It’s tragic. If they sent out a social worker or someone similar instead, he would likely still be alive. I can’t believe we send out cops to deal with mental health issues.

I read about a lot of this police savagery stuff with disgust. But your comment is the first to make me actually break out sobbing. Well written.

That poor, poor, kid.

this time it was a mentally ill minor.

... again.

"Suicide is a crime. Shoot the criminal!" -SBPD, probably

Because cops in America all fancy themselves the Punisher (don't even get me started on that) where everyone is out to get them and every one they shoot is one less bad guy on the street.

No incentive to change when they can get away with killing with impunity and fulfill their murder fantasies.

Asshole who shot this kid probably bragged to all his buddies about smoking a dude with a knife and got attaboys all around.

In Germany they use chainmail.

Steroids

They have multiple solutions to someone in this situation. A Tazer, pepper spray, brute physical force. Or just talk to the kid for a while, hear him out, and he will probably comply.

But nah, mag dump into the kid because you were scared is easiest.

My ex worked for a county mental health crisis agency and this is how it worked. If something sounded dangerous they'd call the police out, but a trained psychologist would be the one engaging with the patient. She'd tell me stories of how she went into a suicidal guy's house armed with a clipboard while he had a gun on the table.

Nobody she dealt with was killed. Though one guy who lived in the park had the cops take his dog and the dog was put to sleep.

Police are woefully unprepared to deal with anything. I would not trust them to open up can of Spagetti-O’s.

You're hearing about it because a cop got an itchy trigger finger. In any other place, they'd try talking the kid down and wouldn't bust down doors unless hostages were being taken.

95% of the time the police get there, say "yep they're mentally ill, but not doing anything illegal" and leave. That last 5% is trips to jail or the hospital (or both) and there's a fraction of a percentage that ends in a shooting.

No one wants to hear about the boring stuff, though.

Well of course we hear about it when something untoward happens. That's why it's news.

There are over 700,000 cops in the US so if they all wanted to shoot at least one person a year each, we could see up to about 1,900 headlines a day. If evenly spread.

One of those things is killing dogs.