[mariedoreen]

I asked a few pages back for RNs to identify the specific tactics they use to safely deal with a mental patient and subdue the type of situation the police face. I'm still waiting. I'm beginning to think that everyone who is so sure the police are "killing" mental health patients (due to not knowing the "right" way to deal with these patients) should be on-call for those police officers and show up to the calls they are facing so they can show them exactly how it should be done. Of course you'll want to leave your Ativan behind as police are not allowed to use chemical restraints.

And re: the IQ comment about police officers. Perhaps the same should apply to registered nurses. Expressive superiority is the one thing I really can't stand about so many members of my profession.

[Sheri257]

Originally Posted by fergus51

They may be kittens to nurses but deadly to officers.

So true. As one corrections psych nurse told me: they tend to like nurses more than cops because we give drugs.

Why do we expect cops to do the job of healthcare providers? Think about it ... the police aren't called unless there's a problem. In many cases, the cops wouldn't be called in the first place if the healthcare system hadn't failed these patients to begin with.

As the OP states, this was a "frequent" psych patient who was probably in and out of hospitals. Obviously the healthcare system failed him at some point.

The cops are left to deal with the aftermath of that failure, and then we criticize them for not doing what we do. It's insane.

We need to consider the failures in our own system just as much as theirs. Just because the healthcare system passes the buck, doesn't mean that the cops are ultimately responsible for that failure.

Originally Posted by azhiker96

Would a cop on the street have enough time to make an accurate determination even if he had the necessary training?

Probably not. Cops are short staffed also. They usually have a million calls they have to answer. Do we really expect them to do psych evaluations when other crimes are happening all over town?

The cops are there to serve and protect ... and they have to protect everyone, including themselves.

[caroladybelle]

Originally Posted by Lurksalot

You said it yourself, you don't know. You wern't there, and don't know what happened. Who knows what the suspect did in the police station? The only fact known is that a police officer felt it necessary to use force to subdue a suspect. Be glad that in your town, police are allowed to use tasers; in my state is is illegal, they can not carry tasers or nightsticks. If more force is needed to protect an officer, they must use deadly force.

Unfortunately when a suspect is fighting with police or doing something liable to harm himself or others, they do not have the luxury of sitting back and wondering if he's a psych patient or if there is some explanation for the behavior. It does not matter WHY the suspect is behaving the way he is, they can only deal with putting a stop to the behavior. It does not matter in hindsight that somebody says "oh, he was never violent with me, or he would never hurt anyone, I've never known him to be assualtive, or he was psychotic not criminal...".

You know, I am really disturbed by the posts degrading other professionals on here. This thread is just one example. After reading the responses here, it is obvious that most of the nurses have absolutely NO knowledge of police work. Why are some nurses so quick to jump all over another profession without giving them some benefit of the doubt? Doctors, paramedics, PAs, CNAs, police officers, EMTs, they get bashed on this board. Personally, until I have FACTS that say otherwise, I will always give fellow public-service professions the benefit of the doubt, just as I hope I would get.

I am tired of the general public judging nurses, doctors, police officers, ect., based on what the public thinks should happen after the fact. All of these professions have to act in a split second with actions that can save a life or take a life. I doubt any nurse goes to work wanting a patient to die under her care, but they do. I doubt any cop goes to work wanting to have to tazer/shoot a criminal and see them die as a result, but it happens.

So why not title this "Psych patient dies after being tasered by police."
No, it's much more inflammatory to say "patient is killed by police."

I know it will never change, because it's always much better to blame someone, especially a cop, doctor, or nurse for anyone's death. And I'm sure next time there's a headline that says something like "Nurse kills man with morphine" nurses everywhere will be up in arms, shouting the nurse was only doing her job. And some joe-public will say "nurses should be TRAINED to give morphine correctly!" and "Why was that nurses allowed to give morphine, she should have given tylenol?" "why did the nurse come in there with her syringe out, she should have tried a pill first!!??"
And nurses will sigh, because joe-public does not know what happened in the situation, and as a nurse we will give the benefit of the doubt that our fellow nurse did what she was TRAINED to do in a specific situation which she felt was the best course of action.

I think our fellow public service professions deserve more respect. And I don't blame any cop for drawing his gun or using a taser when ever he feels threatened. My husband wears a bullet proof vest to work for a reason, and that's so even if some jacked-up criminal threatens his life, he can still come home to my daughter and me.


I am interested in a link to a news story about this incident, and I would also like to know which police department has has 4 tazer deaths in one year. That is certainly newsworth information, and worth following up on.

And rest assurred, there will be a lawsuit, someone will get a hefty settlement, and taxes will go up. If you all knew how much police departments actually got sued and settled, and how much money is paid out for total nonsense and then added onto taxpayers bills, you'd be suprised. And you never hear about any of it on the news.

ITA!!

I am really tired of the "Let's always blame the police", which is almost as common as "Let's always blame the nurse." Yes, there are bad apples in both groups, but until it is you or yours that is in danger from an unknown and volatile person, you really don't know how it is.

We weren't there.

The other thing that should be considered. If this individual is that well known to the healthcare community, chances are that the individual was prescribed meds, therapy, social services and/or OP support services. If the individual was indeed acting out or behaving a dangerous manner, there is a good likelihood that they were not being compliant with meds/therapy, were not doing appropriate followup care, etc.

I have had any number of patients that were provided w/safe housing, their meds and social support, just to abandon all of those things and bounce right back into the hospital, because they cannot/will not care for themselves.

Do they have any responsibility for their condition?

How many times when we read about someone dying/becoming incapacitated from medical conditions that they were treated for but noncompliant with that treatment, and their family sues a healthcare worker/facility?

[multicollinearity]

As I think about it, I distinguish between police being called to a public place because a mentally ill person is acting strangly v. overt violent behavior. It just seems that there are so many instances of police being called to a parking lot, store, etc because a schitzophrenic is talking to himself and it scares the customers. This seems to be where the situations really escalate, and I wish we could see different training and outcomes. I am less distressed when there is actual violent behavior which must be met with force by police. I hope this makes sense.

[GoLytely]

Originally Posted by mariedoreen

.

And re: the IQ comment about police officers. Perhaps the same should apply to registered nurses. Expressive superiority is the one thing I really can't stand about so many members of my profession.

Please get off the high horse. Reading the last sentence of the IQ comment it was obviously meant to be a joke. I was certain, though, that even if it *had* been meant to be serious, no doubt the issue of nurses and IQ tests would have come up in response.

This confirms for me that mental illness is the worst kind of illness a person can have. Incredibly sad. I highly doubt many cops see the glory in having to use such drastic measures to control a person. It's just a bad situation all the way around. There is no happy ending in a situation like this for anyone.

[papawjohn]

Hey Y'all

Blame, Blame, Blame!!! This is a sociological and political issue!

Take a deep breath...imagine you are the spouse of a cop who taser-ed a violent psych pt who ended up in jail. Your loved one ends up doing CPR and riding in the EMS to the ER where the Pt is pronounced.

Isn't EVERYBODY unhappy? Victimized?

Here's the question: What liberties should we allow/guarantee for persons who have been diagnosed as lacking in the ability to correctly assess their environment? Should we lock them all away for life "for their own good"? That made sense 50yrs ago.

Are we willng to 'lose' (that should not be prettified).....Are we willing to see locked up and perhaps brutallized or even killed--a certain small percentage of our (I will use the word) insane family members, friends and fellow citizens.

In the USA we seem to have decided that that risk is worth taking so that the majority of our psych pts can have a future in freedom. The flip side is that the small percentage that simply cannot/will not live in a free society end up on the conscience of that those police officers who we count on to keep US safe in a world that--let's admit it--includes violent predatory (but sane) people.

I repeat--this is a political decision. It was made years ago. If we don't like it we can change it. Does anyone want a return to the 50s?

Can we find a better way to live with the decisions that included the psych population with the general population? Probably we can. Would it take a change in the system? Of course it would. Can individual nurses and police officers change this system? Of course not.

Stop the stupid part of this discussion!!! It's to important!!!

Papaw John

[nursemike]

Originally Posted by caroladybelle

Do they have any responsibility for their condition?

You know, that's a pretty good question, but far from an easy one. Should the mentally ill be accountable for their mental illness? I'm overweight and smoke. If I develop cancer or heart disease, I arguably have no grounds to complain about it. If I develop paranoid schizophrenia, is that my fault?

Many people with mental illness are less than compliant with their meds. That's crazy, but then, so are they. Of course, many mentally ill patents are functioning at a fairly high level and are probably quite capable of doing things for themselves like taking meds, coping with side-effects, etc., but others are far less capable. We tend to talk about psych meds as though one is perfectly sane while taking them, but how realistic is that?


It's wrong, of course, to generalize about an entire class of public servants based upon the publicized misdeeds of a renegade few. There are thousands of dedicated police officers in this country who never laid a hand on Rodney King, for example, and I wouldn't begin to guess what percentage have ever committed any act of police brutality. I can recall when I was a young man with long hair and a Sheriff's Deputy held the door for me going into a McDonald's. I can recall being stopped by a State Trooper for a burnt out headlight on my beat up old car, and being addressed as "sir." Evidently, there are cops out there who take pride in their profession, and I respect the hell out of that.

On the other hand, if there is to be any honor in uniformed service, be it police or military, then those who digrace themselves in uniform disgrace the uniform, too. Most soldiers never even have the opportunity to torture POWs, and I have to believe that most wouldn't do it, if they had the chance. But the actions of some stain the reputation of all, and those who excuse, condone, or cover up the actions are welcoming the stain. So it is with the police. If police are honorable, they should be first to condemn the dishonor of the few.

Should the same standard apply to a civilian profession, such as nursing? That, too, is a good question. If we wish to be respected as a profession, I think we have a responsibility to police ourselves. To a large extent, I think we do that. We probably all hear stories of conscientious nurses making honest mistakes and sympathize with the nurse. It's natural to think "That could happen to me." Or at least to wonder if it could. Are we dishonorable to think some mistakes can be forgiven and treated as learning experiences?
But then, in cases of intentional malfeasance or gross negligence, I think we tend to be far less forgiving. Who among us will make excuses for the nurse in NJ, I think it was, accused of murdering patients?
More to my point, I don't particularly believe that my work as a nurse should accord me any greater respect than ordinary people. I work hard at a tough job. So does the guy or gal who makes my Whopper. I occassionally play a part in making life-or-death decisions. (In my case, that often means seeing the need to call for back-up--but that counts, too.) Cab drivers, carpenters, and the guy or gal who makes sure that Whopper is fully cooked may be making life-or-death decisions, too.

It has been the custom in our society to afford uniformed services, including the police, a degree of honor higher than that of civilians, and I believe that honor is deserved. It would take a pretty long stretch to suggest that I, as a nurse, risk my life in service to my fellows. I guess I could get run over in the parking lot on my way to work, but I'm not asking for any medals for that. Police officers, soldiers, firefighters and others undertake grave risk in the course of their work. But if they are willing to accept the tacit agreement that they are, in some sense, better than the rest of us (honor), I do believe they have an obligation to actually be better than the rest of us.

Based on the information posted, I can't say whether the police acted improperly in the case discussed. I do think it's fair to say that a series of such incidents suggests a pattern, and whether it's a system problem, such as inadequate training or understaffing, or an instance of individual culpability, it needs to be investigated, and corrected. Honor demands that.

[nursemike]

Originally Posted by mariedoreen

I asked a few pages back for RNs to identify the specific tactics they use to safely deal with a mental patient and subdue the type of situation the police face. I'm still waiting. I'm beginning to think that everyone who is so sure the police are "killing" mental health patients (due to not knowing the "right" way to deal with these patients) should be on-call for those police officers and show up to the calls they are facing so they can show them exactly how it should be done. Of course you'll want to leave your Ativan behind as police are not allowed to use chemical restraints.

And re: the IQ comment about police officers. Perhaps the same should apply to registered nurses. Expressive superiority is the one thing I really can't stand about so many members of my profession.

You're joking about the Ativan, right? I'm a neuro nurse. I never leave the house without a pocketful. People are nuts!

[cereza_18]

it's really sad. i think it's really difficult for the policemen to deal with psych patients for they're not trained to a situation wherein they'll face one.

i really think that the policemen should have some exposure to some convention about diffirent kinds of people and how to deal with them, individually. besides, they're also dealing with lives. and they should be thought that police brutality isn't one way of taming agressive or assaultive person.

it's just sad that people were hurt by those who should've help them in the first place.

i just hope, people superior to those policemen should take action about it.

[multicollinearity]

Originally Posted by cereza_18

it's really sad. i think it's really difficult for the policemen to deal with psych patients for they're not trained to a situation wherein they'll face one.

i really think that the policemen should have some exposure to some convention about diffirent kinds of people and how to deal with them, individually. besides, they're also dealing with lives. and they should be thought that police brutality isn't one way of taming agressive or assaultive person.

it's just sad that people were hurt by those who should've help them in the first place.

i just hope, people superior to those policemen should take action about it.

Don't forget about the police officers who are policewomen!