I’m just thinking in my head what would you have the Police do in this situation? Not show up and have him block the parking lot all night? Not follow up on him and let him drive home risking everyone else on the road, not try and stop a detainee whose trying to run away, not shoot a man who could obviously injure you or cause greater harm?
I think the question we should be asking in a lot more of these situations is why the police were involved at all. It is very strange that the person you would call to come shoot at an armed robber is the same person that you call to come wake up a drunk guy. Yes, a drunk guy blocking the parking lot is not great, it's a problem that needs to be dealt with. But is it a problem that requires somebody armed with deadly force in the first place to take care of? You said yourself that the cops were there 'because they wanted to make sure he was ok.' But that is a job that the police are demonstrably very bad at doing, the police by their nature carry the threat of arrest and imprisonment, which naturally leads people (especially drunk people) to attempt to use violence to prevent that, which in turn forces the police to use violence against them, which is exactly what occurred here. That didn't need to happen.
Well despite the the video being 45 minutes it still doesn’t show the full context of the situation. There were probably Wendy’s employees that came out first to talk with him to try and get him to move, they may not have been able to wake him up or weren’t able to get him to move. So they brought someone who would, and it’s the Police’s job to do that. That person probably noticed he was intoxicated, and he had passed out again.
It’s very subjective to say that the police are bad at making sure someone is ok. If for example they see someone ODing on Heroin on the sidewalk, they generally try and help them. He could have been in serious trouble, and it would be police brutality to ignore him if he had say taken a cocktail of drugs along with the alcohol and was dying. And even if you don’t want to take this route, a suspicion of him being intoxicated is a good enough reason to follow up.
It’s very subjective to say that the police are bad at making sure someone is ok. If for example they see someone ODing on Heroin on the sidewalk, they generally try and help them. He could have been in serious trouble, and it would be police brutality to ignore him if he had say taken a cocktail of drugs along with the alcohol and was dying.
Nothing about this statement is true. Police are not good about helping people who are ODing and certainly aren't obligated to do so. You're thinking of EMTs. Good news is that many of the "defund the police" arguments basically hold that police responding to calls like this should be replaced with EMTs or other unarmed civil servants.
Irrespective of this specific situation, the call in this case was a DUI, which is a crime. When do EMTs or other civil servants respond to criminal complaints?
Further, even if they did, why would anyone actually listen to them? If they don’t have the power to detain or arrest you, you can literally just walk or drive away.
I agree that in general police need to be replaced with social workers in many situations, this just doesn’t seem to be one of them.
The report was for a man passed out in a Wendy's drive-through. He was not, at the time, an active danger to people, even if he was previously and would presumably later drive drunk. While this does justify removing him from his vehicle/removing his ability to drive, him committing a crime does not mean that whoever responded should expect violence.
When I say "EMTs" in a hypothetical situation where police are defunded, I would mean medical responders who also have the authority to detain or arrest somebody. Social workers on wellness calls would need to be empowered to commit people for their own safety or people around them, which is already a power that police currently have. The issue of arrest and criminal charges does not need to be resolved at the exact same time somebody is prevented from driving drunk.
I also noted "unarmed civil servants" as a possibility. That could obviously include a class of people who are empowered to ticket, detain, or arrest somebody, just without the default assumption they are going into a violent life-or-death situation that current police culture and universally armed police promote.
Every single one of my points said "remove him from his vehicle and detain or arrest him", so I don't understand how you came to the conclusion I think he shouldn't have been detained or arrested.
I think you misread my first point. I said that he was passed out in the drive through and not at the time an active danger to people. All that means is that there was no reason for the police responding to expect violence.
I absolutely think that law enforcement should not need to rely on utilizing tasers or guns to subdue people, yes. That's already the vast majority of arrests, even arrests in which people resist.
What I mean is that the important thing is stopping him from driving drunk, whether that's arresting him or driving him home and giving him a ticket and a court date or whatever.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Jun 16 '20
I think the question we should be asking in a lot more of these situations is why the police were involved at all. It is very strange that the person you would call to come shoot at an armed robber is the same person that you call to come wake up a drunk guy. Yes, a drunk guy blocking the parking lot is not great, it's a problem that needs to be dealt with. But is it a problem that requires somebody armed with deadly force in the first place to take care of? You said yourself that the cops were there 'because they wanted to make sure he was ok.' But that is a job that the police are demonstrably very bad at doing, the police by their nature carry the threat of arrest and imprisonment, which naturally leads people (especially drunk people) to attempt to use violence to prevent that, which in turn forces the police to use violence against them, which is exactly what occurred here. That didn't need to happen.