I for one look forward to this happening ...

... in 2040

So the next time there’s some naked lunatic running around with a machete we’re supposed to send in some guy with an MA in Sociology?

Actually, that might turn out even better

@2
That would be less expensive than the legal settlement in millions paid to the family, after the lunatic is shot to death!

@4 Why should there be any legal settlement.
The lunatic at any time could choose to stop acting like a lunatic.

@6 What about the legal settlement paid to the family of the sociologist after the lunatic slices through their carotid artery?

@5:

Your knowledge and understanding of mental illness is obviously about on-par with just about every other subject on which you spew a worthless opinion - namely, zero. Only a complete and utter dumbass would even think to suggest mental competency can be turned on and off at-will like a fucking light switch. If what you suggest were even remotely true, we wouldn't have this thing called "an insanity defense", now would we, Einstein?

Oh, FFS. Now you're fapping on your keyboard so hard you can't even keep track of which comment responding to. Do you even know what a carotid artery is or did you just hear David Caruso mention it on an old episode of "CSI: Miami"?

We shouldn't have an insanity defense.

How about Payton S. Gendron? He should have been locked away last June after his mental health evaluation. But since our society insists on catering to the mentally ill he was allowed to walk free to fester in his madness and hatred.

How are you going to feel about the insanity defense when he is acquitted and waltzes out of the hospital in 2 or 3 years?

We need to do away with the insanity defense completely.

@8 Is it my fault there's not a reply button on these threads?

Weren't we moving this circus over to Disqus or something.

"A recent County survey showed that many of those residents want the option of calling an unarmed behavioral health professional when they see someone in crisis."

The survey said that a majority of the respondents did NOT want the county to stand up unarmed behaviorla health professionals, but since it doesn't fit the narrative you want you keep lying about it. It's no different than Fox News or OLN whatever other right wing garbage site is the latest thing for Trumpers, and it's equally pathetic.

@2 Remember the man with a knife on the waterfront last year? Police identified him as being in a mental health crisis - and they shot him. Cops escalate a crisis like that. Uniforms, guns, spouting demands. It's not black and white; the MA might need police support, but they're better suited to de-escalate the situation.

@12 Seems to me that if the person has degenerated in their mental illness to the point that they are running around the waterfront in a manic episode the social workers have already failed.

What were the cops supposed to do. Just ignore him, let him run on down the waterfront to attack someone else?

Yea, it was obvious he was a lunatic from the moment he was encountered. By that point there were few options, none of them good. The cops chose the option that had the least impact on the not crazy community members.

When confronting someone in a murderous rage (or manic episode whatever) the will being of the enraged person should be the last thing to be considered when choosing a course of action.

Gendron is never getting out on an insanity defense. He completely understood what he was doing and its implications. He's more likely going out on the end of a needle.

And what is Sheriff Joe going to think about this?

@14
From the NYTimes.

"Payton Gendron, a senior, said he wanted to commit a murder-suicide, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the matter.

He claimed to be joking, the official said. But the state police were summoned to investigate and took Mr. Gendron, then 17, into custody on June 8 under a state mental health law, police officials said Sunday.

He had a psychiatric evaluation in a hospital but was released within a couple of days, the officials said. Two weeks later, Mr. Gendron graduated and fell off investigators’ radar."

Personally I think the needle is too good for him. Being an Atheist, rather than grant him a quick trip to oblivion, I'd rather see him locked up in a very small room for a very long time.

But that ain't going to happen. He'll use the bogus insanity defense and get off easy.

You know, it, I know it, he knows it.

I always enjoy the reasoned discourse at SLOG

Toby I bet the lunatics will just stop lunaticing around the time you stop being a tool.