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ryandrakeyesterday at 6:47 PM2 repliesview on HN

Replace the phrase "people with guns" with "institutional violence" because that's what the police are. When police are called to the scene, the intention of the caller is violence, not to help. If the intention was help, then actual helpers would be called instead.


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WarmWashtoday at 12:46 AM

If you watched random police encounters for 6 hours a day (pretty much everything is bodycam'ed nowadays), every day for the rest of your life, you would see about 1 police killing video per decade, and probably never see a police murder.

Don't let headlines and internet rage detach you from reality.

JumpCrisscrossyesterday at 6:59 PM

> the intention of the caller is violence, not to help

This is mostly nonsense. Most cases where wellness checks result in a tragic outcome did not stem from the caller having violent intentions.

> If the intention was help, then actual helpers would be called instead

I believe clinician-led wellness checks are more effective than police-led ones [1]. But it’s untrue that police-led interventions are unhelpful. Not every person or community has a healthcare contact who will personally conduct a check. If the choice is between no check and a cop, you’ll save lives with the latter.

[1] https://www.proquest.com/openview/5504a2f3d69ee782daddda0ce1...

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