“Do the Lives of the Mentally Ill Matter to the Supreme Court?”

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Slate reports on some of the proceedings at the US Supreme Court, as the Court considers whether police in the field should have to “accommodate” people who seem to have a mental disability.

“The case could settle the extent to which the Americans With Disabilities Act serves as a check on police officers’ interactions with people with mental illnesses,” reports Slate. “The law demands local governments to provide ‘reasonable accommodations’ to individuals with disabilities, and courts have interpreted that guarantee to include arrests — that is, police should take into account the people’s disabilities when taking them into custody. But the law isn’t uniform across the board on whether cops should make such accommodations if the arrestee exhibits violent or erratic behavior…”

Reasonable Accommodations (Slate, March 25, 2015)

6 COMMENTS

  1. People have so much diversity they deserve equal protection under the 14th amendment.

    Its to be expected a citizen will disagree with detainment, mihht not understand detainment, and will act erratically. The police have known it the whole time and have ignored it in favor of brutality and murders of citizens.

    To large degree, failures to listen, understand, comprehend, failure to heed directions, and aggressive moves will happen.

    Police need to be trained to give subjects free space, to back up and move away and to then restrain peacefully during such incidents rather than aggressively emgage or shoot to kill.

    In many of the incidents officers could have acted differently, could have merely backed up and given the suspect some space, could have used more peaceful options .. but repeatedly refuse to do so.

    When a known schizophrenic has a knife but is standing 20 feet away for example with 20 officers surrounding, … why dsdo they all shoot to kill with no negotiation, no attempt to calm him, no attempt to peacefully resolve it, no attempt to try other restraint methods..

    Why when a bipolar guy has a screw driver and the mom calls police informing the cops of his condition, and guy shows up at door with screw driver, do cops shoot to kill rather than back up or give the guy some space rather than to feel threatened, etc?

    The cops bring this on expecting citizens to care aboit them. people really dont have to care about cops at all, and may be off in their own little world, therefore cops do need to take this into how they engage citizens and total strangers with force.

    http://www.drrobertduncan.com

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    • I happen to know that healthcare workers, police, emergency responders are trained to do whatever it takes for their own shelfish safety and that they all feel they are not supposed to take even a single punch, act of aggression, or anything before they feel deadly force, drugging, and other violent abuse is necessary. I had a psychologist psyd, wife of a DA, worked at sheriffs office before she got her doctorate, she defended their actions and brutality to no end as if it was always right and all that mattered was their safety as the end of the day. With them being trained and feeling like that, the citizens ARE in danger, and they will be getting hurt, and things need to change.

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      • If you are a police officer sitting in a cop car, and there is a (1) one criminal in the hundreds passing by, you don’t know which one it is. You the police officer have a big sign on you, identifying you work for law. The police officer is essentially a “sitting duck” for the hardened criminal to shoot at. So a paranoid attitude towards the public (by the police) is understandable in my opinion.

        What police are missing is nets. They used to use nets back in the Roman Gladiator days. Today they got to shoot someone with something.

        If the suspect/perpetrator has no firearm or motor-vehicle , there is no reason for deadly force.

        The subject of this article is the individual under arrest being able to understand why they are under arrest. Some people refuse authority or purpose, some are too stupid to know you must obey the man/woman with the badge.

        Politically incorrect to call people stupid today, but there are two kinds of stupid people who disobey the police.

        The police assume the person is willfully disobeying.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHZMoPV1rog

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  2. On the news today is the video of a cop shooting a person for no good reason, then planting the stun-gun to support his shooting.

    I was asking yesterday “Do they have enough watchers to watch the watchers?”

    Yes , we do. The camera is cheap enough to put everywhere and soon every law enforcement person will have to have one watching his/her actions when they are on duty.

    If the video shows the officer did not identify himself, or ask the “mentally ill” person if he/she sees the badge and uniform he is wearing, it show the officer did not show due diligence when arresting someone.

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