Replacing Police With Social Workers: Epic Failure Edition

So what happens when you send Social Workers into a dangerous situation? Ousting Chicago Police in Favor of Social Workers Would Court Disaster | Chicago Contrarian

As part of the Defund the Police Insanity, Chicago is having Social Workers respond to some cases of emotionally disturbed persons. Can you guess how that is working out?

Here are some details from an incident that took place in early January. Though the details are vague...

Upon their arrival at the woman’s apartment, the pair of social workers learned they had opened a window to Hell: The mentally ill woman sadly underwent a severe psychotic outburst and produced a knife, threatening both social workers. A fearsome sight, the social workers fled the apartment and immediately contacted police.

Shortly after patrolmen arrived at the scene, officers confronting the ill woman determined their options were limited and attempting to cope with the woman themselves would only aggravate matters or expose themselves to grievous injury. Recognizing the danger to residents and themselves, the patrolmen resolved to hand the matter over to a specialized unit, SWAT

More details are provided at the link above detailing how SWAT resolved this incident and got the woman out alive.

There is no doubt that we could do better with mental health in this country. That is because we dismanteled a lot of mental health in the 1970s and 80s, mostly as a reaction to the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. (Basing policy decisions on Hollywood films may not be the best bet, but that's where we are.)

Expecting social workers to respond to situations like this is tempting fate. This time the two social workers were able to flee. Bets on whether that will always be the case? Considering that the social workers haven't been doing this for very long, my guess is that someone will be seriously hurt soon.