Comment by miltonlost a day ago
Part of the problem is we have police doing far too many jobs. We need to separate out traffic enforcement, mental health responses, and other works into their own focused units. Especially the mental health responses, as far too often police refuse to or (at best) don't know how to de-escalate in those situations.
It’s also expensive training and on-going cost when you add it all up.
Canada budgeted the cost of arming its border officers at ~$1 billion.
In the first 10 years, they fired them 18 times. 11 were accidents and the rest were against animal, usually to euthanize it rather than defend.
Works out to ~$55 million per bullet.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-guards-guns-1.4...
The current Democratic nominee and frontrunner for NYC mayor plans to do exactly that! He plans to create a Department of Community Safety to take over mental health responses from NYPD.
I agree we need to separate these responsibilities, but when it comes to mental health response, the police themselves are often opposed to alternatives, even while they complain that they're not mental health providers and often can't do anything in those types of situations.
In my city, we've had an underfunded street response program for a few years now, but a lot of people (including a lot of people who don't live here) see it as antagonistic to police and police funding, when really it should just be part of a holistic system to address social issues.
It makes no sense to me that the people who ostensibly care the most about addressing crime and "disorder" on the streets are often the most oppositional to programs that might actually address some of the underlying issues (not all of course, but some).
As a paramedic, multiple times I've watched police walk into a mental health emergency that we were handing satisfactorily, to everyone's contentment, patient, family, bystanders...
... and escalate it into a law enforcement situation.
One situation sticks in my mind. Person had broken a glass bottle on a curb. Family member was sweeping and cleaning that up while we dealt with laceration and planning for in-patient help (they were off their meds).
LE shows up, and immediately starts yelling aggressively at the patient about the broken glass, liability for any tires, injuries. Patient makes some comments back, so LE gets in his face and yells more, leads to patient trying to push off a bit and saying "get out of my face", cop is arresting him for assaulting a police officer.
Only with me and my partner talking to the Sergeant who showed up shortly after did it get de-escalated, but better believe the cop (and even the Sergeant) weren't happy with us about it.
Bringing a gun and a taser to every problem guarantees that a lot of problems will be "solved" with the wrong tools. It's impossible to train enough people to carry guns and tasers and use them wisely.