Read Post 34 and understand why Cops instead of Mental Health professionals are now required to respond. Paramedics can’t even respond in most states. The Cops were forced by default into a task of being skilled mental health professionals by the courts.
There has to be a compromise somewhere. On the one hand, people shouldn’t be locked up based only on a family member’s say-so. That’s a power that could be abused. Most people suffering from mental illness (manic depression, etc.) are not a danger to anyone. On the other hand, some people (like this man) really are a danger to themselves and other people.
I grew up in a town that was the location of a “state hospital.” Outpatients were placed in the community. It was an interesting place to live, to say the least, with the occasional pedestrian breaking into dance in the middle of the street, or some stranger walking up to you and saying something totally off-the-wall.
But some of my high school classmates also were committed there from time to time, too, by their families for things like drug abuse, for example.