difference between revolver, and semi auto handgun.

FULLY SEMI AUTOMATIC REVOLVER !

 

[steveksux]

Need a class with dealing with admins, who by and large tend to be out of touch with the reality of working the street.

I was thinking admin was included in the group of "people you have to deal with on the job suffering from mental issues" by default...

Randy

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

 

[bdcochran]

Not an officer. However, I want to speak to the police training. Having had one of my step mothers being bipolar and a female bipolar in my late wife's family, the best that training can do is help the officer detect the symptoms. The officer has to evaluate a situation very quickly and he doesn't either medications with him or time for a 45 minute psychological therapy session on the street. My hat is off to those who take the training seriously.

Frankly, I am tired of "family members" who incessantly complain when a policeman encounters and engages a mentally ill person with a knife threatening people and the person ends up dead. Unless it is three officers on one mentally ill person and they have a butterfly net with them, they are doing the best that they can.

 

[pgg00]

Need a class with dealing with admins, who by and large tend to be out of touch with the reality of working the street.

This. They cause more stress and health problems for the troops than any of the customers on the street

 

[Dragoon44]

Not an officer. However, I want to speak to the police training. Having had one of my step mothers being bipolar and a female bipolar in my late wife's family, the best that training can do is help the officer detect the symptoms. The officer has to evaluate a situation very quickly and he doesn't either medications with him or time for a 45 minute psychological therapy session on the street. My hat is off to those who take the training seriously.

Frankly, I am tired of "family members" who incessantly complain when a policeman encounters and engages a mentally ill person with a knife threatening people and the person ends up dead. Unless it is three officers on one mentally ill person and they have a butterfly net with them, they are doing the best that they can.

And what is particularly infuriating for cops is that these suddenly concerned family members did nothing whatsoever to get their mentally ill family member any professional help and simply waited until they became unmanageable and then call the cops to come deal with it.

 

[warbow150]

Not an officer. However, I want to speak to the police training. Having had one of my step mothers being bipolar and a female bipolar in my late wife's family, the best that training can do is help the officer detect the symptoms. The officer has to evaluate a situation very quickly and he doesn't either medications with him or time for a 45 minute psychological therapy session on the street. My hat is off to those who take the training seriously.

Frankly, I am tired of "family members" who incessantly complain when a policeman encounters and engages a mentally ill person with a knife threatening people and the person ends up dead. Unless it is three officers on one mentally ill person and they have a butterfly net with them, they are doing the best that they can.

There’s quite a bit of mental health first aid or crisis intervention training going on across the county. It was mandatory in my department before I retired. There are a ton of challenges with mental crisis and cops, if for no other reason than cops are not able to diagnose, and even if they were it wouldn’t matter much. Police on scene are dealing with symptoms at best. In other words, the behavior manifesting at the time they arrive. Whether he’s drunk, high, bi-polar, paranoid schizo, TBI, PTSDing, or just having a bad day is if far less importance that what he’s actually DOING, that’s causing the immediate problem.

Another major problem: De-escalate, de-escalated, de-escalate. We de-escalate until we’re blue in the face. Sometimes the cops go back to the same location 5-6 times a day. Right up until the person in mental health crisis does something really nasty and winds up getting arrested at best, shot at worst. What was needed is mandatory mental health care in a controlled facility, NOT for the cops to come back again and again and try to do what’s way outside the scope for LE in the first place. In essence, all the de-escalation did was kick the can down the road until it got really bad.

Until there is political/legislative will to compel folk who need it to take their pills, spend enough on mental health beds, and issue the proper orders to commit those who need it this is never going away. All the crisis training in the world won’t fix it, nor will having social workers respond. All they’ll be able to do is complete the de-escalation equation until junior really flips his $h!t and then the cops will be right back to the arresting/spraying/tasing/shooting equation. All with the predictable outcry for more restraint/training for cops.

Sounds jaded, but that’s the reality as I see it anymore. If the families won’t step up and petition for evaluation/commitment, the courts need to and then follow through and actually commit. Failing that it’s all just noise from some politician pandering to one base or the other.

 

[bdcochran]

What was needed is mandatory mental health care in a controlled facility

I have posted the following a number of times over the years.
California decided it had a problem with mentally ill people.
1. The Democrats were concerned that people were locked up without having committed a crime.
2. The Republicans were concerned with costs of the mental health care system in California.
3. The best intellectual minds of both parties sat down and talked (Me- I call them educated derelicts who are without real life experience).
4. A compromise was reached, the legislation passed, and Governor Ronald Reagan signed.
5. Most of the mentally ill would be released into the community. Counseling centers would be established where the mentally ill would go for counseling and their medications.
6. As you expect, it did not work out. The death rate among the released was 4 times the death rate of people the same age in the general community. However, the politicians reduced the number of problem people
7. I remember one such releasee. She lived on the street. Frightening. If she took her meds, she was ok. However, she didn't take them. Tragically, she had been married to a prominent local lawyer. After putting up with the situation for years, he had had her institutionalized and divorced her. But, the State let her out so she could participate in the new State program.

Good luck getting better treatment facilities. The mentally ill do not vote. The people who want free pre-school, free telephones, free after school care, amnesty, free college, forgiveness of student loans- they do vote and they feed at the trough before the mentally ill.

 

[George Kaplan]

Easy to spot, hard to avoid a liberal.

 

[PEC-Memphis]

FWIW, PTSD is a very small sliver of what I see daily. Vast majority are bi-polar or paranoid schizophrenics.

.... and from my limited experience, either initiated or exacerbated by illicit drug use.

 

[warbow150]

I have posted the following a number of times over the years.
California decided it had a problem with mentally ill people.
1. The Democrats were concerned that people were locked up without having committed a crime.
2. The Republicans were concerned with costs of the mental health care system in California.
3. The best intellectual minds of both parties sat down and talked (Me- I call them educated derelicts who are without real life experience).
4. A compromise was reached, the legislation passed, and Governor Ronald Reagan signed.
5. Most of the mentally ill would be released into the community. Counseling centers would be established where the mentally ill would go for counseling and their medications.
6. As you expect, it did not work out. The death rate among the released was 4 times the death rate of people the same age in the general community. However, the politicians reduced the number of problem people
7. I remember one such releasee. She lived on the street. Frightening. If she took her meds, she was ok. However, she didn't take them. Tragically, she had been married to a prominent local lawyer. After putting up with the situation for years, he had had her institutionalized and divorced her. But, the State let her out so she could participate in the new State program.

Good luck getting better treatment facilities. The mentally ill do not vote. The people who want free pre-school, free telephones, free after school care, amnesty, free college, forgiveness of student loans- they do vote and they feed at the trough before the mentally ill.

I agree. The de-institutionalization of mental health was a significant error which has been compounding like interest ever since. It may have had good intentions, but it was poorly conceived and never really had a chance. Far better would have been to improve care standards and oversight of existing facilities, while reinforcing capacity.

 

[TBO]

Significant amount of group home residents who wound up their due to "chemical lobotomy" (their rampant drug use has resulted in permanent changes to the brain). Keep working and paying taxes to support the system.

Sent from my Jack boot using Copatalk

 

[bikerdog]

+1

Every violent mentally ill person I ever dealt with had stopped taking their meds before they became violent and had to be dealt with.

I can’t recall a single one that was taking their meds faithfully before they went off the rails and became a danger to themselves and others.

this sums it up for me times 1000. And at least in my case from what I’ve seen meds help. When folks who need them don’t take them it goes poorly.

 

[Dragoon44]

Significant amount of group home residents who wound up their due to "chemical lobotomy" (their rampant drug use has resulted in permanent changes to the brain). Keep working and paying taxes to support the system.

Sent from my Jack boot using Copatalk

So they are still working as police admins and politicians?

 

[steveksux]

The old system was doing them a disservice as well. Private hospitals doped them up to be almost comatose and held them until insurance coverage ran out, then sent then to state facilities.

At least some of the state facilities tried to find the right mix of medications to get them normal enough to function in society rather than medicating them into a zombie state so they are easy to manage while they wait for their insurance to run out.

It was actually one case where you were better off NOT having insurance/access to private medicine and forced to rely on govt run facilities.

Randy

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