I find something darkly depressing and comedic about how we try to prevent people from shooting themselves by sending people with guns to help them.

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JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> how we try to prevent people from shooting themselves by sending people with guns to help them

People with guns are still people. Having anyone there will reduce harm in more cases than it escalates. Suicide is usually an impulse a lonely person who is otherwise perfectly sane carries out in the absence of intervention.

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ryandrake 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Replace the phrase "people with guns" with "institutional violence" because that's what the police are. When police are called to the scene, the intention of the caller is violence, not to help. If the intention was help, then actual helpers would be called instead.

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WarmWash 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If you watched random police encounters for 6 hours a day (pretty much everything is bodycam'ed nowadays), every day for the rest of your life, you would see about 1 police killing video per decade, and probably never see a police murder.

Don't let headlines and internet rage detach you from reality.

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JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> the intention of the caller is violence, not to help

This is mostly nonsense. Most cases where wellness checks result in a tragic outcome did not stem from the caller having violent intentions.

> If the intention was help, then actual helpers would be called instead

I believe clinician-led wellness checks are more effective than police-led ones [1]. But it’s untrue that police-led interventions are unhelpful. Not every person or community has a healthcare contact who will personally conduct a check. If the choice is between no check and a cop, you’ll save lives with the latter.

[1] https://www.proquest.com/openview/5504a2f3d69ee782daddda0ce1...

	▲	cucumber3732842 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>This is mostly nonsense. Most cases where wellness checks result in a tragic outcome did not stem from the caller having violent intentions. No, it's not. What's the point of the police? They bark orders that are backed by violence. The caller doesn't "mean" to add violence to a situation in the same way my racist grandma doesn't "mean" to be racist simply through her choice of vocabulary. This is completely tangential to suicide by cop. Even if the cops themselves smart enough not to escalate straight to a shootout they will apply increasing violence until you comply or die. It's literally their job. The degree to which police led interventions are helpful is mostly a reflection of officers and departments understanding that they need to behave like EMTs on those calls rather than cops and the people who they are being called on being compliant.

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keybored 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Armed cops actively escalating the situation will help someone suicidal?

The cops in my country do work that is not about catching criminals, like leading search and rescure operations. Apparently not a problem. Apparently now these particular police have started carrying weapons as a matter of course. So that’s a bad development for a regular, peaceful presence. But overall we seem okay with the regime.

So I don’t have some personal feeling that violence is about to erupt because the police are nearby.

But I don’t see how this helps for those particular locales where the population (or segments of it) only associate active police involvement with escalation.

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hirvi74 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> People with guns are still people

No one is questioning that police are people.

> Having anyone there will reduce harm in more cases than it escalates

That was never the point I was arguing against. I was arguing against which people are there.

> Suicide is usually an impulse a lonely person who is otherwise perfectly sane carries out in the absence of intervention.

I do not believe that in the slightest. There is an array of causes from physical illnesses, mental illnesses, spiritual beliefs, political beliefs, to even cultural beliefs. Sure, loneliness can contribute in some cases, but it does not hold a candle to conditions like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance abuse, etc..