<p>fluffy, people do a lot of hunting in many states. I am not sure how many tries it takes to get the kill in most cases, though. </p>
<p>Flossy, I don’t know why you are so bent out of shape about the gun debate. It’s happening. It will continue to happen. If it bothers you so much, do something to contribute to the reduction of gun violence.</p>
<p>@fluffy2017 probable cause is sometimes related to a past crime but clearly not always. I don’t think FISA follows probable cause at all, but there is an example of ‘cause’ leading to search of private material when no crime has been shown. The Fourth Amendment says:</p>
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<p>as this companion note on the Cornell Law School site notes:</p>
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<p><a href=“Fourth Amendment | U.S. Constitution | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute”>http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment</a></p>
<p>generally if a police officer on the spot has probable cause to think there is an imminent danger and that action is necessary, they are given more discretion.</p>
<p>Sally - I am not “bent out of shape” lol, and I just posted a CA proposal coming out of this case. It’s just not the most interesting conversation to me, personally. It’s very repetitive imho. But carry on.</p>
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<p>Oh please! They were designed hundreds of years ago. </p>
<p>The internet was designed to share information among academic institutions.
Now people use it to watch cat videos, that Korean video 2B times, and to follow the thoughts of Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.</p>
<p>Would love to see psychology training programs include more forensic psych coursework and cyber forensics.</p>
<p>^^ seems natural, given the ubiquitousness of the internet.</p>
<p>Now all we need is more funding for the training programs. And so it goes…</p>
<p>I don’t see that as the way to do it, ‘funding for the training programs’ I think funding for a specific thing works. And personally I think there are tons that can be cut without turning the lights out on the little league stadium, so to speak. However, there is penny wise and pound foolish, also. Unlike the basic ‘gun discussion’ which I don’t frankly think is supported by this incident, something like having resources to check the voluminous trail of red flags here seems somewhat cost effective. Not doing it seems stupid. Some changes should result in less cost elsewhere.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t read too much into that.
Of the people I see at the shooting range, I would say about 10% fit into a stereotype of who you might think would be a gun owner. </p>
<p>Sounds like you are not familiar with the drastic yet continuous funding cuts for these training programs and internships. But thats a discussion for another thread.</p>
<p>@jym626 I think after a while all this becomes too much. Perhaps what would be useful is that part of that becomes part of the role of a dispatcher</p>
<p>But thinking about it further, how much time elapses between when the parent calls and the police show up at the doorstep and what were they doing right beforehand and how much time do they have for a pre-investigation?</p>
<p>@fluffy2017, sigh… well, maybe it would lead his parents who know him to be scared of a different scenario than just self harm, at least. You only need one gun to kill yourself. And he was planning back up with pills, anyhow, for that. From what his family thought he was to three guns and multiple machetes…</p>
<p>Dunno, I guess.</p>
<p>I’m almost starting to drift to the idea that if someone’s mental illness is such that their parents have to support them, the parents should be able to have more control as with a child, over some of this. I’m not quite there, because it might drag in a lot who don’t deserve it, but if there were a way to give it a procedure and controls, I’m starting to nibble at the idea.</p>
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<p>No, not remotely, but it would seem THAT is the discussion we should be having over this.</p>
<p>@fluffy2017 my idea was that since it went to the agency FIRST, that could trigger both a call to the police and a 15-20 min screening investigation while the five officers are collecting themselves, for obvious red flags, if it were the first call of that sort on that person. That might have turned up that he was suspected of having tried to push people off the 10 foot ledge saying he was going to kill them, as well.</p>
<p>My point is, what on earth good are all those procedures if they don’t even catch a case with all these red flags? </p>
<p>They would have more control if he was declared incompetent and they were his guardian. Perhaps would have been prudent. In hindsight.</p>
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<p>Yeah, that sums it up for me too ;)</p>
<p>This gets harder when a child turns 18.
The stereotype I have (with no data) is that in the old days, those cases resulted in a person being committed to an institution…but…there were also far, far less cases than before.</p>
<p>There is the other thread about the girl who committed suicide after being caught cheating on a test (obviously that wasn’t the only reason). Terrible. What is going on here??</p>
<p>@Fluffy2017 The deputies are cruising around town responding to calls as they come in over the radio. The goal is to get there as quickly as possible. Pre-investigation is a novel idea that only makes sense if as in this case the crime occurs next month. They responded to call from a mental health hotline or agency which was reportedly called by a friend requesting a welfare check. The dispatcher relays the information. They also referenced some info from the mom who was called by ER at the scene in their presence.</p>
<p>@Jym626 I don’t think they thought he was anywhere near incompetent. Or even mentally ill. They thought he was weird and depressed and possibly suicidal not institution material even if there was such a place. </p>
<p>@flossy thanks…that is kind of what I thought. Maybe the question is whether the mental health hotline should do that pre-check…but that is a problem because if they take the 10-15 minutes to do that, summarize it, etc, that is time that is lost and if something happens during that timeframe, they will be criticized for not acting fast enough.
I don’t know. </p>
<p>Well. I don’t know. </p>
<p>I understand sometimes nothing can prevent it. It just is that in this case there is so much out there that seems like it should have rung alarms somewhere. Maybe it isn’t doable, but I would look at the dispatch / time issue and consider whether it was.</p>
<p>To be clear, I thought telephone operator person A phones the police and mental health person B starts googling/watching the material that spurred the alert. Then they send the quick summary of red flags to the officers en route. But I don’t know if the time frame realistically allows that. If it is generally an hour before police show up at the door after they are alerted, I’d think it would be. If it is an immediate response typically, more difficult.</p>
<p>Or possibly the police can stall the guy for a while until the red flag summary is sent to them. They have to talk to him for a while, surely.</p>
<p>I don’t know either, That’s why a weapons check makes sense. It’s quick, easy I would think but I don’t know, and logical if you have a possible suicide. These particular “red flags” did not take a training program to spot.</p>
<p>@collegevetting Some of that kind of thing does happen while officers are en route. I don’t know what in this case, though. Also, the goal is always going to be to get there as soon as possible. If it takes an hour it’s because a higher priority situation is going on, elsewhere. Response time matters.</p>
<p>They spent ten minutes with him and had him call his mom since the purpose of the welfare check was a worried mom. All of that checking could be done after the visit in a case like this. He’s stable so tie it all with a final check and a report, I suppose. Still not sure that breaks the case wide open. </p>