The following correspondence originally took place on my Facebook wall, upon my post, “Unsurprisingly, the State Solution to Suicide is… Homocide!“…
Fort Bend, Texas Officer murders suicidal and schizophrenic Michael Blair, after forcing entry into his bathroom and tazing him, repeatedly
Rayn: VIDEO: Family Releases Video of Man Being Killed by Fort Bend Officer (Graphic):
http://truthinmedia.com/video-family-releases-video-of-man-being-killed-by-fort-bend-officer/No joke…
How did the State prevent the suicide? HOMOCIDE, of course!
To the untrained eye, the video in this article may APPEAR to show a cowardly, costumed clown engaging a single-minded response effort that is hinged almost exclusively upon the use of coercion and brutality as a means rapidly ending crisis solely in the interest of self-preservation, enabling him to justify his decision to quickly escalate a situation involving an innocent man in medical distress, and in danger of self-harm, into a cause for repeated, violent assaults, then execution-style murder, in less than ten minutes time, flat…
However, those who are actually enlightened enough to understand the complex and intricate workings of the State FAITHFULLY embrace both its necessity and it’s absolute functionality, allowing them to clearly see the video recording as the story of an honorable public servant, courageously risking his own safety in a heroic attempt to peacefully de-escalate a very highly dangerous situation by any means necessary – and, using lethal force only as a last resort, upon tirelessly exhausting all other options, first!
Morgan S.: how many shots does it take. Christ not accountable for more then two shots fired? the first shot was a fatal sound. just has me scratching my head about how many is to many.
Rayn: How many untrained goons with guns does it take to escalate a suicide crisis into a violent-to-lethal confrontation, through forcible injection into harm’s way, then termination of the very life they were there to “save”?
Why were these lizards pushing for entry into that bathroom, rather than following crisis intervention protocols, which would dictate that mediation, negotiation and arbitration be considered as the first-hand options?
I saw no compassion – only threats of force…
Seems to me like they unjustifiably force-framed the man as a danger to others, rather than just himself (through profiling? Ableism, perhaps?), which gave them an imagined justification to take the sort of coercive, brutal and over-zealous-for-immediate-absolute-compliance course of action that would easily cause even a defensive reaction in any rational Individual – let alone a schizophrenic man locked behind his bathroom door, and threatening suicide with a knife!
Morgan S.: sorry my focus was on the amount of bullets I do not know crisis intervention protocols so that’s why my focus was not on that aspect.
Rayn: Before I read this article, I didn’t exactly know crisis intervention protocols, either (just a vague idea of their possible existence, based on a few ’80s movies containing scenes wherein a “negotiator” tried to talk a “jumper” from the ledge of a building, or an individual with a gun to his head from pulling the trigger). However, upon learning the details of this tragedy – specifically, that the family of the victim repeatedly attempted to get assistance from a mental health facility BEFORE finally resigning to call 911, because they did not trust the police to handle the situation appropriately – I finally determined to research what were the most effective protocols for diffusing a suicide/medical crisis. And with no surprise, upon finding them, I discovered that the actions of police in this instance did not even begin to come close.
Just remember that according to the article, “[The family] didn’t want to call the police, because they were concerned that if the police came they would not handle the situation accordingly, and it would have a dreadful outcome,’ said Quanell X, adding, ‘So they continued to call, and then they were told again, ‘call 911.’ The worst thing they ever did was call 911 to help their loved one who was suffering a mental health breakdown’.”
Meanwhile, it didn’t take long for me to find this publication from the American Government’s National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), entitled “Police Crisis Intervention,” and originally published in 1979:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=59370
Besides this, there are even police experts in the field, who have been working hard to provide other officers with even more specialized training for such situations, including this national organization:
Overcoming the Darkness:
http://www.overcomingthedarkness.com/staff.html
Here’s some excerpts from the biography of the Executive Director of “Overcoming the Darkness”: “Eric Weaver is a retired sergeant with the Rochester, NY Police Dept. where he served for twenty years from 1985-2005 and was a police sergeant for the RPD for the last 13 years of his highly decorated career. […] Eric’s last assignment for the Rochester Police Department was as Mental Health Coordinator, and was the creator, developer, and Commanding Officer of the Emotionally Disturbed Persons Response Team (EDPRT), a specialized unit within the RPD that responds to calls for individuals who are suicidal and mentally ill. He was also coordinator of the EDPRT Basic/Advanced School, one of the largest police mental health-training courses in the United States. […] Eric is a certified instructor in the internationally recognized Mental Health First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid programs, a Consulting and Master instructor of ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training), a SafeTalk (Suicide Alertness Training) Instructor Trainer, a certified QPR (Question, Persuade, and Refer) instructor, a Level One CONNECT (suicide postvention) instructor, and served as both Area Director and Chair of the Board of Directors for the Western New York Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).”
It truly is sickening to know JUST how preventable murders by police like this are… With ALL of the information and training readily available to them, what excuse do officers really have for engaging in absolutely lethal levels of incompetence? And, honestly, those who don’t have the fortitude to handle such dangerous situations without completely overreacting should NOT be working as police, anyway!
Morgan S.: Rayn, I agree that the actions of these officers were very far from the protocols I read in your Links. (thank you for providing the Links). I agree on more then one occasion on Liveleak.com I have seen time and time again videos posted of Police Officers engaging in Lethal Levels of Incompetence when dealing with mental Subjects due to lack of training and or Just the Lack of Compassion .
(All original portions of this work, by Rayn Kleipe, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, while all redistributed links, images, sounds, videos, and writings are protected under 17 U.S.C. § 107: Fair Use, or under Public Domain)
