BlisteringSilence, you keep referring to a court order as solid basis for committment, etc. We understand that. So far, there has been no mention of that with this case. You also mention the many times you have coaxed the party into voluntarily going along with a mental appraisal, temporary custody, etc. The question remains regarding what is legal, and what is proper, when there is NO court order, and no trickery, and the subject is NOT going to voluntarily go into mental assessment at the request of the police. I am sometimes unclear as to who is or was a police officer here, or what point of view they are coming from. I used to be a cop, and my rule was golden. I tried very hard not to do to anyone what I would not want done to me. This situation would have been easy from the start. No validated complaint, no court order (so far), and no call for tactical response: no reason to deprive anyone of liberty or demean them by infering mental incompetence. If I really felt like a threat from an armed crazy was possible, it would have been better to conduct a stakeout on the guy, monitor his actions like a drug surveillance, and intercept when it started to look bad. Going to a drug dealers house and asking him if he's thinking about selling drugs (about as successful as asking this guy to take a mental eval) isn't as effective as watching, recording, and catching him in the act, or gathering intel and getting a warrant. I've brought it up before. If two officers get into a fight, or even an argument in the locker room, should the supervisor place them into protective custody, relieve them of their weapons, and call for a psych eval on both of them? It could easily be done, but wouldn't look too good in their files. Where do we draw the line? Now this guy has a police incident report on him and he hasn't done anything..yet...