Listen up. I developed CIT and trained the Albuquerque Police Department for three years on how not to shoot mental health peers in crisis. I consider my efforts a largely unsuccessful experiment and the only real solution is to remove law enforcement as mental health crisis responders.

That said, if you feel law enforcement serves no purpose and deadly force is entirely wrong no matter what, I wish you the best of luck living with the violence of crime unchecked, because this crime exists – murder, rape, domestic beatings, trafficking, drug wars, to name a few – and in the absence of the shield between criminals and us called law enforcement, living with anarchy becomes the “New Normal.” Crime doesn’t go away because police were too mean.