Reply #12

But here's what I did here in California:

I knew the person was suicidal. I also knew that simply calling 911, who would dispatch the police, would be useless unless the police could be shown hard evidence of actual danger, such as a suicide attempt. Otherwise, the person could simply say "I'm fine," and the police could do nothing.

I waited until there was an actual suicide attempt in progress, with missing drugs and a note and boxes of stuff labelled with the names of the person's relatives. Then I called 911.

In 20 minutes the first officer showed up, followed shortly by another officer and a psychiatric nurse. They all looked at the evidence and agreed with me that the person was suicidal.

They took her to the county psychiatric hospital for a 72-hour hold as allowed by Section 5150 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code.

It took her 10 days to figure out the right combination of verbal utterances, feigned facial expressions, and gestures to get herself released. The doctors referred her to outpatient treatment with a psychiatrist, gave her a prescription, information about various free crisis intervention services available, and a free cell phone.

She didn't take the medication, didn't call any friends or family, and didn't show up for her first appointment with the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist's office sent the police to her home to do a welfare check. She told them "I'm fine," and they could do nothing.

Seven weeks later she killed herself.