Latest Breaking News

Over the past couple years, more cities (like here in Philly) have been adding "mental health counselors" and specially-trained police officers so that instead of hauling off and shooting someone who is, as the terminology goes, "having a mental heath episode", they will have counselors and/or someone who is trained and available to go to the scene to assist other officers, and can hopefully diffuse the situation.

E.g., - CRISIS INTERVENTION TEAM (CIT) OFFICERS

There have been far too many instances where a family member will call the police when one of their relatives is having a psychotic episode, and then when the police arrive, the caller will usually try to alert the cops with something like - "He's mental!! He's mental!!!"... Yet the police, who have little or no training on how to deal with that, will fire some weapon (taser or gun) and will often kill the individual immediately if the person lunges at them. In some cases, the individual in crises might have other disabilities like a hearing impairment, etc., so they will not respond to commands, further infuriating an officer.

So there is so much that needs to be done in the area of "policing" to make it more effective and less lethal.