Trevor Bothwell has the sad story of Cpl. James Dean. He was an army reservist despondent to learn that he would be deployed back to Iraq. When he became suicidal, his family called the police, thinking they’d send a psychiatrist or crisis counselor. He hadn’t threatened anyone.

Instead, they sent the SWAT team. You can probably guess the outcome.

I realize there are real cases of “suicide by cop.” But those are cases when someone invites a police presence by threatening others. SWAT-like tactics are entirely appropriate.

But when a guy is just depressed, and his family calls the police out of concern for his welfare, sending a paramilitary team is just about the worst thing you can do.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 1st, 2007 at 11:56 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.