Mental health and law enforcement - slowing down will be part I ...

       PHOTO CREDIT: Josh Couch, Unsplash

This story is an escalation if it's own - readers will jump in and pick sides....but the last 8 words of this one quote is worth a second take:

"De-escalation tactics are no longer suggested or preferred — they are mandatory prior to using force to effect an arrest unless it would be unreasonable to do so..."

Mental health professionals on the ground with crisis phone calls makes sense but this mental health and de-escalation campaign (and again, I'm all for it) must be grounded in the reality of science.   The brain takes over when death or the threat of death is real ... for all humans.   You cannot untrain an automatic trauma take over of the logical brain when adrenaline,  cortisol,  and norepinephrine take over during life threatening events.  This is not trainable.  What is trainable is slowing down.   I'll say that again ... what is trainable is slowing down.   

That slowing down thing is about all humans,  particularly in the US.  High stress is a disaster for everyone.   Now add unsafe careers to the mix of high stress.  Then add a 911 call for the police.   Next add a grab for a gun.  This is a horribly tragic tragic story.  And it saddens me immensely. 

To summarize this event,  by media,  political action and/or by race is only a few factors that,  to me,  makes this story even more depressing (to an already very depressed culture).  To call it a mental health only thing,  a de-escalation only thing is also yet another factor. 

In my own training of de-escalation to schools,  teachers,  to patients going back over a decade... this technique works where the safety (and the safety perception) is present. If someone, even a well trained de-escalation seasoned professional is unsafe - or perceives being imminently in harms way - deescalation techniques will fail as the literal (not fear or scared or uncertainty or even bias) biological hijack of fight/flight hormones splashes the logical brain making it largely - well - kind of dumb if you will.  

The only if I can see time and again in these kinds of stories is that ... IF EVERYONE COULD SLOW DOWN A BIT IN ALL HUMAN INTERACTIONS  this stress response will drop.  

Bias training will help.   De-escalation training will help.   Mental health will help.  

This is not an all or nothing thing.   And the saddest thing of all is that people are dying. 

https://news.yahoo.com/police-video-fatal-encounter-shows-233117194.html