It&#x27;s a spectrum.  Some, like this 6 year old (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;theadvocate.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;13907799-176&#x2F;few-details-emerging-in-officer-involved" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;theadvocate.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;13907799-176&#x2F;few-details-emergin...</a>) leave the officer in greater culpability than this active shootout with police (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pe.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;riverside-784400-officers-stop.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pe.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;riverside-784400-officers-stop.ht...</a>) where the driver sped away and died in a car crash against a barrier.<p>If you scroll through and read the stories, most of them seem to be either terrible car crashes or violent criminals.<p>Presuming that officers work 2080 hours a year and there are 765,000 with arresting power, you are 1755 times more likely to interface with a not-a-cop than a cop on the job. Therefore, you are 160 times more likely to be killed X minutes with a police officer than X minutes with some stranger.  15 seconds with 1 cop is as dangerous as 15 seconds with 160 random people.<p>My friends in south LA from different backgrounds have a mantra to <i>never</i> call the cops under any condition.  The idea is that however bad a situation can get, introduction of the police will incontrovertibly make it a de facto worse situation.  Whether true or not, this seems to be a gut intuition to many (search google for &quot;never call the police&quot; to see people express this view).<p>The crux of the question is two-fold:<p>1. Does bringing police into any situation generally lead to worse consequences than avoiding them?<p>2. If we believe that violence is always an inferior solution that lacks efficacy, then why should we invite state-sanctioned violence into our lives voluntarily?  Stated another way, why is the government provided service to someone with psychological distress two people with  firearms locking them in a cage?  Shouldn&#x27;t we provide a more appropriate government service for this?