Mental Health And The Confusion Of Modern Policing
A look at the Cameron Cloward case, out of Utah.
Cameron Cloward was 36 years old. He lived in Salt Lake City. Apparently, per his family, he was autistic. He also, at the time of the incident that ended his life, was apparently homeless.
Here is the raw footage on the situation:
So therein, he apparently stabs a clerk at a Chevron, who calls the cops. Initially I saw this story reported as him having “a machete,” but apparently he just had a pocket knife. (That’s a big difference.)
He’s wandering around the edges of the Chevron when cops arrive, and there’s a lot of screaming and “put the fucking knife down!” and “we’ll fucking shoot you!” Etc, etc.
Finally, Cameron advances a little bit on one of the cops, and he gets shot. He is now deceased.
Well, his brother Morgan got an audience with the Chief of Police in SLC, and that’s within this report:
There is obviously a lot to unpack about this situation, but let me try to skirt the edges:
Why was this kid homeless? The first and fundamental problem I have with this story is his brother Morgan going on the defensive about the cops, but — and I “back the blue,” but contextually — the family knew he was living on the streets? All the cops did in the moment was respond to an incident call. It’s actually more the family’s responsibility than the cops’ responsibility at the front end of this story.
Overkill shooting: Ultimately, the goal of a cop in these situations is to gain compliance. I think what average people don’t understand (myself included) is why cops keep shooting once someone goes down. My wife is a laywer, and deals with use of force cases sometimes, and even she has openly asked that aloud once in a while.
“Defund the Police:” If you are a relatively intelligent person, you understand that “defund the police” did not mean “take money from the police,” but rather “re-allocate some police funding to mental health.” Got it. Now, in this video of Cameron Cloward, it is very clear the cops have no clue how to manage this situation. They are yelling tons of expletives at an autistic kid on a mental break holding a knife. There’s no good way for this to end.
But now ask yourself the opposite: this is still a kid on a mental break with a knife. If we sent a social worker to this scene, is that good? No. And if you went to talk to a District Attorney, they would probably tell you they want cops on this scene — because there’s a potential of violence re: knife and mental health. That said, the cops aren’t ready to handle it. You can call that “warrior mentality” or whatever else. But these cops have no idea how to deal with this man, and in fact seem to make the situation’s temperature go up, not down. I would like to see someone else with them on a ride-along helping to talk down Cameron, but I also don’t know how we staff that. Can we have a “social worker type” 24 hours/day riding with cops? And what if that type is in a car far from the scene? Logistically, it’s just very hard to figure out. We’re going to send cops. And in many situations, when we send cops, this will be the outcome.
Why wasn’t this kid in a treatment program? Probably because it was too hard to place him in one, not enough beds, not enough funding, etc. In my area (not Salt Lake), an autism center just closed because it was running corrupt. Sad. So, there’s a safety net issue here. What’s confusing about modern America to many people is this:
One group bangs on about “we love the police!”
That same group usually wants less social safety nets.
When you have less nets, you get more crazy violence.
The other group (leftists) bang on about “we hate the police!”
They want more safety nets.
More safety nets usually means more in taxes, which everyone seems to dislike.
But more nets also means more opportunities for real police work.
It’s just a very confusing landscape around mental health, police work in the moment, funding, who should arrive to a scene of potential violence, and ideology.
What’s your take on this Salt Lake situation?