Police are worse than useless. They are actively harmful. We just had a medical emergency with one of our encampment residents. She was flat on the ground, stuporous, with severe decerebrate posturing and breathing normally.
The cops radioed it in as an overdose (which means EMS will take forever to respond), even though there were no signs of OD. To make things worse, the 911 dispatcher confirmed to me that the cops had given them the complete wrong address in their call.
Even worse, I was the only one on scene carrying Naloxone. The cops made everything worse and were not even prepared for an overdose. The cops asked me several times if I could administer Narcan; I had to correct them repeatedly and tell them there were no overdose symptoms and that the woman had a recent history of aneurysm. They stood their and did nothing, and were afraid to even touch her.
NEVER assume that police have made a proper emergency call. Always call 911 yourself. Carry Narcan.
@chadloder
Been posing and pondering this today.
Here's an academic question to consider. Are police even necessary for law enforcement? Forensics does all the actual investigating and courts are meant for prosecution and sentencing. So what actual purpose do cops serve? Even detectives are just there to get credit for what they ordered forensics and uni cops to do
@Cfish @chadloder Police enforces the power of the state. And yes, there is a need for this, IMHO Otherwise, local units with power (often times with bad intentions) take over. This may lead to chaos.
Of course, the police is only a weapon of last resort and can on its own not end crime, there are other agencies and assocations that have to help. One example would be a good social security system, children support offices and stuff.
@Cfish I absolutely agree with you here! I personally think that the US law enforcement system (this includes more than just police) is terrible.I recommend reading this study of brookings about what could be made better. It was made following the death of George Floyd. A law enforcement system as it is envisioned in this study would be great. See here: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Better-Path-Forward_Brookings-AEI-report.pdf
@elshid thanks for the link. I'm slowly doing research for a future podcast episode on the American punitive system
@elshid I get what your saying. I just don't see how the police do anything positive when we have local units of pigs literally doing drove by shootings in black neighborhoods