I believe you are unfairly blaming the police agencies saying they need to figure out how to work with the officials when the politicians initiated this change with a distinct lack of cooperation, consultation, or deep forethought. It's a case of they have to pass the bill to figure out how to make it work. It's utterly irresponsible to not have considered the need to beef up alternative responders before passing these bills.
It's not the police agencies themselves making these decisions---it's the city/county/municipal legal departments. They gave the bills to the lawyers and said interpret this so we know what to do and the lawyers came back with what we have before us now. Out of the legal departments comes the basis for the policies.
We clearly disagree on the benefit of these bills, but I think we can both agree that we are now in a state of flux---caught between how we used to handle emergencies pre-implementation and whatever final product of alternative responders we'll have in the future. How long we live in this state of flux is anyone's guess, and I don't have much confidence in the leadership in this state to figure it out anytime soon. Meanwhile responders and citizens will go without help and be at increased risk of injury and death.
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