We are using police, criminal courts, jails and prisons to deal with the mentally ill Americans. This case is egregious in my opinion.
This seems like such a commonplace problem. Someone has a mental breakdown and then we read about him or her getting shot, often killed, by police. As the article said, couldn’t the police have tackled the unarmed boy of 13, or even tasered him.
There has to be a better way to handle those of us who need help rather than killing or warehousing them. I think this is what “defund” policing really means. Moving resources for better trained professionals to handle domestic disputes, arguments, and mentally ill people acting out. Bring in the troops only when there are no other alternatives or lives are at stake.
In a way, it is a matter of national security. It diminishes our trust in government to handle situations that are not the fault of the person and protect the citizenry from the delusional. 5% or 10% of the defense budget could fund this so easily if more money is needed.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
I don’t think we’re getting the whole story here.
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That is possible, this is still under investigation.
But the bigger point is that we treat mentally ill people worse than feral dogs. There are lots of reasons and plenty of blame, but the facts are we warehouse the mentally ill in common prisons. That is the ones we don’t shoot to death.
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“This is deadly stuff.” “We should play it down.”
Assuming this kid wasn’t Fat Albert, but an average 13-year old, the cops had to shoot down. What the hell?
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The question is whether he had a weapon and if he threatened the police with it.
You are just as dead if shot by an autistic kid as by a gangster.
I have serious doubts about the way we handle autism. Autistic kids don’t understand the consequences of their actions.
I had a patient in Louisiana, a beautiful 7 year old girl, who was shot dead by an autistic neighbor, who had ranted at his parents that he wanted a handgun(he was only 17) until they got him one. Autistic kids can be very persistent and their parents tend to think they can do no wrong. He just wanted to know what it would be like to kill someone and she was handy.
So, don’t tell me that autistic kids are safe to be on the loose. It is a very dangerous disease and once they get past puberty, most should be in a controlled environment.
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Granted. Things look bad on the surface, and there are always three possibilities in a case like this;
1) Murder by cop — unjustifiable shooting,
2) Suicide by cop — armed and threatening, and (and it takes a truly sick mind to even think this one)
3) Euthanasia by cop — mama set him up. It can’t be easy.
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All rational minds appear to be sick when facing the unthinkable. but that is certainly a possibility.
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Speaking of unthinkable, did you catch NOVA? So, cool. Maybe not unthinkable, but incredible Less negative connotation.
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Nope, what was the subject?
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CRISPR CAS9 gene splicing. They figured out 5 years ago how to cut the DNA strand exactly where they want and how to splice in exactly the string they want.
The protein CAS9 is given the DNA sequench to seerch for, it will latch on to any DNA strand, find the sequench, and.. snip… cuts the strand.
Well, eugenics has just taken the step from selective breeding and forced sterilization to designer humans.
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Brave New World Redux.
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I can see some good in that, but it has the potential for evil as well.
But combined with in-vitro fertilization, I could see this as a tool to eliminate things like Huntington’s Disease or Duchene Muscular Dystrophy
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The Chinese have already done similar splicing and the scientists have been convicted and sentenced.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/chinese-scientist-who-produced-genetically-altered-babies-sentenced-3-years-jail
And yet what he did would be mostly considered a good thing, creating the immunity to HIV for the recipients of the splice.
Some are afraid that we are “playing God” or sidestepping nature. Of course, we have been doing that for centuries with medical advances and environmental impacts.
We might be at one of those classic “fork in the road” times. We usually adhere to the Yogi Berra advice: when you see a fork in the road, take it. That is, random choices based on economics rather than ethics or science.
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Well, it’s really gonna shove a stick in the “created in his image” mud. I don’t think good and evil are the correct words. Maybe good and disastrous would be better.
Putin was on the show talking about removing the pain and fear genes for making future soldiers…. hmmmm.
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That is Brave New World in a nutshell. GMO nuts to boot.
Alter the genes to provide workers, drones, soldiers, elites, etc.
Busy as bees (or termites, ants, etc.) and just as compassionate.
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Twice as rich. The milk from contented cows.
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RE: “We are using police, criminal courts, jails and prisons to deal with the mentally ill Americans.”
What would you prefer? We used to place them in hospitals, but that became politically incorrect, and remains so.
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We can just shoot them. 😇
There has to be a better way to deal with disease rather than prison. We don’t imprison cancer patients.
It will take money, as usual. Maybe a few less bombs might work. But a combination of effective outpatient and inpatient solutions with proper staffing and affordable access would be a good start. The old “snake pits” were just warehousing without guard towers.
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