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Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

abcnews.go.com

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Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#281
post #209

> Police stopped Elijah McClain on the street in suburban Denver last year after deeming the young Black man suspicious. He was thrown into a chokehold, threatened with a dog and stun gun, then subjected to another law enforcement tool before he died: a drug called ketamine. From the very beginning this story makes no sense. Suspicious is not a crime. An earlier story makes things seem even worse: > While McClain was…

> Wearing a ski mask in public during the summer, although odd, is not a crime, either.

I don't know much at all about the McClain case, but your statement seems to have a flawed assumption that a crime is required before police can legitimately get involved. Policing doesn't only occur after a crime is committed. A big part of policing is about deterrence: being visible, talking with people in the community, investigating suspicious activity, double-checking that nothing is wrong, etc.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I can't argue with that since you said 'many' police in a country of 350+ million people. But what is many? 5? 100? 1000? It's easy to pick these instances and assign blame retrospectively when in reality, things like this almost never happen. If the guy had pulled out a gun and shot the cops in the head, we wouldn't have heard a thing about it. Business as usual.

This is a nonsense argument. Police in the United States kill civilians at a rate more that 3x the rate of the next first world nation. In almost all cases of police acting with bias, those same officers are surrounded by other officers who do nothing. All of these bystanding officers are guilty of the same crime. These cases are just the ones that are brought to the national attention there are many more that are no…

1. I am black. 2. There is no police brutality in my area, or crime for that matter. 3. I don't shrug and accept police brutality, those are your words. 4. I am not trying to spin a narrative, merely point out a narrative that is being spun by the media that directs attention away from actual solutions in favor of self-dealing sensationalism.

Cops are humans. It is illogical to assume that there will be no mistakes made.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#283
post #245

It's completely insane that, in America, police are allowed to direct paramedics to inject a person with _anything_. Anesthesiologists go through how many years of schooling and training? And even then, nobody is injecting kids with shit on the street. I was first confused when I learned about the McClain story; I had known Ketamine to be a recreational drug, and i had never heard of cops injecting something into a p…

The cops didn't "legally" direct the injection. The don't have the authority to do that. In my opinion (as a paramedic), that makes the compliance of the medics with the cops request even more disgusting.

Sedation (even involuntary sedation) is an important tool for EMS (outside the context of law enforcement). It was used totally inappropriately here, and everyone involved should be facing criminal charges.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is something that should never happen at all, but you're hyperbolizing the parent's statement. They didn't say there are only 8 cases in the US, they said it's uncommon. Taking Minneapolis as an average (parent believes they are worse than average), it happens to .00063% of the population there per year or 1890 Americans per year. I'm having trouble finding the arrest rate in Minneapolis, which woul…

It shouldn’t happen at all. The amount of people ok with “a little dystopian policing” is disturbing to me.

What do you feel should happen, then, in the rare cases where medical personnel need to treat someone who's uncontrollably violent? Police on their own can be (and are) trained to just physically restrain the guy indefinitely, but paramedics can't treat someone if they're thrashing around.

(I agree it'd be dystopian if police were themselves carrying around sedatives, but that's not happening here.)

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#286
I guess most people here have never been in public safety or law enforcement.

The number of drug-addled, violent, danger-to-themselves-and-others people encountered in the US is unusually high and increasing.

This is compounded by the inability (right now) of the justice system to either put them into either suitable treatment programs (with mandatory detention, essentially) or incarcerate them (a gradual but steady decline in prison space and willingness to hold and prosecute them - this is a real problem).

When you have someone crazed out of their mind, hitting/punching, shouting obscenities, spitting and biting at you and others on the street, being polite isn't going to cut it.

Of course it's worthy of debate whether administration of drugs like this are appropriate and desired by the public at large. But defined as a law enforcement tool just like non-lethal weapons, they are (currently) totally legitimate to use to subdue someone who's being violent and a harm to self and others.

The mistake here was the wrong dose, not the principle. Mistakes happen, it's our job to make sure they don't happen normally.

Please don't join the knee-jerk protest against some symbolism that police are using this to "torture" people or commit some atrocity. Especially if you've never even been near someone exhibiting psychotic rage (and who likely just committed property damage or violence against another person). You act based on a symbol - depriving public safety and law enforcement of tool after tool because you see one or two bad examples - but then don't ever have to deal with the consequences of your choices for the rest of the law abiding forces acting to protect you every day.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, how many people wearing masks (pre-pandemic) would be trying to avoid getting identified while committing a robbery? How many people pushing the officer away would be trying to attack them next? Does police have a way of knowing in advance, whether this exact mask-wearing arrest-resisting individual is actually a threat? I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A much healthier…

"I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A much healthier solution would be to try de-escalating general tensions between the police and the population." Right, its not the fault of the armed people with godlike power to kill, arrest and detain to their hearts content based on nothing but a feeling or bias. Its the fault of the people being harassed and killed for not properly genufl…

Well, the day-to-day job of these armed people is to deal with other violent, and often armed people, before they go out on the general public.

Besides, there are quite a few cities that have considerably limited the police power by now. Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland for example. The safety of regular law-abiding people has considerably dropped. Murders are up, gun sales are up, almost every type of violent crime is up.

If you don't like police, go ahead, move to one of these cities. Or at least, search for some videos from them on DuckDuckGo.

I find it very disheartening and hypocritical to hear anti-police rhetoric from people living in 7-figure-property neighborhoods, completely shielded from the problems that the police is supposed to solve.

And no, I am not a human bot in a call center, I happen to be a Canadian that is actually satisfied with the way RCMP works here. And I don't understand why our southern neighbors would rather shoot themselves in their feet and have their cities burnt, than try to copy some techniques that do make police more efficient up here.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is technically true and misses the point. Police are ordering paramedics to inject it. (edit: to be clear, I am saying that yes, ordering somebody else to do it is morally equivalent to doing it yourself... if it's wrong to do it yourself, it's just as wrong to order somebody else to do it) Pointing out that the police aren't injecting it themselves is like pointing out that [insert name of murderous dictator he…

There is a huge difference between police injecting it and police ordering trained paramedics to inject it. The comment I was responding to was implying that it was dangerous for police to administer Ketamine because they are not trained, and I was saying that is not an issue since they are not the ones administering it. I don't think police should be ordering EMS to administer Ketamine, but even if they are that is…

Police cannot "order" a paramedic to do anything to a patient. They can phrase it as an order, and the paramedic _should_ tell them to get stuffed, but that doesn't always happen (clearly...)

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being charged is not the same as being found guilty. Cops are not lawyers or judges.

Being charged is enough to hold you for 3 days, as well as to put you on probation for a couple months afterwards, even if the charges are dropped. This happened to a friend of mine when he was frustrated with an inland border control roadblock and didn't want to answer the questioning officer. He did not resist, was not violent in any way. He simply politely declined to answer. In the end it cost him over a grand to…

In addition, for most people, if you miss work for 3 days without an explanation, you'll be fired. If you miss work for 3 days and tell your boss it was because you were arrested, you'll also likely be fired. You'll now also have to answer "YES" on job applications where they ask you whether you've been arrested for anything (even if eventually charges were dropped or you were found not guilty). As an innocent person, the mere brush with law enforcement can have long-standing negative effects on your life.
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