In 2019, Las Vegas resident Roy Scott was handcuffed and restrained by police after he called 911 with paranoid delusions. Scott lost consciousness and later died at a hospital.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that officers who were involved don’t have qualified immunity, which protects police from legal liability, because they weren’t responding to a crime. That decision is changing policies at sheriffs’ departments in California.
Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott said the ruling means that if a law isn’t being broken, his deputies will no longer act as first responders for mental health emergencies…