Congress spends money on de-escalation training. Here we go again.

Again, we need to teach the cops to de-escalate. Not the civilians.

While on patrol Thursday I found this interesting article on what our great leaders (excuse me, just spit out some coffee) are accomplishing in the USofA. Passing a budget, which they haven't since FY 2010. No. Bringing spending under control? Nope. Trying to control the border? Funny. No, they will lecture cops on the street on how to do their jobs with "de-escalation training."

We've been doing this, informally and formally, for decades. And the ignorance of the people here is astonishing, even for members of congress. And the "journalist" writing this is not showing himself a genius <sarcasm>, IMHO.

Here we go.

Congress passes bill to fund police de-escalation training

The bill will help PDs adopt de-escalation training when encountering individuals with mental health issues in an effort to reduce officer-involved fatalities

By Farnoush Amiri

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — In one of its final acts of the year, the House passed bipartisan legislation late Wednesday that would empower law enforcement agencies across the country to adopt de-escalation training when encountering individuals with mental health issues as part of an effort to reduce the number of officer-involved fatalities.

Mr. Amiri, police agencies were "empowered to adopt de-escalation training" since they were established.  The local sheriffs, police departments, state police, etc are already established and have set training requirements. This is simply eyewash for members of the congress to say, "Hey, I voted for something..." 

The bill passed 264-162 with Republican support and capped off a modest two-year effort by Congress to pass police reform legislation. The proposal — first introduced by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — will now go to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.

“By giving law enforcement the tools they need to help those experiencing mental health emergencies and other crises, we can help make communities safer by building a stronger bridge between the criminal justice system and mental health care,” Cornyn said in a statement late Wednesday.

I will give Biden this, he does know about mental illness. But what tools are the congress giving local cops? Let's see. 

The bill that passed the House on Wednesday will amend a 1968 federal crime law to authorize $70 million in annual grant funding for law enforcement training on alternatives to the use of force that include scenario-based exercises for officers. It will also require the Justice Department to develop a series of curriculum and training topics in partnership with stakeholders like law enforcement and civil liberties groups and mental health professionals.

“Whether it be Rodney King, or whether it be George Floyd or any of the number of incidents we’ve seen over the last 30 years: How police deal with force is at the heart of the discussion about policing,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank. “And what we have come to find out over the last five to eight years is that the training is outdated. It doesn’t live up to current-day practices.”

They are putting out $70 million a year in grants. There are 50 states, over 18,000 police agencies, divide the money by the number of agencies, that's less than $4,000 a year per agency. Not a really good statistical analysis, but good enough. Especially when you see that local/state governments spend over 200 billion a year on law enforcement. 

The point about the federal Just-Us department putting out "curriculum and training topics in partnership with stakeholders like law enforcement and civil liberties groups and mental health professionals" is very  troublesome. The fact is Democrats want to federalize local/state law enforcement, and they will do it any way they can. And by federalize, I mean destroy. 

A point I've written over before is the federal government has pushed for body worn cameras on local cops, they have been very hesitant to have their agents wear them. My personal experience is they have been a net positive for cops, leading to more complaints being dismissed, as the evidence shows the police acted properly. 

As far as Mr. Wexler's comment's, he's dead wrong. Rodney King wasn't just walking in the street and four cops decided to beat him for no reason. He had committed multiple crimes and was evading in a vehicle:

LAPD officers beat Rodney King on camera

At 12:45 a.m. on March 3, 1991, robbery parolee Rodney G. King stops his car after leading police on a nearly 8-mile pursuit through the streets of Los Angeles, California. The chase began after King, who was intoxicated, was caught speeding on a freeway by a California Highway Patrol cruiser but refused to pull over. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) cruisers and a police helicopter joined the pursuit, and when King was finally stopped by Hansen Dam Park, several police cars descended on his white Hyundai.

A group of LAPD officers led by Sergeant Stacey Koon ordered King and the other two occupants of the car to exit the vehicle and lie flat on the ground. King’s two friends complied, but King himself was slower to respond, getting on his hands and knees rather than lying flat. Officers Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Ted Briseno, and Roland Solano tried to force King down, but he resisted, and the officers stepped back and shot King twice with an electric stun gun known as a Taser, which fires darts carrying a charge of 50,000 volts.

But coming back to the "de-escalate" canard, the author here, and the man quoted, miss the critical fact. If the suspect is not willing to de-escalate, no amount of talking by the cop or training by a federal contractor will change this. If Mr. King had not driven drunk over miles, endangering the public, he would never have been known. And if he had complied with the orders of the cops, again, this would have never blown up. 

Mr. Floyd suffered, and likely died, from a fentanyl overdose. Did the cop screw up, yes, in my opinion. The cardiac compression was a technique he was trained on and authorized by the department. But once he looses consciousness and the heart stops, everything changes. At that moment you need to tell dispatch to get the ambulance there faster, start chest compressions and render other first aid. 

But another paragraph brings this entire endeavor into question:

The issue is a perennial one for the nation. While nearly one in five U.S. adults has a mental illness, people who are untreated are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than other people approached by law enforcement, the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit dedicated to getting treatment for the mentally ill, concluded in a 2015 report.

Let's just pass on the ridiculous stat of 20% of Americans have mental illness, and go again to this article. The congress funded de-escalation training, i.e. cops, the is is how to handle people on the street who are angry, etc. Mentally ill people are different animals, and they likely will not respond to "de-escalation" training, but Crisis Intervention Training, or CIT (a concept originated at local police agencies, not the feds, thank you very much). So why do we have to discuss mental issues in this article? 

Again, more eyewash and wasted money for people. The problem is once this crap is put in, cutting it out of the budget is practically impossible. And the funding will come with strings attached.