To follow your comment, numerous veterans un-able to get support locally through their VA office have used the line as a last ditch effort to get support. Knowing you are suffering from a mental health issue isn't the same as being suicidal.
>On the night of February 2, 2010, suffering from sleep deprivation, he inadvertently phoned the National Suicide Hotline when dialing a number he thought to be a Veterans Crisis Line.
Veterans Crisis Line is a suicide prevention hotline setup by the VA for Vets. So yeah he called the wrong suicide prevention line but he still intended to call suicide prevention.
As I understand it, and I checked their "About" page to make sure [0], their focus is broader and they want you to call them well before suicidal thoughts, which is why they don't have "suicide" in the name.
> In 2011, the National Veterans Suicide Prevention Hotline was renamed the Veterans Crisis
> Line to encourage Veterans and their families and friends to make the call. People who know
> a Veteran best may be the first to recognize emotional distress and reach out for support
> when issues reach a crisis point — and well before a Veteran is at risk of suicide.
Splitting semantic hairs. The name changed, but the phone number didn't; the goal is still suicide prevention, but with an attempt to avoid the stigma that comes with "suicide" in the name.
It is not "splitting hairs"! Did you read the article? There is a difference between acute suicide prevention and general prevention! You would not expect the kind of reaction that he got when calling this hotline, because they don't assume an immediate case of suicide that they have to send police to without delay!
I would agree that they handle more than suicide response, but I would disagree that they are not primarily suicide response. If you call not in immediate crisis it sounds like they are going to refer you to the closest suicide prevention coordinator. From their when to call page:
>If you’re thinking of hurting yourself, looking for ways to kill yourself, or becoming self-destructive, don’t continue to face it alone. Contact the Veterans Crisis Line immediately...
>For Veterans NOT in immediate crisis:
>Help is always available. Suicide Prevention Coordinators are at all VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) nationwide and work closely with Veterans dealing with mental health conditions and with difficult life events and experiences.
He wasn't suicidal, he just called the suicide hotline by accident.
I'm not too surprised that the suicide hotline had trouble handling someone who wasn't suicidal. I called one once, trying to figure out how to help a mentally ill person who had been e-mailing me. They weren't exactly the appropriate place to call, but this person was in another country and they were the first people I could think of to at least point me in the right direction. They did help, but they also kept asking me questions like, "does this make you suicidal?" Strange experience, although it did work out fine in the end for me.
He called the right number. The Veterans' Crisis Line and National Suicide Hotline are the same phone numbers (1-800-273-8255). When you call that number, you need to press 1 at the audio prompt to switch over to the line specific to veterans.
Nice to see the courts doing the right thing here... While I feel that most Police Officers are mostly good, and that a lot of the anti-police rhetoric exceeds reasonable; I do believe it's become a systemic issue wrt Police organizations exceeding their positions and violating the rights of the people they are meant to serve.
From the comments on the site: "One of the facts that bothers me most -- other than the officers behavior -- is that this comes from the APPEALS court. The District court apparently found no problem with the violation of his constitutional rights."
Not necessarily? It seems reasonable the MPD could & would have appealed if the district ruled against, especially given this case hadn't made national media. And although there were egregious comments made, this is the kind of situation where precedent and judicial restraint almost always ends up favoring the PD.
Edit: District court did rule in MPD's favor. Which isn't surprising of course. Still, wouldn't have been surprised if MPD appealed had it gone against them, for above mentioned reasons.
The court opinion is linked in the first paragraph of the article. It begins
> [Corrigan] now appeals the grant of summary judgment to the defendants, challenging the district court’s rulings that there was no constitutional violation and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
Also interesting is how close this case was: the appeals court panel was split 2-1. The dissenting judge agrees that there was a constitutional violation, but says this law was not "clearly established" so the officers should have immunity. It goes to show how low the qualified immunity bar is.
Some of it... An example I saw regarding a restaurant offering meals to uniformed police... depending on jurisdiction this may be considered a bribe, and not allowed. It really just depends on the specific case.
For the most part, most cops are mostly good... there are some very bad apples out there, and some jurisdictions are definitely worse than others.
Have you ever seen what happens when you leave a bad apple in with a bunch of good apples? Very quickly, the entire bunch of apples is bad.
That's why we have the whole saying about "bad apples".
It utterly amazes me that people constantly use this "bad apples" expression without understanding this. Anyone who eats apples should have this basic understanding about bad apples.
Anyway, from what I can tell, whether cops are good or bad is basically department-wide: either a department has decent cops, or they're all horrible and complicit. It's exactly like the "bad apples" analogy, and it depends on the leadership of the department. Notice that it's usually the same departments that come up over and over in the news.
If police use excessive force and fuck a guy's constitutional 'bullshit' then they can stand some more 'excessive, yet Constitutionally protected bullshit' in return. phew.
I wouldn't even call it inexcusable. The police are allowed to enter a private residence to prevent a person from harming themselves or others, and they had received a report, which they had no reason to believe was untrue, stating that the guy was suicidal and had a gun.
Even assuming, without deciding, that the initial “sweep” of Corrigan’s home [was justified], the second top-to-bottom search by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit (“EOD”) after the MPD had been on the scene for several hours was not.
EOD officers cut open every zipped bag, dumped onto the floor the contents of every box and drawer, broke into locked boxes under the bed and in the closet, emptied shelves into piles in each room, and broke into locked boxes containing Corrigan’s three firearms. [..] the police had left the contents of his bureau drawers and shelves scattered on the floor, his electric stove had been left on, and the front door of his home was left unlocked.
Did you even read the article? They searched his home twice after he had already shown he wasn't a danger to himself or anyone else and wasn't inside the house. The second time they trashed the place. The whole point of the article is that the US Court of Appeals says the exact opposite of what you're asserting here: the searches were not reasonable.
"Because it was (and is) clearly established that law enforcement officers must have an objectively reasonable basis for believing an exigency justifies a warrantless search of a home, and because no reasonable officer could have concluded such a basis existed for the second more intrusive search, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity across the board."
He left his home voluntarily and agreed to treatment. The police then broke into his residence after they had the supposed suicidal person in custody and ransacked the place.
I wouldn't call it inexcusable, I'd simply call it criminal.
> the bias and anti-police rhetoric in the article is excessive
Police have the hardest job in America BUT that does not mean anything negative to police is bias. What positive spin could you possibly give this issue with the police or the lower courts?
I'm sure there are a few professions that would disagree. Air Traffic Controller comes to mind immediately. And before you say something about cops having to face the threat of death, most cops never even come close to that. Conversely, every ATC is responsible for thousands of lives daily.
The real problem here is that these cops were not immediately arrested for home invasion and the abuse of his Constitutional rights. Why is this limited to a civil suit? These cops acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally and should be criminally charged.
Ha, you must not be from around here. Don't get me wrong, I agree in principle, but an on-duty cop getting arrested AT THE SCENE of their misconduct? Sadly, it's impossible to imagine. Even when they kill someone in the most egregious circumstances, they're immediately given a celebratory cigarette, wrapped up in a blanket, passed off to union handlers, and coddled for at least 24 hours before even having to acknowledge that they might have done something wrong.
Didn't say they were the problem, just pointing out that that's what happens. But I don't agree with your second statement. Unions heavily influence those policies during collective bargaining.
That would require a widespread acceptance of libertarian ideals of justice, which is not present in society.
People respond to incentives. Giving any individual any sort of immunity against laws that apply to everyone else will ultimately lead to the worst abuses. How many will we never hear about?
This sort of story will continue to appear until there is a systemic change.
Libertarianism deals with the rights of the individual over those of the state. This is authoritarianism in action, which is essentially what people advocate when they argue against libertarianism.
It's not about the rights of the individuals OVER those of the state. It's about the fundamental belief of liberty which our Founders made a core tenet. Everyone is entitled to personal liberty and freedom so long as they don't infringe on the liberty of others.
So you can't compel a doctor to provide healthcare, whether you think it's a good thing or not.
Libertarians are for state's rights. You can be for both individual rights & liberty AND state's rights. That's perfectly inline with the Constitution.
And votes may go against individual liberty at the state level, but at least that's the proper domain for most decisions and it's local.
Note that I'm using the term "state" in the abstract sense, not as shorthand for states' rights in the US-specific sense.
It would have been better if I'd referred to "the rights of the individual over the powers of the state," since the original intent behind the Constitution and its amendments was to enumerate the latter but not the former. Once again, though, this has nothing to do with the dichotomy between federal powers and those reserved to the individual US states.
Libertarian ideology is based on the classical liberal tradition that each person has the a priori right to life, liberty, and property. Since you have these rights, you may dispose of your person and property as you see fit as long as you do not infringe upon these rights of another. This leads to the non-aggression principle, which in bumper sticker form is "don't hurt people and don't take their stuff." Basically, the initiation of violence is prohibited unless it is in defense of property or as punishment for a crime.
All individuals in society should be treated equally under the law, including members of law enforcement and others within the government. If I am not allowed to commit violence against you until you have been convicted of a crime, neither should anyone else, whether or not they wear a police uniform. Indeed, libertarianism advocates for private, rather than public, police forces.
> what is the ideology that lacks them
Statism in all forms grants special privilege to members of the government, including the power to tax and hold monopoly on the use of force. The US criminal code is full of exceptions for on-duty police officers, judges, and others, especially regarding firearms laws. Police officers can carry firearms into school buildings where others are guilty of a felony if they do, for instance. Thus you have inequality under the law. Such police immunity is what leads to the abuses we see every day.
I'm not arguing against your point, but most western countries manage to have a more or less competent police without such adherence to libertarianism. Maybe is easiest to implement, they have done so.
Thanks for the elaboration. I don't entirely agree with you though. On on one hand you are right, libertarinism does strongly oppose the existence of a state force with rights that common citizens don't have. On the other, many other political mindsets have different sets of checks and balances to avoid this kind of situations. They are all fallible in different ways, and I doubt libertarianism is the exception. At the end of the day a system will follow the morals of those with de facto power, and power will arise even in the face of non-existent power structures.
Yes, but only if they organize pronto. Recall that direct interference in a nominally lawful police activity is obstruction of justice and itself a prosecutable crime.
Don't physically try to stop the police. That's going to cause trouble. But if they're doing something out of line, record it if you can. If they tell you to stop, you can claim that you have the legal right to do so. If they continue to tell you to stop, stop. But still watch if you can.
Note well: IANAL. This is not legal advice. In particular, if anyone with real knowledge wants to correct the "If they tell you to stop, you can claim that you have the legal right to do so" part, feel free.
> Recall that direct interference in a nominally lawful police activity is obstruction of justice and itself a prosecutable crime.
This is the metapolice we're talking about, not the police. The metapolice have no jurisdiction over ordinary citizens. Now, if police were to interfere in lawful metapolice activity, that would be one hell of a crime.
Seems like this would produce some naturally bad incentives.
My guess is you would see both sides work the system in concert in a way that protects the 'core' members of both. If there are incentives to 'bust' members of the other team, they could always just hire patsies specifically to be groomed and sacrificed as an exchange with the other side.
The alternative is two sides fighting a war of escalation which would likely encourage scary corrupt behavior. "Those guys busted Johnny for some minor offense, so lets go get some dirt on one of their guys, or plant it. Can't let them think they can just mess with us"
This is going by the current us vs them mentality of the police forces.
> This is going by the current us vs them mentality of the police forces.
If that is so, then at least if both "us" and "them" are heavily armed cops with warrior mentalities, they'd focus less of their aggression on the general public.
To prevent regulatory capture/tit-for-tat/spontaneous alliances, I would think that we need a loop at least three agencies long; Police A watches Police B who watches Police C who watches Police A. We also need proper incentives for all of them to act appropriately. Otherwise they will be either overzealous or lackadaisical.
And, you know, you'd only really need one of them to actually police civilians; in fact it's probably better that way. And then you could split up rulemaking and dispute resolution responsibilities between the other two since they will suddenly have more free time. This is a really good idea; why have we never tried this before?!
If one of the agencies has an effective monopoly, it would be almost meaningless to police them since they can't be replaced since they have no competition. (Yes, yes, I know what you meant.)
Well most police departments of any size have an internal affairs bureau whose specific job is to police the rest of the police force. Naturally this is fraught with social risk, but it can be a fast track to leadership roles.
the other option is a higher jurisdiction, eg state police investigating sheriff's deputies or municipal police, or federal law enforcement like the FBI investigating bad actors at the state or major metro level.
That last option is about to get turned inside out, though.
Is violating the Constitution a criminal offense?
These officers violated the law in service of the State, as agents of the State, not for personal gain or motive.
It's not at all clear that the officers are the criminals here, and not their chief, their mayor, their governor. Holding the system/state accountable is a complicated question. Civil suits are a relatively flexible tool.
When you look at police shootings, for example, we pursue criminal charges when the officers show personal malice or "hate crime", not when they shoot in accordance with their training and the department's overall use-of-force principles. It's hard to show that it's correct to throw individual officers in jail for following the will of "the People overall" and the local Executive.
Violating the Constitution is not a criminal offense but breaking down someone's door and entering their house without their permission is. Back in the early 19th century this would have meant that the law officers were criminally liable for what they did.
Prosecutors work closely with police, and the chief prosecutor in a jurisdiction has to stand for re-election on a regular basis. A prosecutor who cracks down on police abuses is often committing career suicide.
Since judges and police are both part of the state apparatus, the long-term trend will be toward cooperation at the expense of liberty for the citizenry. The path for correcting the incentives is removing one or both from the state through privatization. See the discussion on libertarianism in a sibling comment.
It absolutely is, I'm opposed to the election of prosecutos and judges because the electorate is really not competent to make such decisions and reversing ones that turn out badly is next to impossible.
I think it would be a good idea to have a separate, independent group of prosecutors and law enforcement officers whose sole job was to police the police.
Obviously funding and regulatory-capture would be a problem, but maybe that can be mitigated somehow.
I agree, though I would say the contempt is not consciously cultivated - and one certainly doesn't become a cop if one has strong anti-establishment beliefs. Rather, I think it comes from the dissonance introduced by internalizing the 'warrior mentality' which creates a fantastical perception of the cop's reality as an endless war against unremitting criminality. In such a reality, the barriers created by "constitutional bullshit" could very well be the difference between life and death to the warrior, who is taught that they and their comrades survival is the most important goal at all times. So they come to resent such checks on their power as being imposed by clueless bureaucrats and overly idealistic citizens who don't appreciate the harsh reality of life on the battlefield.
ADDED: I missed that, to date, to my knowledge and from what I've just been reviewing, none of the police in these cases have been so much as criminally charged.
Yes, that indeed shows it didn't happen in the US.
If you read the quoted portion of his comment, you'll see he's talking about the officers being sentenced, not the offense happening in the first place.
Always trying to deny. Racism is absolutely a strong dimension in LEO misbehavior. I have no doubt had be been Black the entire tenor of the reporting would have been replete with character assassination and rationalizations of the police actions.
I wish you hadn't advocated violence, because your first sentence raised a good point. Where were the good cops, who we are assured comprise the majority, and who should have arrested these allegedly rare "bad apples"?
If there is no good cops then what we have is an armed gang going around robbing and shooting people on the street. Violence has always been considered an OK solution to that.
Of course, one would hope that the idea that there exists no good cops to arrest the bad cops is as absurd as it sounds. When you take a look though, you'll quickly realise that internally the good cops are the "bad apples".
To be fair, this is all probably just the natural outcome of how police departments are built. Putting people in these positions of power with no system built to effectively scrutinise their actions is inevitably going to lead to large scale corruption.
Probably keeping their heads low because once you "turn" on another cop -- even if that cop is shooting up a crowd of people with a machine gun while eating babies -- other cops feel that they can't trust you anymore. If they make a mistake, any mistake, you will just "tattle" on them.
The very idea that the police would return to the house without cause or warrant and search it - which is a grotesque constitutional violation - reflects an attitude of hostility and opposition to the community the police are supposed to literally "protect and serve."
I'm increasingly of the belief that the domestic police in the United States shouldn't even be called a force, they should be called a service. They should not carry firearms, and they should not receive primarily military training. They should be well paid and receive aggressive financial incentives to continue their education. They should always be wearing a body cam when on duty.
There will always be a need for armed police at some point, but that point is not the streets, and not daily response to mundane events.
One caveat to this: from the data I've seen a lot of these issues revolve around specific communities. Please keep in mind that police forces are not national, but rather local.
We also see some of the same patterns internationally. One might even venture a guess that the power the is inherently given to perform police duties has a universal appeal towards abuse that affects many humans in the same way...
Which is why I see it less as an American police problem versus an American police culture problem.
The bad cop stereotype is universal. But America's current police culture in my opinion encourages bad cop behavior. The culture is way too military-oriented versus community oriented at the moment. It is hard to "protect and serve" your community if you are always at "war" with some "enemy". This case is a perfect example of that.
but the usa has very local police forces many of which are tiny forces and have much less oversight than a centrally managed force as is common in the EU and UK
This is the perfect dilemma to bring to people who back police 100%. Who are they going to defend? The Police or the War Veteran?
Clearly the local police made various constitutional violations against a suicidal war veteran and they trashed his place and left it for him to come back to. How jaded and unconcerned?
Sadly one of my former employees left and joined the war and while there lost a buddy in Iraq. After being home for 12 months he took his life leaving all of us in shock. If police did that to a hero who are they willing to go for bat for????
Just to clarify the Veteran Crisis Hot line was renamed in 2011 from the Veteran Suicidal Prevention Line.
If he was suicidal it even makes the actions of the police even worse. The whole issue is not the initial interactions with the police nor their initial entree into the home. The issue is the second and third entree into his home and unconstitutional search of his home. This occurred hours after the first search was conducted and the subject was getting medical treatment.
>> In 2011, the National Veterans Suicide Prevention Hotline was renamed the Veterans Crisis Line to encourage Veterans and their families and friends to make the call. People who know a Veteran best may be the first to recognize emotional distress and reach out for support when issues reach a crisis point — and well before a Veteran is at risk of suicide.
"If police did that to a hero who are they willing to go for bat for????"
No one. This should be obvious if you're living in the US. Even if you've never had an encounter with police, watch ANY cop show, especially the reality ones. Every roughly 20-30 seconds you will hear some cop talk about how dangerous the job is (it really isn't) and how their main objective is to get back to their family. The police does not give a fuck about you and they certainly will not "stand up" for you if you are in danger. They will get back home to their families at all costs, including your own life. The rest of the "serve and protect" bullshit is for rubes and other idiots who are dumb enough to believe it and whose parents did them a huge disservice by not teaching them about one of the gravest dangers of American society.
I can personally vouch that not all police are like this. I have a handful of family friends who are/or were police officers and they very strongly embody the values of "serve and protect." Honestly, they would give their life if necessary to save a life however they obviously would try to avoid death. So while there are definitely horrible police officers, there are definitely a great deal of honest ones as well.
Rather than rally against the police in general, we really should focus on identifying the sources of the horrible ones and how to develop more of the honest officers. Personally I believe this can only occur through transparency and accountability but that's just my 2 cents.
I agree. The only way to fix this is to remove immunity for all cops in all cases and start holding them responsible like we do regular citizens, if not to even more stringent rules. This is first and foremost a cultural problem however, one that is so ingrained in culture, especially legal culture, that I see no way of making headway. When a judge automatically believes what a police officer says and a police officer's testimony is worth more than a regular citizen's testimony in court, you're looking at challenging the whole system of justice we have as unfair, biased, and broken. I don't see a path to any reform that doesn't hit that conclusion in this country, especially when you're talking about reforming police or getting on a path to fair trials/sentencing. In the meantime, the cultural biases that lead to this are so strong and so highly ingrained, reinforced by racism and other divisive hate, that you'd have to throw out the whole idea of trial by jury (which is extremely outdated and especially unjust in modern society) to make headway.
I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying, until you have truly revolutionary change, all cops will be perceived as the absolute danger to life, limb, and property that they potentially are. That is unfortunate for the good ones, but that's life. I don't go around questioning whether members of other gangs like the Bloods or Crips have ill intent for me, so I certainly will not question whether members of the biggest, most heavily armed, most dangerous gang in the US have ill intent for me. I just assume they do because the majority do.
Actually, I'd worry less about the Bloods and the Crips: they're businesspeople, and as long as you aren't involved in their business (pushing drugs), you probably don't have too much to worry about. The police are a different story, because to them, we're all "the enemy".
While certainly true that not all cops are bad, my personal experience shows that it's not at all rare, either. Or if they're not "bad", at least they don't behave with the respect and responsibility that should attend the power they wield.
A really significant portion of my "official" interactions with police have been negative. I've listed these here before:
- I watched a friend being roughed up by cops. (not beaten, but physically pushed around) for absolutely no reason.
- I've had evidence of a traffic violation fabricated against me. (full disclosure: I was guilty, but that doesn't excuse lying about evidence)
- I've had police at a traffic stop curse at me and throw my documents. (I understand why he felt this way, but it was due to him making assumptions, starting with a belligerent attitude, and misreading the situation)
- Some older kids were physically bullying me and a friend. We went to a cop for help, and the extent of his aid was to say to us "better watch out, they'll probably hit you again".
Given the limited amount of interaction people normally have with police, the number of times this has happened to me says that I'm either a lightning rod for lousy cops, or the problem is more than just a few isolated bad eggs.
One of the challenges today is the number of military veterans to return from the Middle East and get jobs in law enforcement after their discharge. As a matter of habit and training, they pursue the police job like the military job: as a search for and battle with enemies.
But what communities want is a police force that provides safety to citizens, not one that fights enemies. There's a big difference between those mindsets.
It's not about being trigger-happy, it's the focus of thinking.
The military's job is to defeat enemies. If you are a soldier, enemies are people who want to kill you, the soldier. They're enemies when everyone wakes up and they're enemies when everyone goes to bed. So the soldiers' job in-country is to sort people into enemies and civilians; to defend civilians and kill enemies.
In the U.S., a police officer's job is to enforce the law. They are supposed to be policing behavior, not sorting people. Everyone is a civilian. A civilian who broke the law is not an enemy, and the justice system is not seeking to defeat them. The law is supposed to punish behavior in proportion to the crime, and in accordance with the written law.
Now of course it's not that simple; there are organized crime syndicates, like drug gangs or terrorist cells, who target police. But the reality is that those are a tiny tiny percentage of the population.
But law enforcement has spent a decade re-organizing itself to defeat them. That's how you get an "Emergency Response Team" (SWAT) setting up a secure perimeter and clearing houses around a sleepy veteran who just called for a little support, as in this story.
They didn't show up to help a veteran; they showed up to defeat an enemy.
Unfortunately in a society where a lot of citizens have fire arms, where gang culture exist this will not be possible at all. How many times police was shot on routine daily events? Police not carrying weapons is not realistic in USA.
agreed. if they are unarmed then they can forget about arresting people and bringing them into jail and in front of a judge. plenty of people are willing to kill to avoid that outcome.
> they can forget about arresting people and bringing them into jail and in front of a judge
Hyperbole much? I expect most arrests are done without firearms being drawn.
> plenty of people are willing to kill to avoid that outcome.
And plenty of people are willing to kill for other reasons too, which is why no one's discussing that zero police officers should carry firearms. What's being questioned is the policy of all of them doing it.
maybe most arrests happen that way, but you need to be prepared for any reasonable eventuality. apprehending people can be very dangerous. I see no reason why an officer would willingly go into that situation unprepared to defend him/herself with lethal force. having armed help a radio call away doesn't seem comforting when you're dealing with someone who's armed and angry now.
I would bet most shots at the police aren't because the criminal wants to straight up murder a police officer out of anger in the heat of the moment. Rather because he's scared, wants to flee, and his only option left for that is his gun.
It's a given here in the US that the moment you as much as appear to draw a gun at a cop, you're getting shot. So I don't think criminals even have to think about it to know that it's a "kill first or die" situation, once you're down that route. Now, if the criminal knows that the cop is unarmed, all of that changes: his gun is just leverage. He flees (or expels the cops off his house), which is undesirable; but then's when the situation can be escalated. No more "wild West" situations of "this guy might shoot me any moment, better be prepared to kill him for my life".
> if they are unarmed then they can forget about arresting people and bringing them into jail and in front of a judge. plenty of people are willing to kill to avoid that outcome.
I'm going to call bullshit on that. Proportionally few criminals are North Hollywood Shootout types that require lethal force to be subdued. I would think that a very large fraction of arrests can be accomplished with threats of extra legal penalties or physical man-handling.
If a patrolman is unarmed, he will not be perceived as a deadly threat by wrongdoers and thus will be less likely to be shot. And consider the current number of criminals apprehended without guns drawn. It is possible, even in the United States.
Certain officers and teams absolutely should well armed, but it should be a much smaller subset of the force. A call for deadly force should be an explicit, intentional escalation.
I watched a show on LA gangs and there are areas where the police don't even go anymore because the gangs are packing assault rifles.
If the police don't have any weapons, why would they patrol ANY area that might be dangerous?
Edit: I see you recognize that some should be armed. Perhaps you're right. Maybe its discretionary based on your patrol. They could deputize parking enforcement. Oh wait, that might be worse haha.
When shot during routine daily events, what makes it different from the criminal stumbling upon a postman, an unarmed private security guard, or just a regular unarmed person? We don't hear "postman shot when doing his routine"; so I wonder if the fact that the police is armed and authorized to kill you if necessary is actually contributing.
While I disagree with the premise that police officers in the US need guns 100% of the time, the general argument against
>what makes it different from the criminal stumbling upon a postman, an unarmed private security guard, or just a regular unarmed person?
Is that police officers jobs have them actively going towards and engaging these criminals, not just accidentally stumbling upon them like the postman.
A private security guard does too. And surely most of the time a police office is dealing with law-breakers that aren't violent, or that aren't carrying a firearm if they're violent?
What do you think a beat cop does on a daily basis that requires the threat of armed violence from that cop in particular?
"gang culture" and "lots of firearms" are not reasons for beat cops to be armed on a daily basis.
"how many times has a police officer been shot during routine daily events?" - this is not relevant. Having a gun does not protect you from being shot. Quite the opposite, in general.
If a police officer is attempting to make an arrest and experiences armed resistance, then it is of course necessary to have a small, dedicated part of the police force that is authorized to use firearms.
>> 76 law enforcement officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents in 2013. Of these, 27 law enforcement officers died as a result of felonious acts, and 49 officers died in accidents.
Most of those felonious killings were by gun.
>> In 2013, of the 49,851 officers assaulted while performing their duties, 29.2 percent were injured. The largest percentage of victim officers (31.2 percent) were assaulted while responding to disturbance calls. Assailants used personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) in 79.8 percent of the incidents, firearms in 4.5 percent of incidents, and knives or other cutting instruments in 1.8 percent of the incidents. Other types of dangerous weapons were used in 13.9 percent of assaults. Expanded assault details have been included in the 2013 publication. Data for assaults during which officers were injured with firearms or knives/other cutting instruments are located in new tables, figures, and selected narratives.
From this I don't know if the 4.5% of gun incidents refers to 4.5% of 49,851 officers assaulted, or to the 29.2% of those which were injured.
How many people are shot and killed by police each year? We don't know, the police don't count these numbers. How many people are shot and injured by police each year? Again, we don't know, because the police don't count these shootings.
It's also unfortunate that the police in many places have become accustomed to treating everyone like they were part of a heavily-armed gang. That's the police's problem, and they need to fix it, pronto.
I think it's a reasonable hypothesis that the ability to use lethal force with near impunity has enabled a police culture of maximum-confrontation. That culture is going to be hard to root out, and taking away the guns that enabled it (from most cops, and increasing scrutiny of who are still allowed to carry) could be a good start and do a lot of good.
< They should be well paid and receive aggressive financial < incentives to continue their education.
My buddy is a copy in a mid-size south florida town and is getting 6K retirement checks after 20 years of service and still working full time in the DROP program. I'd say he's fairly well paid for only high school education.
Having mental health problems is dangerous. Once again it shows that you must not let the state know in any way, shape or form, or else you can expect that they take rights away from you.
Very sad that someone calling with PTSD did not get help, but the opposite. 4th amendment violations happen all the time. It's good to see justice done here, the system worked (eventually). The upshot of this story is not so much that the police messed up, as occasionally happens with treagic result -- it is that veterans still are not getting quality care.
One thing not discussed yet here is that it also appears to me the National Suicide Hotline isn't even handling their calls correctly.
I'm clearly no suicide prevention expert, but questioning the caller on drug use, repeatedly demanding to put weapons (that are not even present) away, then calling a militant police force upon no response, shows that the Hotline isn't really being the sympathetic role they were initially intended to be.
As bad as this situation has been for veterans, it brings to light how poorly (IMO) they are handling citizens reaching out for help as well.
The drug use question is a reasonable one, at least in terms of active use. It has a significant impact on how you want to talk to someone, how at-risk they are, and yes, on what the police should be aware of if they're eventually contacted. It shouldn't ever go further if the person doesn't need a police visit, though.
Demanding that he "say the guns are down" sounds like stupid and alarming legalism. It strikes me as someone reading a script, unable to deal with an answer of "they were never up to begin with, and are locked away, can we move on".
And the whole thing... yes, the police can help with suicides. Yes, someone hanging up without explanation is a bad sign. But you can't fail to help people, then assume they're unstable for hanging up on you, then make wild and unjustified claims to the police.
As an initial thought, I would have expected the hotline to operate under the same privacy regulations as any other medical facility. At least in the absence of any warning otherwise.
This is why it's a terrible idea in the US to tell anyone about your problems, especially mental problems. Help is NOT out there unless you're extremely lucky and rich. Most likely, there are a bunch of goons like in this article waiting to pick you up, beat you up, and drop you off at the nearest jail. That's if they don't just kill you outright.
And the uninformed still wonder why we have so many problems with mental health and suicide in the US, a place where seeking help--even by accident--is likely to make things worse or even lead to death.
> Help is NOT out there unless you're extremely lucky and rich
There is, for sure. There are crisis centers that don't respond like that. They may not be common - so maybe some luck is involved - but there are people out there trying to help others.
This is hard to read. I volunteer at a crisis center, and just reading the description of how the phone volunteer handled the call made me cringe. In my experience, you don't call the cops just because they call the suicide hotline and have guns - I've experienced instances where callers call and aren't suicidal. I'd need a clear sense of intent before going out of my way to do that. I really hope this was just a one-off thing, and not at all how volunteers (if they are volunteers at all) treat callers on the suicide hotline.
If I perceive an imminent likelihood of an attempt, I'll generally start trying to get a location from them - it's not subtle, they'll know. Sometimes people will give it, other times they resist for whatever reason. For those that resist I will process that feeling that they have and then try again. They may even ask if I'll contact police, in which case I can't lie to them. Ultimately I may _never_ get a location, or I'll have an extremely ill-defined location - it's always up to the caller if that is information they want to give.
clarification: if it gets to the point where I suspect an attempt is likely, or if an attempt is happening, I will start working towards attempting to get location information. The first thing I usually do, however, is help the caller process their feelings to help build trust upfront, even in cases of high suicidality. Speed is of the essence though in certain circumstances.
the article fails to clarify this, but the number for the Veterans' Crisis Line and the National Suicide Hotline are the same (1-800-273-8255). When you call that number, you are prompted to press 1 to be redirected to the veterans line. In this case, Mr. Corrigan likely missed the prompt and got sent to the suicide hotline - a not uncommon experience for veterans.
It depends entirely on where your call to the suicide hotline gets routed. I won't contact police unless there's an immediate threat to the caller or to someone else (in cases of abuse/homicide, the caller might not be the one in danger), anything short of that I won't. This, however, is how my crisis center handles such calls. I can't speak for every organization that takes calls from the suicide hotline.
Well this is nice to read. I have PTSD, and attempted suicide three weeks ago. I was having a big problem last night and almost rang the same number. I'm glad that I didn't. So next time I'll probably just get into a bag, or jump from a higher place than last time.
Very sorry to hear this, mate. With depression, we lose sight of the small wins in life like a beautiful day, or a walk on the beach. Society measures success by wealth/status but individually, deep down, all of us know that the accumulation of small wins is the ticket. My son has asperger's and this is what I try to instil in him. I hope you're OK.
I read through this article and was shocked at the level of expectation for constitutional violation built into the police departments "standard operating procedures." Happy to see the court wasn't having it, and hope this trend continues to clamp down on this department and others who believe or behave similarly.
159 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadveterans go though a unique form of stress. and they get seperate medical care etc, which I hear is not always that great.
Is it too much to ask to read the article?
>On the night of February 2, 2010, suffering from sleep deprivation, he inadvertently phoned the National Suicide Hotline when dialing a number he thought to be a Veterans Crisis Line.
>If you’re thinking of hurting yourself, looking for ways to kill yourself, or becoming self-destructive, don’t continue to face it alone. Contact the Veterans Crisis Line immediately...
>For Veterans NOT in immediate crisis:
>Help is always available. Suicide Prevention Coordinators are at all VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) nationwide and work closely with Veterans dealing with mental health conditions and with difficult life events and experiences.
https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/GetHelp/WhenToCall.aspx
I'm not too surprised that the suicide hotline had trouble handling someone who wasn't suicidal. I called one once, trying to figure out how to help a mentally ill person who had been e-mailing me. They weren't exactly the appropriate place to call, but this person was in another country and they were the first people I could think of to at least point me in the right direction. They did help, but they also kept asking me questions like, "does this make you suicidal?" Strange experience, although it did work out fine in the end for me.
Edit: District court did rule in MPD's favor. Which isn't surprising of course. Still, wouldn't have been surprised if MPD appealed had it gone against them, for above mentioned reasons.
> [Corrigan] now appeals the grant of summary judgment to the defendants, challenging the district court’s rulings that there was no constitutional violation and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
Also interesting is how close this case was: the appeals court panel was split 2-1. The dissenting judge agrees that there was a constitutional violation, but says this law was not "clearly established" so the officers should have immunity. It goes to show how low the qualified immunity bar is.
For the most part, most cops are mostly good... there are some very bad apples out there, and some jurisdictions are definitely worse than others.
Have you ever seen what happens when you leave a bad apple in with a bunch of good apples? Very quickly, the entire bunch of apples is bad.
That's why we have the whole saying about "bad apples".
It utterly amazes me that people constantly use this "bad apples" expression without understanding this. Anyone who eats apples should have this basic understanding about bad apples.
Anyway, from what I can tell, whether cops are good or bad is basically department-wide: either a department has decent cops, or they're all horrible and complicit. It's exactly like the "bad apples" analogy, and it depends on the leadership of the department. Notice that it's usually the same departments that come up over and over in the news.
Even assuming, without deciding, that the initial “sweep” of Corrigan’s home [was justified], the second top-to-bottom search by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit (“EOD”) after the MPD had been on the scene for several hours was not.
EOD officers cut open every zipped bag, dumped onto the floor the contents of every box and drawer, broke into locked boxes under the bed and in the closet, emptied shelves into piles in each room, and broke into locked boxes containing Corrigan’s three firearms. [..] the police had left the contents of his bureau drawers and shelves scattered on the floor, his electric stove had been left on, and the front door of his home was left unlocked.
"Because it was (and is) clearly established that law enforcement officers must have an objectively reasonable basis for believing an exigency justifies a warrantless search of a home, and because no reasonable officer could have concluded such a basis existed for the second more intrusive search, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity across the board."
I wouldn't call it inexcusable, I'd simply call it criminal.
Police have the hardest job in America BUT that does not mean anything negative to police is bias. What positive spin could you possibly give this issue with the police or the lower courts?
I'm sure there are a few professions that would disagree. Air Traffic Controller comes to mind immediately. And before you say something about cops having to face the threat of death, most cops never even come close to that. Conversely, every ATC is responsible for thousands of lives daily.
(I really appreciate that linking, btw.)
People respond to incentives. Giving any individual any sort of immunity against laws that apply to everyone else will ultimately lead to the worst abuses. How many will we never hear about?
This sort of story will continue to appear until there is a systemic change.
So you can't compel a doctor to provide healthcare, whether you think it's a good thing or not.
Libertarians are for state's rights. You can be for both individual rights & liberty AND state's rights. That's perfectly inline with the Constitution.
And votes may go against individual liberty at the state level, but at least that's the proper domain for most decisions and it's local.
It would have been better if I'd referred to "the rights of the individual over the powers of the state," since the original intent behind the Constitution and its amendments was to enumerate the latter but not the former. Once again, though, this has nothing to do with the dichotomy between federal powers and those reserved to the individual US states.
All individuals in society should be treated equally under the law, including members of law enforcement and others within the government. If I am not allowed to commit violence against you until you have been convicted of a crime, neither should anyone else, whether or not they wear a police uniform. Indeed, libertarianism advocates for private, rather than public, police forces.
> what is the ideology that lacks them
Statism in all forms grants special privilege to members of the government, including the power to tax and hold monopoly on the use of force. The US criminal code is full of exceptions for on-duty police officers, judges, and others, especially regarding firearms laws. Police officers can carry firearms into school buildings where others are guilty of a felony if they do, for instance. Thus you have inequality under the law. Such police immunity is what leads to the abuses we see every day.
But they were the cops doing it, so...
Don't physically try to stop the police. That's going to cause trouble. But if they're doing something out of line, record it if you can. If they tell you to stop, you can claim that you have the legal right to do so. If they continue to tell you to stop, stop. But still watch if you can.
Note well: IANAL. This is not legal advice. In particular, if anyone with real knowledge wants to correct the "If they tell you to stop, you can claim that you have the legal right to do so" part, feel free.
This is the metapolice we're talking about, not the police. The metapolice have no jurisdiction over ordinary citizens. Now, if police were to interfere in lawful metapolice activity, that would be one hell of a crime.
Police A and Police B who police each other besides the ordinary citizens. Add incentives so that they look extra closely at the other side.
The alternative is two sides fighting a war of escalation which would likely encourage scary corrupt behavior. "Those guys busted Johnny for some minor offense, so lets go get some dirt on one of their guys, or plant it. Can't let them think they can just mess with us"
This is going by the current us vs them mentality of the police forces.
If that is so, then at least if both "us" and "them" are heavily armed cops with warrior mentalities, they'd focus less of their aggression on the general public.
/s
the other option is a higher jurisdiction, eg state police investigating sheriff's deputies or municipal police, or federal law enforcement like the FBI investigating bad actors at the state or major metro level.
That last option is about to get turned inside out, though.
It's not at all clear that the officers are the criminals here, and not their chief, their mayor, their governor. Holding the system/state accountable is a complicated question. Civil suits are a relatively flexible tool.
When you look at police shootings, for example, we pursue criminal charges when the officers show personal malice or "hate crime", not when they shoot in accordance with their training and the department's overall use-of-force principles. It's hard to show that it's correct to throw individual officers in jail for following the will of "the People overall" and the local Executive.
Obviously funding and regulatory-capture would be a problem, but maybe that can be mitigated somehow.
And here we see why the current American problem is uniquely American — because that would never have happened.
https://www.google.com/search?q=strip+search+texas+road
And not just in Texas, see some of the articles.
ADDED: I missed that, to date, to my knowledge and from what I've just been reviewing, none of the police in these cases have been so much as criminally charged.
Yes, that indeed shows it didn't happen in the US.
Of course it isn't absolutely true, but I think it is clear enough that there is lots of work to do in making sure that abuses of power are punished.
https://dogmurders.wordpress.com/
If you can't find any of those, we might as well just shoot all the cops.
Of course, one would hope that the idea that there exists no good cops to arrest the bad cops is as absurd as it sounds. When you take a look though, you'll quickly realise that internally the good cops are the "bad apples".
To be fair, this is all probably just the natural outcome of how police departments are built. Putting people in these positions of power with no system built to effectively scrutinise their actions is inevitably going to lead to large scale corruption.
I'm increasingly of the belief that the domestic police in the United States shouldn't even be called a force, they should be called a service. They should not carry firearms, and they should not receive primarily military training. They should be well paid and receive aggressive financial incentives to continue their education. They should always be wearing a body cam when on duty.
There will always be a need for armed police at some point, but that point is not the streets, and not daily response to mundane events.
The bad cop stereotype is universal. But America's current police culture in my opinion encourages bad cop behavior. The culture is way too military-oriented versus community oriented at the moment. It is hard to "protect and serve" your community if you are always at "war" with some "enemy". This case is a perfect example of that.
It seems to me like the most outrageous police brutality sources would be solved by high-level oversight.
Clearly the local police made various constitutional violations against a suicidal war veteran and they trashed his place and left it for him to come back to. How jaded and unconcerned?
Sadly one of my former employees left and joined the war and while there lost a buddy in Iraq. After being home for 12 months he took his life leaving all of us in shock. If police did that to a hero who are they willing to go for bat for????
If he was suicidal it even makes the actions of the police even worse. The whole issue is not the initial interactions with the police nor their initial entree into the home. The issue is the second and third entree into his home and unconstitutional search of his home. This occurred hours after the first search was conducted and the subject was getting medical treatment.
...and was done so to encourage early intervention, sometimes before the veteran becomes suicidal.
https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/About/AboutVeteransCrisis...
>> In 2011, the National Veterans Suicide Prevention Hotline was renamed the Veterans Crisis Line to encourage Veterans and their families and friends to make the call. People who know a Veteran best may be the first to recognize emotional distress and reach out for support when issues reach a crisis point — and well before a Veteran is at risk of suicide.
No one. This should be obvious if you're living in the US. Even if you've never had an encounter with police, watch ANY cop show, especially the reality ones. Every roughly 20-30 seconds you will hear some cop talk about how dangerous the job is (it really isn't) and how their main objective is to get back to their family. The police does not give a fuck about you and they certainly will not "stand up" for you if you are in danger. They will get back home to their families at all costs, including your own life. The rest of the "serve and protect" bullshit is for rubes and other idiots who are dumb enough to believe it and whose parents did them a huge disservice by not teaching them about one of the gravest dangers of American society.
Rather than rally against the police in general, we really should focus on identifying the sources of the horrible ones and how to develop more of the honest officers. Personally I believe this can only occur through transparency and accountability but that's just my 2 cents.
I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying, until you have truly revolutionary change, all cops will be perceived as the absolute danger to life, limb, and property that they potentially are. That is unfortunate for the good ones, but that's life. I don't go around questioning whether members of other gangs like the Bloods or Crips have ill intent for me, so I certainly will not question whether members of the biggest, most heavily armed, most dangerous gang in the US have ill intent for me. I just assume they do because the majority do.
A really significant portion of my "official" interactions with police have been negative. I've listed these here before:
- I watched a friend being roughed up by cops. (not beaten, but physically pushed around) for absolutely no reason.
- I've had evidence of a traffic violation fabricated against me. (full disclosure: I was guilty, but that doesn't excuse lying about evidence)
- I've had police at a traffic stop curse at me and throw my documents. (I understand why he felt this way, but it was due to him making assumptions, starting with a belligerent attitude, and misreading the situation)
- Some older kids were physically bullying me and a friend. We went to a cop for help, and the extent of his aid was to say to us "better watch out, they'll probably hit you again".
Given the limited amount of interaction people normally have with police, the number of times this has happened to me says that I'm either a lightning rod for lousy cops, or the problem is more than just a few isolated bad eggs.
But what communities want is a police force that provides safety to citizens, not one that fights enemies. There's a big difference between those mindsets.
The military's job is to defeat enemies. If you are a soldier, enemies are people who want to kill you, the soldier. They're enemies when everyone wakes up and they're enemies when everyone goes to bed. So the soldiers' job in-country is to sort people into enemies and civilians; to defend civilians and kill enemies.
In the U.S., a police officer's job is to enforce the law. They are supposed to be policing behavior, not sorting people. Everyone is a civilian. A civilian who broke the law is not an enemy, and the justice system is not seeking to defeat them. The law is supposed to punish behavior in proportion to the crime, and in accordance with the written law.
Now of course it's not that simple; there are organized crime syndicates, like drug gangs or terrorist cells, who target police. But the reality is that those are a tiny tiny percentage of the population.
But law enforcement has spent a decade re-organizing itself to defeat them. That's how you get an "Emergency Response Team" (SWAT) setting up a secure perimeter and clearing houses around a sleepy veteran who just called for a little support, as in this story.
They didn't show up to help a veteran; they showed up to defeat an enemy.
Unfortunately in a society where a lot of citizens have fire arms, where gang culture exist this will not be possible at all. How many times police was shot on routine daily events? Police not carrying weapons is not realistic in USA.
Hyperbole much? I expect most arrests are done without firearms being drawn.
> plenty of people are willing to kill to avoid that outcome.
And plenty of people are willing to kill for other reasons too, which is why no one's discussing that zero police officers should carry firearms. What's being questioned is the policy of all of them doing it.
It's a given here in the US that the moment you as much as appear to draw a gun at a cop, you're getting shot. So I don't think criminals even have to think about it to know that it's a "kill first or die" situation, once you're down that route. Now, if the criminal knows that the cop is unarmed, all of that changes: his gun is just leverage. He flees (or expels the cops off his house), which is undesirable; but then's when the situation can be escalated. No more "wild West" situations of "this guy might shoot me any moment, better be prepared to kill him for my life".
I'm going to call bullshit on that. Proportionally few criminals are North Hollywood Shootout types that require lethal force to be subdued. I would think that a very large fraction of arrests can be accomplished with threats of extra legal penalties or physical man-handling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout
Certain officers and teams absolutely should well armed, but it should be a much smaller subset of the force. A call for deadly force should be an explicit, intentional escalation.
If the police don't have any weapons, why would they patrol ANY area that might be dangerous?
Edit: I see you recognize that some should be armed. Perhaps you're right. Maybe its discretionary based on your patrol. They could deputize parking enforcement. Oh wait, that might be worse haha.
>what makes it different from the criminal stumbling upon a postman, an unarmed private security guard, or just a regular unarmed person?
Is that police officers jobs have them actively going towards and engaging these criminals, not just accidentally stumbling upon them like the postman.
"gang culture" and "lots of firearms" are not reasons for beat cops to be armed on a daily basis.
"how many times has a police officer been shot during routine daily events?" - this is not relevant. Having a gun does not protect you from being shot. Quite the opposite, in general.
If a police officer is attempting to make an arrest and experiences armed resistance, then it is of course necessary to have a small, dedicated part of the police force that is authorized to use firearms.
About 64 officers die per year. Not all of those are shot.
In 2013: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...
>> 76 law enforcement officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents in 2013. Of these, 27 law enforcement officers died as a result of felonious acts, and 49 officers died in accidents.
Most of those felonious killings were by gun.
>> In 2013, of the 49,851 officers assaulted while performing their duties, 29.2 percent were injured. The largest percentage of victim officers (31.2 percent) were assaulted while responding to disturbance calls. Assailants used personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) in 79.8 percent of the incidents, firearms in 4.5 percent of incidents, and knives or other cutting instruments in 1.8 percent of the incidents. Other types of dangerous weapons were used in 13.9 percent of assaults. Expanded assault details have been included in the 2013 publication. Data for assaults during which officers were injured with firearms or knives/other cutting instruments are located in new tables, figures, and selected narratives.
From this I don't know if the 4.5% of gun incidents refers to 4.5% of 49,851 officers assaulted, or to the 29.2% of those which were injured.
How many people are shot and killed by police each year? We don't know, the police don't count these numbers. How many people are shot and injured by police each year? Again, we don't know, because the police don't count these shootings.
I think it's a reasonable hypothesis that the ability to use lethal force with near impunity has enabled a police culture of maximum-confrontation. That culture is going to be hard to root out, and taking away the guns that enabled it (from most cops, and increasing scrutiny of who are still allowed to carry) could be a good start and do a lot of good.
My buddy is a copy in a mid-size south florida town and is getting 6K retirement checks after 20 years of service and still working full time in the DROP program. I'd say he's fairly well paid for only high school education.
Agreed. Also works if the citizenry wear body cams.
I'm clearly no suicide prevention expert, but questioning the caller on drug use, repeatedly demanding to put weapons (that are not even present) away, then calling a militant police force upon no response, shows that the Hotline isn't really being the sympathetic role they were initially intended to be.
As bad as this situation has been for veterans, it brings to light how poorly (IMO) they are handling citizens reaching out for help as well.
The drug use question is a reasonable one, at least in terms of active use. It has a significant impact on how you want to talk to someone, how at-risk they are, and yes, on what the police should be aware of if they're eventually contacted. It shouldn't ever go further if the person doesn't need a police visit, though.
Demanding that he "say the guns are down" sounds like stupid and alarming legalism. It strikes me as someone reading a script, unable to deal with an answer of "they were never up to begin with, and are locked away, can we move on".
And the whole thing... yes, the police can help with suicides. Yes, someone hanging up without explanation is a bad sign. But you can't fail to help people, then assume they're unstable for hanging up on you, then make wild and unjustified claims to the police.
As an initial thought, I would have expected the hotline to operate under the same privacy regulations as any other medical facility. At least in the absence of any warning otherwise.
And the uninformed still wonder why we have so many problems with mental health and suicide in the US, a place where seeking help--even by accident--is likely to make things worse or even lead to death.
There is, for sure. There are crisis centers that don't respond like that. They may not be common - so maybe some luck is involved - but there are people out there trying to help others.
https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/GetHelp/WhatToExpect.aspx