The elephant in the room is that people with some mental illnesses can become erratic and violent. Someone above pointed out that cops are meant to "threaten and deliver violence." I think this is a vast simplification, but even under those criteria you can see why cops might be dispatched to deal with people who are mentally ill.
None of that is to say we shouldn't have other options, just that there are valid reasons to involve cops in some of these situations.
> Dispatching mental health specialists instead of police officers to substance abuse and nonviolent emergencies sharply lowered low-level crime in Denver, according to a study published Wednesday in Science Advances.
> The Support Team Assistance Response, or STAR, program, which uses a mental health crisis interventionist and a paramedic to respond to nonviolent 911 calls, showed a 34 percent reduction in crime for offenses such as trespassing and public disorder, according to the study conducted by a Stanford University professor and researcher.
> Of the 748 incidents to which clinicians and paramedics responded, police assistance was never needed, according to the study.
You can also just have dispatch send both, but just have the cops there nearby for backup vs. being the first person into the situation. Hell, I'm reasonably mentally stable, but if I got a knock at the door and there's a uniformed police officer outside, I'm immediately in "oh god something awful has happened/will happen" stress and more likely to shut down or do something odd.
> The elephant in the room is that people with some mental illnesses can become erratic and violent.
The elephant in the room is maintaining stereotypes about the violence of the mentally ill that don't have any reference to statistics. Usually followed with a story about being yelled at by a homeless person once.
You're correct, some of the time you will need cops. I'm just not sure why it'd be more in Florida than in Seattle or San Francisco. There could be a reason why, I just don't know without the data.
Alternatively, why do you need cops for those situations? It seems like they might do more harm than good confronting already erratic person; there's a long, public history at this point of cops killing people by subduing them inappropriately. The situation has to be pretty extreme for you to actually need physical force to subdue someone. It happens, but it seems like these studies are telling us it's extremely rare.
Our street crises teams have the unique expertise to respond to people in crisis and de-escalate disruptions in the community. We avoid unnecessary use of police and costly hospital stays, and address the immediate needs of people experiencing homelessness.
