Illinois Dem lawmaker pushes bill to legalize attacks on police for people having mental health episode

[Marauder06]

"Illinois Dem lawmaker pushes bill to legalize attacks on police for people having mental health episode"
https://www.foxnews.com/.../illinois-dem-lawmaker-pushes...

This is extremely bad policy. From the article:
---
"Under the terms of the legislation, the bill would "[provide] that it is a defense to aggravated battery when the individual battered is a peace officer and the officer responded to an incident in which the officer interacted with a person whom a reasonable officer could believe was having a mental health episode and the person with whom the officer interacted has a documented mental illness and acted abruptly."
---
While this might brief well, the logical and predictable outcome of this legislation would be that anyone who assaults a cop will simply claim they were having a bad mental health day, a point made later on in the article:
---
"If this passes, mental illness will be an excuse to attack and beat police officers," the blog states. "In fact, who wants to bet there will be thousands of people who suddenly have doctor notes that permit them to attack cops?"
---
This idiocy should never have been made into an attempt at serious legislation and I hope it gets laughed out of committee.

 

[AWP]

Beat? Just beat? What if your "off" day involves a Glock?

The "I" in "Illinois" is for "idiot."

 

[Devildoc]

This used to be law for healthcare in North Carolina. I knew medics and RNs who got the shit beat out of them and couldn't press charges or have any retaliation. It was considered "part of the job."

 

[Cookie_]

I get this in spirit, but I don't like that the defense is attributable to a "reasonable person" and a mental health diagnosis.

What diagnoses apply? Does some who has SAD get the same pass has a schizophrenic who thinks that cop is a spider trying to drink their adrenochrome?

Rewrite this; require a health professional (psych) to testify that the individual was not of sound mind, specify that "mental illness" refers specifically to those that include hallucinatory symptoms and audio/visual processing disorders, and the person has a pre-established diagnosis and we get a lot closer to what this is trying to get at.

 

[Devildoc]

I get this in spirit, but I don't like that the defense is attributable to a "reasonable person" and a mental health diagnosis.

What diagnoses apply? Does some who has SAD get the same pass has a schizophrenic who thinks that cop is a spider trying to drink their adrenochrome?

Rewrite this; require a health professional (psych) to testify that the individual was not of sound mind, specify that "mental illness" refers specifically to those that include hallucinatory symptoms and audio/visual processing disorders, and the person has a pre-established diagnosis and we get a lot closer to what this is trying to get at.

We're wading into the 'not guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect' realm which has been far abused in the past; the perpetrator gets off with a minimal sentence (usually therapy of some sort) and the vic gets...squat.

The pendulum needs to swing back to the middle: guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect. I am not saying jail time because if they have pathology prison is the wrong place, but rather involuntary commitment with some sort of restitution to the victim.

 

[Cookie_]

We're wading into the 'not guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect' realm which has been far abused in the past; the perpetrator gets off with a minimal sentence (usually therapy of some sort) and the vic gets...squat.

The pendulum needs to swing back to the middle: guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect. I am not saying jail time because if they have pathology prison is the wrong place, but rather involuntary commitment with some sort of restitution to the victim.

Hey, I'm all for bringing back mental institutions. Not exactly a thing I think we'll ever get again regarding our current healthcare system.

I think there's a medium between letting them off scott free and hitting them with a felony charge. Maybe it's allowing civil suits, because a prison sentence isn't exactly restitution for the victim either.
-----------
II'll be very clear that my experience with these situations is through my (limited) EMT and prison guard time. The people i dealt with were legit schizo/DID/other extreme disorders, so I didn't have to deal with any "pretenders" or borderline cases.

 

[Box]

why in the chocolate brownie fuck doesn't somebody DOGE blue cities?

leave the goddamned DOD alone and throw some of these fucking idiots off a bridge