[JustAnotherFan]

I'm glad others here have pointed out that it is in no way universally believed that we need violence workers to respond to mental health situations. Just because society has accepted certain ways of doing something (driven often by the desire to maintain social control) does not mean that those are necessarily the most effective, safest, or even reasonable ways of doing something. I recently read and highly recommend Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis, which highlights the decisions people within the criminal justice system make and how it is so often divorced from anything that is concerned with public safety.

If folks want to better understand why abolitionists have been working so hard to remove police from situations they may want to start with We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba, or for a less radical, more deliberate checking off of the ways we need less policing they can read The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale. 

Thanks to all those who were measured in their response to this incident, and who provided grace to one of our fellow alums.

Obviously your continued reference to police as "violence workers" indicates your overall position and bias. But more to the point you exclusively refer to a "mental health situation" without acknowledging that this was also a "public safety situation." RS appears to have consumed a bottle of Hennessy and a bottle of vodka, driven his vehicle until he crashed it (rendering it temporarily unusable) and then walked two miles to his in-laws' house and attempted to kick the door in. If a social worker or mental health professional are dispatched, what do they do if RS rejects their assistance and acquires another vehicle (or manages to restart his vehicle) and hits the road again? Enforcing drunk driving laws seems like a fundamental and vital police function. Taking RS into custody is absolutely necessary to prevent harm not only to himself but to others, and I fail to see how a social worker would have accomplished this. Are you arguing that drunk drivers shouldn't be detained, out of compassion for the issues that may have precipitated their drinking?

I believe that I am being very compassionate and sensitive to RS's possible mental health struggles, but where is similar concern for potential victims of his drunk driving, or for his in-laws who surely were terrified? perhaps I am misunderstanding your posts, because we can certainly agree on the need in these situations for multi-agency response (police and mental health professionals) or at a minimum much more extensive training of police. But I am mystified by the notion that police weren't required to take a severely inebriated and unstable individual into custody. They accomplished that without injuring RS while preventing any injury to innocent drivers or pedestrians, or to RS's family members. Seems like an outstanding outcome to me, under the circumstances, and not a source for criticism.

It is clear you are completely uninterested in questioning the dominant narrative that you have been fed your whole life and so I don't find it surprising that you are more concerned about the term "violence workers" than about the impact of that violence on others. You probably are not interested in finding out how many people with mental illness the police kill each year, either. After all, we can just slap the cops on the back each time they don't kill someone. If you're their buddy that is, else it is felony. I didn't mean to bother you with book recommendations. Feel free to mute me.

[JustAnotherFan]

I'm glad others here have pointed out that it is in no way universally believed that we need violence workers to respond to mental health situations. Just because society has accepted certain ways of doing something (driven often by the desire to maintain social control) does not mean that those are necessarily the most effective, safest, or even reasonable ways of doing something. I recently read and highly recommend Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis, which highlights the decisions people within the criminal justice system make and how it is so often divorced from anything that is concerned with public safety.

If folks want to better understand why abolitionists have been working so hard to remove police from situations they may want to start with We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba, or for a less radical, more deliberate checking off of the ways we need less policing they can read The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale. 

Thanks to all those who were measured in their response to this incident, and who provided grace to one of our fellow alums.

Obviously your continued reference to police as "violence workers" indicates your overall position and bias. But more to the point you exclusively refer to a "mental health situation" without acknowledging that this was also a "public safety situation." RS appears to have consumed a bottle of Hennessy and a bottle of vodka, driven his vehicle until he crashed it (rendering it temporarily unusable) and then walked two miles to his in-laws' house and attempted to kick the door in. If a social worker or mental health professional are dispatched, what do they do if RS rejects their assistance and acquires another vehicle (or manages to restart his vehicle) and hits the road again? Enforcing drunk driving laws seems like a fundamental and vital police function. Taking RS into custody is absolutely necessary to prevent harm not only to himself but to others, and I fail to see how a social worker would have accomplished this. Are you arguing that drunk drivers shouldn't be detained, out of compassion for the issues that may have precipitated their drinking?

I believe that I am being very compassionate and sensitive to RS's possible mental health struggles, but where is similar concern for potential victims of his drunk driving, or for his in-laws who surely were terrified? perhaps I am misunderstanding your posts, because we can certainly agree on the need in these situations for multi-agency response (police and mental health professionals) or at a minimum much more extensive training of police. But I am mystified by the notion that police weren't required to take a severely inebriated and unstable individual into custody. They accomplished that without injuring RS while preventing any injury to innocent drivers or pedestrians, or to RS's family members. Seems like an outstanding outcome to me, under the circumstances, and not a source for criticism.

It is clear you are completely uninterested in questioning the dominant narrative that you have been fed your whole life and so I don't find it surprising that you are more concerned about the term "violence workers" than about the impact of that violence on others. You probably are not interested in finding out how many people with mental illness the police kill each year, either. After all, we can just slap the cops on the back each time they don't kill someone. If you're their buddy that is, else it is felony. I didn't mean to bother you with book recommendations. Feel free to mute me.