Report the Police

Defunding the Police

In early 2020, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said "At 3am when somebody's wielding a knife and they're suffering from a mental health crisis, that is not the time to bring in mental health practitioners." So is it okay to bring in mental health practitioners if this crisis happened at 5pm instead...?
We need to ask how many times a week, a month, a year compared to total mental health calls has the RCMP responded to a "mental health crisis" at 3am, where the person is in a "mental health crisis" and is wielding a knife, gun or another object which will cause harm?
Usually police escalate the agitation felt by the patient rather than providing a safe environment that one might need to regain control of themselves. A mental health worker is typically trained on how to allow others to get control of themselves.
There are examples of programs, like CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregan, where health professionals respond to mental health calls instead of police.
It might be an idea to try to use unmarked police cars with officers in regular clothes to show up just in case something goes in the wrong direction.

We think it needs to be drilled into the heads of people and especially into the heads of people with a mental illness that if the police is called on you, you need to keep your hands raised over your head or you need to lay on the ground with your hands and feet spread apart. It should not be like that however the police are able to shoot you and get away with it if they feel threatened. If you are carrying a knife or gun just drop it on the ground. Don't point a gun or knife at the police officer because you will loose the battle.
We think that the mental health offices need to repeatedly remind their patients to not be confrontational with the police, because they will loose the battle. The patient's loved ones, whether its parents or siblings, that if they see a change in the patient's characteristics then the mental health team should be contacted before it escalates to someone calling the police on the patient.
If the patient comes off their medication then the withdrawl effects might be even worse than when they started medication and their behavior might also be hard to control which could result in the police being called by either the family member or someone in the public. Usually the police won't know how to handle this type of situation or the patient will get more agitated when they see the police and the situation gets out of control. If the situation does get out of control then the police will win and the patient may suffer some type of injury most likely a physical injury while being restrained or death. If the person does survive they probably will be traumatized.

In 2016 Soleiman Fariqi was killed by jail guards in a jail cell in Ontario as was suffering a mental health crisis as was William Ahmo in Manitoba in 2021. A nurse testified that Soleiman was calm when she spoke to him before jail guards took him and about 45 minutes later he was dead. This example, as others, show that it is better for mental health nurses to deal with a mental health crisis because they are trained in it unlike law enforcement.

So the message is to just cooperate with the police.