Social Workers Better than Police in Some Situations

   Back came District Attorney Sim Gill from investigating the Marc Neal killing with a verdict of not guilty for the police officers. Or, more precisely, he found the officers justified in their use of lethal force.
  Neal was mentally incapacitated, you know. Think: Defund the Police, for this is why many are calling to defund the police. They believe social workers do a better job dealing with the mentally ill. So, they say, take the money away from the police, and give it to the social workers so they can take care of these situations involving the mentally ill.
   But, did you know that even without defunding, we have such trained workers?  They are already in place. They were in place when Neal was killed Feb. 3. They could have responded, instead of the police.
  Oh, that they had.
  Hindsight being better than foresight, it would have been better if they had responded to the call, not the police.
 Victoria Thomas, Neal's mother who called the police when she became concerned about her son, came to wish she had never called the police. "Oh, heck yes. Oh, yes," she told KUTV.
  The Neal case certainly underscores that we are not utilizing the social workers we already have in place. Why not? Did Victoria Thomas know they were available? Did she have the hotline, 1-801-587-3000? Free help, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
   I would imagine, sometimes social workers will want the police to come in ahead, to make sure it is safe. In this case, police arrived to find Neal with what appeared to be a gun, but it turned out to be a fake gun. Perhaps the social worker would have arrived, seen the gun, and called in the cops, anyway. At any rate, the social worker would not have been in jeopardy, as the gun was not real.
   MCOT, they call these social workers. Mobile Crisis Outreach Team. They are with the University of Utah Community Crisis Intervention and Support Services.
   "I ain't going back to prison," Neal called out to officers as they spoke to him. "Do what you gotta do." The officers, I believe, already knew he was suicidal. Those who have been through our judicial system, and our prison system, are not treated as gently as we could treat people. No surprise that Neal did not want to go back, that he might pick death rather than going back through the wringer of our judicial system.
   This was a situation the social worker would have been better able to deal with. He or she would have shown up, I assume, without a police-type uniform, and without the squadron of police cars. Neal's delicate mental frame would not have been jolted by the flashing police lights, the guns being trained on him, and the threat of feeling he was being arrested to return to prison.
    The case of Marc Dominic Neal is strong argument for using social workers instead of police for situations such as his. It seems most likely Neal would be alive today had social workers taken the call, instead of police.

(Index: Campaign website: Police Reform)