<<Heh. I know what the man said about it.>>
Bullshit. What you know is how the man summarized it.
<< . . . my argument was the police did not go have a talk to him about his mental state. So far, you have not said anything to prove they did.>>
What intentions the police had already formed when they got to the house or when they set out for it will be evidence at the inevitable trial to follow; the first reports could well have been alarming enough that no matter what the guy said, their minds were already made up, but they would still have evaluated their first contact with him and fed it into the data pool and conceivably it could have been (but obviously was not) a game-changer. It's pretty obvious from your blather about being innocent until proven guilty that you are confusing the functions of police (investigate, keep the peace) with the functions of the criminal courts.
<<Good gravy, you are certainly full of yourself, aren't you? And with a serious penchant for misdirection and fabrication. Hey genius, no one said the police did not or should not have firearms or use the threat of force in the course of their duties. Your condescending little speech is cute but mostly irrelevant. And apparently you have an exaggerated notion of the meaning of the word 'sizeable'.>>
Well, notwithstanding your little snit over the sheer silliness of your argument being exposed, I guess you do realize after all that the police are the enforcement arm of the state, charged with keeping the peace, and that force and the threat of force are the essential tools in their toolkit. Otherwise, the situation could have been resolved by sending over a social worker. Since it is their lives and not yours that are on the line every day, since they are a little more expert than you in threat evaluation, and since their actions are subject to review in the press, the political process and the courts, I am comfortable in letting them and not you evaluate the seriousness of the threat and the measures to take against it.
<<The did not, as your version of events implies, show up and talk to the man about his state of mind and then politely escort him to a mental evaluation. >>
More or less yes, that's what they did. I don't see any evidence of rudeness or disrespect to the individual, either in my version of the event as you quoted it above, or in your version of it, as quoted below.
<<They talked him into exiting his house by lying to him . . .>>
No harm, no foul. They weren't rude or abusive, or physically violent or under oath when they "lied" to him, as you put it; and I'm sure it's in the manual that when dealing with potentially violent individuals, it's OK to promise them whatever it takes to obtain their peaceful compliance, shocking though that may be to your conscience. As if you yourself wouldn't lie to save your life from a potentially dangerous, gun-owning, unstable nutcase.
<<then they handcuffed him and forcibly removed him from his property . . .>
Seems to me like the safest way to transport him to the mental examination they were under a duty to have him undergo.
<< entered his house without a warrant and confiscated his firearms . . . >>
Probably your strongest point yet - - once the guy was on his way to the mental examination and safely out of the house, what then prevented the officers from getting a warrant to search? Laziness? Thoughtlessness? The inertia of "the way we've always done it?"
<< and compelled him to submit to a mental evaluation.>>
Huh? "Very disgruntled?" Recently put on leave? Recently substantially augmented his arsenal with THREE semi-automatic weapons? God-damn right they compelled him to submit to a mental evaluation. Woulda bin gross negligence and incompetence had they NOT. But obviously you, blessed with 20/20 hindsight, think otherwise.
<<This is in no way a situation of no harm, no foul. Your whitewash of the event is laughable.>>
What's laughable is your idea of the police having to exhaust every possibility, seek out every fact and prepare a virtual brief for the DA before they can conclude that there's enough of a danger here to take preventative action under the law.
