I’m no police deescalation trainer.. but.. “Two officers who responded to the incident used a stun gun, pepper spray and a baton on Mr Burgess who had one leg, suffered from dementia and used a wheelchair.” Obviously the carers didn’t shoot or taser him in the time period before the police arrived. No, they managed the situation - dementia is tricky and paranoia can be strong. However… literally grab a blanket and throw it over the guy. Movement/mobility limited, vision limited, knife disabled.. and literally wait him out. Dementia violence doesn’t last forever.. it’s largely in bursts. It’s often easy to distract them as part of deescalation using food or other means (like younger children) as well. The best same nursing home story happened in Australia recently too. Dementia. Patient used a walker. Somehow got a knife (most likely a bread knife.. a bread knife wielded by an 80-90 year old with mobility limitations. If that scares our tough and highly trained police forces… fuck me. Give the badges to nursing home staff who deal with dementia bursts of aggression daily - not retards who think a badge gives them meaning in life and a license to kill.

** unsure how ‘best’ autocorrected there. Ignore.

The lady in Australia was 95, and she died. Oh and the cops and government are covering up the police report..

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Sad stories all round. Sure having longer average lifespans may have society value or be seen as an achievement.. but we sure as hell don’t know how to fund it (aging population), or how to treat less capable or people suffering from typical older age conditions. My grandma had dementia. It took around 7 years for her to become effectively catatonic. Her treatment - withhold food and wait until she starved to death. This isn’t made up. That’s literally how she passed - we had no idea if she would live 24 hours or weeks. It was three and a half weeks from when they started to withhold food. My granddad had a fall and a decent bump on his head. He was not likely going to live or recover - however the doctor came and administered a lethal dose of morphine. Sad, but at least he said some goodbyes and passed an hour after falling. Giving fatal doses of morphine is actually very common for elderly entering hospital usually after a fall. Technically it’s murder - and it’s not talked about - yet it happens extremely often. Again - governments fail us with broken laws, poor information and remove personal choice. Our governments and their laws are completely trash around personal death and choices, and how we treat end of life circumstances.

I can’t speak for globally. I do tend to thing that US anti-police sentiment fails to consider how many interactions happen every day and go admirably or even just well, and how hard it is to eliminate the last far-less-than-1%. But that doesn’t make horrible stories not horrible. Just questions whether we should do anything about them or focus elsewhere.

These stories were in Paris and Sydney. No US at all. Plenty of recent Australian police brutality against youth and/or indigenous peoples in Australia too. Head stomping and despicable acts that are attempted to cover up - public video footage often the only reason police can’t hide and lie. Definitely there are countries that have far fewer conscious-less and completely untrained officers. Many many countries even in the EU have significant police corruption. Democracy has failed significantly to build strong police forces that are built for the community and respect the community. They are trained and exist today to use excessive force - that any mid-IQ individual would never deem as appropriate - yet they hype up their recruits, give them an ‘us vs them’, ‘we’re always right, their always trying to disobey’, ‘used against you, but not for you’ mentality. It’s sickening. Domestic violence, meth and drug violence, horrific car accidents, murder and violent crime - sure are tough situations. Nursing home patients or your every day citizen are not trying to kill police or break laws or create a hard time.. they just want to get on with their day. Police are trained and indoctrinated in western democracies that citizens are all offensive and high threat. Not part of their community or just regular people. Everyone breaks laws.. there are so many laws you can’t not break multiple a week. Most laws don’t matter or aren’t known - why, because there are too many and the majority of people aren’t trying to cause problems. The laws were created to handle rare edge cases - not the 99.99% reality. If you put an officer offside, they will always have countless offences to write up against you — to show you who is boss and they are powerful.. aka. pissing contest.

But sure. It’s a wider cultural policing issue - however there are good cops and many interactions are reasonable enough day to day. If I hire a murder, train them, give them a weapon, and tell them they are powerful - who is at fault? If I hire someone who commits crimes for my business, am I responsible? Politicians, police unions, officers and any police leadership roles should all be accountable. No questions. They are arming poorly trained violent individuals. The worst part is the cover up and the officers lying for each other - and the legal assumption that police under oath are honest. They are regularly not. Again, it’s skewed against the public.