Very sad

[rynnor]

What price not having nutters going round shooting people eh?

Most of those stories start the same way though - "X stopped taking his medication."

If we could legally force people to take their medication then everyone would be better off but the human rights act is used to fight it on behalf of people who would objectively be better served taking their meds.

 

[throdgrain]

Rynnor wants to lock em up, Scouse wants to give them custard tarts. Guess which side I would choose ?

 

[rynnor]

Rynnor wants to lock em up, Scouse wants to give them custard tarts. Guess which side I would choose ?

No - ideally you want them to be part of the community but this only works if you can ensure they take their medication. Once they go off the deep end you do have to hold them securely for a while until the medication can control the disease.

 

[Calaen]

Most of those stories start the same way though - "X stopped taking his medication."

If we could legally force people to take their medication then everyone would be better off but the human rights act is used to fight it on behalf of people who would objectively be better served taking their meds.

That's like legally forcing them not to shoot people in the face. It's not possible.

 

[TdC]

If the copper had been armed he would have been able (possibly) to deal with it.

It's quite possible that quality therapy and/or a combination of drugs, on a regular basis, could have helped Moat function normally.

Imo BOTH statements are equally valid

Either way, he would have had a better chance than with no gun, when he had NO chance.

This I don't agree with. Sure, he could have seen the guy coming, have warned him, fired a warning shot and done all the other stuff policemen are supposed to do in order to make sure they don't get taken to court but in this case he didn't and got surprise-wtfpwned while sitting in his car because he didn't see it coming and therefore infinitely vulnerable. Very tragic, and imo an extreme example of your "shit happens" idea.

If he had seen the guy, any kind of event could have occurred. He could have talked him out of it, he could have run away. He could have successfully shot Moat. He could have started his car and driven off, or had a shoot-off with Moat and accidentally shot a kid, because stuff like that can happen in extreme situations.

Tbh I am convinced that having a gun would have made not one shred of difference to the outcome either way: the policeman would end up blind and Moat would end up dead. I mean, the guy was so out of his mind that he set out to cry for help (socialist leftie term) in the most extreme way he could come up with and he did something so crazy that an experienced policeman was taken completely by surprise.

Any logical deterrent measure is only of any kind of use when the parties involved are logical and sane. When one or more are not, then you're basically guaranteed a lose-lose situation. Imo ofc.

 

[throdgrain]

Imo BOTH statements are equally valid


This I don't agree with. Sure, he could have seen the guy coming, have warned him, fired a warning shot and done all the other stuff policemen are supposed to do in order to make sure they don't get taken to court but in this case he didn't and got surprise-wtfpwned while sitting in his car because he didn't see it coming and therefore infinitely vulnerable. Very tragic, and imo an extreme example of your "shit happens" idea.

If he had seen the guy, any kind of event could have occurred. He could have talked him out of it, he could have run away. He could have successfully shot Moat. He could have started his car and driven off, or had a shoot-off with Moat and accidentally shot a kid, because stuff like that can happen in extreme situations.

Tbh I am convinced that having a gun would have made not one shred of difference to the outcome either way: the policeman would end up blind and Moat would end up dead. I mean, the guy was so out of his mind that he set out to cry for help (socialist leftie term) in the most extreme way he could come up with and he did something so crazy that an experienced policeman was taken completely by surprise.

Any logical deterrent measure is only of any kind of use when the parties involved are logical and sane. When one or more are not, then you're basically guaranteed a lose-lose situation. Imo ofc.

That doesnt make sense mate. To say it wouldnt have made any difference if he was armed or not is daft, neither you or I were there of course, but if someone walks up to you branishing a shotgun and you are armed there is a chance you can shoot back or (more importantly in this case) shoot first, but if you do not have a gun all you can do is say "please dont shoot me".

 

[Chilly]

And if we have a load of poorly trained poorly paid power hungry police walking the streets with guns I wonder how many people will be killed in error or summarily executed? Armed police are bad. I like how we have it now where armed police are a small exception for very high risk work and the average plod never goes near one.

 

[DaGaffer]

That doesnt make sense mate. To say it wouldnt have made any difference if he was armed or not is daft, neither you or I were there of course, but if someone walks up to you branishing a shotgun and you are armed there is a chance you can shoot back or (more importantly in this case) shoot first, but if you do not have a gun all you can do is say "please dont shoot me".

But he didn't "walk up brandishing a shotgun". He snuck up behind Rathband's police car as it was parked at a roundabout, he got to pretty much point blank range without being seen. I don't really see how a weapon of his own would have helped since Moat's attack was a complete surprise.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

You're forgetting that guns are the answer to everything.

 

[TdC]

tbh my point is that he didn't see it coming, based on the notion that nobody in their right mind is going to stand down a gun yielding nutter and take a gun shot point blank to the face.

imo we're arguing this: you're saying the policeman being armed would make all the difference, and I'm saying that's only true if the policeman sees it coming.

I'm also saying that the policeman wouldn't have shot Moat out of hand, but would have tried to reason with him / warn him off / issue a warning shot / etc before falling though to shooting the guy in the leg or something to disarm/immobilize him. That's what rational people do. Moat on the other hand, was completely off his head: this means that he's not going to respond to rational requests in a manner that we would consider normal, and that leads me to believe that he would either manage to shoot the policeman (or someone else), get himself or someone else killed. The situation would be a complete failure and nobody would win.

 

[Chilly]

UK police generally shoot to kill, TdC.

 

[Mabs]

UK police are allowed to shoot when life is in danger, i think is how it works
ie your about to shoot someone, they cant shoot you for just waving it around

 

[TdC]

UK police generally shoot to kill, TdC.

didn't know that. thanks. Dutch police don't, unless under extreme threat I've been told.

 

[throdgrain]

You're forgetting that guns are the answer to everything.

Dont be stupid

Motorbikes are the answer to everything.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

What about motorbikes with guns attached?

 

[Gumbo]

UK Police aim for centre mass. They aren't shooting to kill, they are aiming for the middle part of the biggest target to secure the best chance of a hit which will stop and disable the target. This just happens to be the middle of your chest. It also just happens that this is where your heart and lungs are. They don't shoot to kill, they shoot to hit and give themselves the best chance of that.

Some people are bad people. Moat was a bad person. He might have been bad because he was ill, he might have been bad because he was bad. Clearly a mistake was made somewhere to allow him to roam around killing people. Perhaps him suggesting that he was dangerous should have got him more 'help'. I'm inclined to think that short of keeping him locked up any 'help' which still allowed him to walk and talk probably wouldn't have made a difference in this case. So who failed? Our justice system for releasing him or our health care system for not sedating him? It doesn't really matter all that much.

The thought that with a bit of a tranquiliser, perhaps some counselling and maybe a hug or two, Moat wouldn't have remained a dangerous thug is laughable, ridiculous, misguided and almost as dangerous as being a steroid abusing, violent thug with a shotgun.

And if every violent thug that we lock up realised that the route to some free drugs, a few meetings and some benefit handouts was telling the right person that they felt they were dangerous, where would that get us?

Bad/ill people sometimes need to be locked up. Not for their own good, but for the good of the rest of us who aren't batshit crazy.

Some of the lefty views in this thread beggar belief.

 

[Billargh]

 

[throdgrain]

What about motorbikes with guns attached?

I like the cut o ya jib young feller-me-lad

 

[Raven]

No - ideally you want them to be part of the community but this only works if you can ensure they take their medication. Once they go off the deep end you do have to hold them securely for a while until the medication can control the disease.

By "go off the deep end" you mean kill someone? As sad as mental illness is, dangerous psychopaths should not be allowed out if their mental well being is only secured by self medication.

If they are just plain "evil" then they should be locked up for good.

 

[rynnor]

By "go off the deep end" you mean kill someone?

No but off the meds they inevitably do something that gets them sectioned or injured.

 

[Scouse]

/necro

To illustrate my point again - what price proper mental health services eh?

He arrived at my sister's house in an awful state,"..."He was violently shaking and he finally said to me 'I do need medical help, I do need mental health help' ... 'please get me help'."

Mrs Edge took her brother to see a psychiatrist ... during which [interview] her brother told the psychiatrist he felt he was a danger to himself and others.

Why don't we treat people who ask for help before they kill people?

 

[old.Tohtori]

Why don't we treat people who ask for help before they kill people?

Because big pharma is run by news agencies and they need their daily dose of drama to keep the people in a mental state of numbness towards violence in case the Antarrians attack?

 

[Doh_boy]

A couple of things I want to add to this thread,

As far as I can recall (read some sort of study about mental illness and prisons) it's widely accepted that for anyone in need of serious psychiatric help, the worse place you can put them is in jail but at the same time people like Raoul Moat can't, really be held in the mental health system because they don't have the facilities to control someone so frequently violent. So what tends to happen is they get punted from one place to the other, which makes most mental illnesses worse, and in the end the mental health system gives up on them, stating they're beyond help. The larger problem with this is there's probably never going to be enough resources to help people with serious mental illnesses who are frequently violent. The prisons reform people tend to put forth the opinion that prisons need to be more geared towards helping the prisoners rather than a sort of glorified holding pen for undesirables. I'm as bleeding heart-liberal as most but I find it hard to get behind the idea that prisons need to be more nurturing but at the same time, if it works, we should do it rather than bleat on about how they have it easy. (OMFG, they have playstations!!!)

As for the wider, why don't we treat people before they kill people. I used to live with a Scottish girl* who was studying/basically was a Psychologist and she said there tends to be a lot of distrust of Psychologists from general medical people; who tend to like pumping people full of drugs. She says the best way of helping people is to use drugs to prevent the more excessive behavior and then give the patient to a psychologist to treat the underlying problems. This could be the reason why most news-worthy problem are based around 'X stopped taking their medication'. If you were taking medication and it made you feel slightly spaced out/subdued and,long-term, wasn't making you better, I imagine you'd start to think you didn't need it.

As for tohts views of mega-pharma, I don't think the medicalisation of supposed mental dysfunction is as bad here as it is in the US but Jon Ronson's book The psychopath test, deals with that. (I have it but haven't read it).

*The only, thus far, posh Glaswegian I've met!

 

[Tom]

You ought to read Dr Chris Cowley's book on his interviews and correspondence with Ian Brady. It offers a fascinating insight into the general inadequacies of psychology and this country's mental healthcare system.

 

[opticle]

TLDR it all.. There's truth to what everyone's saying. It is very hard to understand this sort of thing until you're in that position or circumstance - and mental health is very difficult to understand unless you have experience with it. It is scary. It makes you question a lot about right and wrong and "normal" behaviour. Treating mental health is done badly, but it is very difficult to get "right" and still toe the Human Rights / Mental Health Act etc. line - particularly as everyone is afraid of being vilified in the media for having a strong opinion these days - let alone get the funding and capacity to deal with it.

It is all a tragedy.

What I disagree with is the people calling PC Rathband a coward or saying they "don't respect" him for taking his own life. You have NO idea what he has gone through or how he felt, you have NO idea what his life has been like in the past leading up to the horrible thing that happened to him - you are in no position to judge him for that. Anyone taking their own life is a great tragedy and there is always a lot more to it than you ever realise.

 

[Doh_boy]

You ought to read Dr Chris Cowley's book on his interviews and correspondence with Ian Brady. It offers a fascinating insight into the general inadequacies of psychology and this country's mental healthcare system.

Ta I will. Granted have a 30 book reading list but I'm sure I can fit it in somewhere!

Possibly the problem with Brady is his personality, I imagine it's hard, almost impossible, to treat someone like Brady who would only use any analysis to get what he wants and not to get to the bottom of any of his actual issues. He seems, from the little I've read about him, to need to be in control. In analysis he can't be, so I imagine most of any sessions with him will be largely made up of figuring out which bit is truth and which is a lie.

 

[Tom]

The book was on Kindle for a quid a few weeks back, that's when I bought it. I used it to expand on Wikipedia's Moors Murders article.

 

[Gumbo]

It's 99p on Kindle at the moment, but reviews terribly, I mean really bad. Is it really as bad as it reviews?

 

[Talivar]

I thought i read at the time he WAS offered help but he failed to turn up to his appointment? and that he only asked for the help while he had criminal charges placed against him

 

[Talivar]

Some reports even say he was actually getting help aswelll

He was beaten regularly as a young boy and once witnessed all of his toys being burned by his mother, who the inquest heard suffered from bipolar disorder.
His bottled up feelings of rage and rejection led to nightmares as an adult in which he was a seven-year-old boy being chased by monsters.
He was so paranoid he slept with an axe and a crossbow stashed beneath his bed, and watched CCTV footage of passers by outside his home compulsively.
In recordings he made on a dictating machine following his shooting spree, the fugitive described feeling as though he had a wild animal raging inside him.

He said he struggled to contain his emotions and that he ``hated himself“ because of it.

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Experts said he was paranoid, suspicious, mistrustful of authority figures and blamed other people for his misfortune - but was not mentally ill.
Moat said: "I feel like King Kong when he’s right at the top of that building, all messed up, when he’s in a real mess. I hate myself. I do hate myself. It is a part of me. I’m like the Incredible Hulk.
"It is not anger, it is something completely different. It is just like a wild animal, and it’s been there all my life.
"I’m not sure if my parents put it there or if it has always been there. I’ve had it at the back of my mind and it only ever comes out when I get hurt.”
In 2006, a psychologist wrote to Moat’s Newcastle GP to say his patient felt "jumpy all the time“.
Two years later he completed a questionnaire ahead of a psychological assessment in which he said he had no idea what form the treatment would take.
He wrote: "Knowing my luck it will be all straitjackets, electricity to the head and a cage.”