Discussion of a Scenario Project - Assignment Example

The officer used his instincts to find the suspect. The descriptions given to him by the civilians were “wearing a red shirt and white pants”. The suspect, having white pants and walking close by at the time, made him a suspect. He also had a dark shirt; red shirts are seen as dark in the night. The suspect also had an object in his hand, which later turned out, to be a gun. This matched the lady’s description. The officer, however, did not use his instincts to make sure that the suspect could not shoot.

He only had the threat of serious injury or death that the suspect posed, in his mind.Yes, the society is working towards minimizing the use of force when dealing with mentally ill people. According to Das (2009), experience in dealing with the mentally ill people has led to the development of specialized police response programs that train officers on how to handle and resolve encounters with the mentally ill. An example is the Crisis Intervention Program (Landsberg, 2002).The agency might be under scrutiny for not having necessary policies guiding its officers’ behavior, towards the mentally ill or how they act in encounters with the mentally ill.

Concerning the pending litigation, the mental status of the suspect changes the ruling against him, but the reasonability of the police officer in handling the situation will still be considered (Lee, 2010).