Do you need medical training to understand putting a bag over a naked persons head and then pushing them into the pavement when its cold enough to be snowing isn't going to lead to a good outcome? I agree this wasn't a great situation for the police, but at the same time, that isn't an excuse for behavior like this.

I agree, police get put into some situations they shouldn't be in. However, is there a police department that has produced data (because for some reason, the police don't like data, they fight very hard to avoid it being collected) that showed, these X% of calls are things we shouldn't be doing? This really should be extremely easy to do in this age of automated reporting, if the police are filing proper reports using any kind of reasonable system it should be very easy to get very exact numbers on "mental health calls" or "homeless person in need of services" calls that I 100% agree is not a wise use of police resources, because they really can't even help.

Then said department could request the city cut X% of their budget and use it to fund the appropriate services for these situations, with the understanding the police will refuse to take these calls in the future. Instead its like police make most unfounded complaints (when I say unfounded, I don't mean untrue, I mean they are unwilling to collect the data and statistically show the extent of the problem) and usually say they need larger budgets; if we are going to stop using them in the wrong situations (reduce their workload), they shouldn't even need the current level of fundings, it should be reduced and directed to the new services. Or everyone has to agree to have their taxes increased.