Political Memes

I think you're right but for the wrong reasons - I think it would be an absolute net positive effect but I still think the lines should be drawn between policing and social work and healthcare issues. Fair warning, I'm from the UK which has it's own issues with policing but nothing on the clusterfuck scale as it is across the pond.

Sending police officers (and ambulance staff, maybe even coastguard - in the civilian sense, not the American branch of the military) to do two or four weeks of social work attachment would work wonders. It would provide a great insight into the difficulties and behaviours of those in social or mental crisis, and give more soft tools to recognise and resolve issues.

That said, it shouldnt be policing agencies going to social work or mental health calls in the first place. People in crisis are often acting irrationally or unpredictably due to the very nature of the crisis they're experiencing, and when a lethal weapon is an optional available to the responders, then you'll have a less than spectacular outcome on occasions.

Ideally, additional funding should be centered around social work and mental health teams - perhaps having first responders for both so you don't have cops wading in with the best of intentions, and confronting something they aren't the best people to be dealing with - where a mental health ambulance or a social work rapid response team would bring a welfare call to a far safer conclusion.

I absolutely get that my view is very UK-skewed but if you keep putting armed cops into situations like that - then the public will get hurt, cops will get hurt, the taxpayer coughs up a fortune in legal costs .. all of which could fund better ways to respond to the homeless, the stressed, the neurodiverse, and other non-criminal issues that people phone in with good intentions.