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Police shoot rubber bullets to subdue suicidal man in SLO

December 17, 2022

By KAREN VELIE

San Luis Obispo police officers shot rubber bullets to subdue a 44-year-old man who was making threats and suicidal comments in the downtown area on Friday afternoon.

Shortly after 3 p.m., a caller reported a man was sitting in the roadway at the intersection of Broad and Higuera streets. As officers arrived, a car headed westbound on Higuera struck Joshua Dollins.

Officers tried to approach and aid Dollins, but the injured man was agitated, uncooperative, and stated he wanted “suicide by cop.” Officers attempted to negotiate with Dollins, who became increasingly threatening to the officers and posed a substantial risk to officers and the community, police said.

Dollins threatened that he had a weapon, and officer shot the SLO resident with rubber bullets. Responders then transported Dollins to a local hospital for assessment of his injuries before booking him in the SLO County Jail on a charge of felony resisting arrest, where he remains in lieu of $50,000 bail.


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I wonder if rubber bullets would of helped that gal who jumped off the parking structure last month. Maybe if they threw a grenade or shot her, non lethal obviously, she could have lived a bit longer. People and their victim hood fell through the cracks stories. Life goes on right? Or, should we care about those who aren’t rich? Or are they just a burden in our finite doomed civilization? I’ll let Jesus decide right and wrong and let God cast judgement.


-34

I am willing to bet Jesus would also encourage you to volunteer and do something about the ills that surround us. Telling people to wait for judgement day was his kindly way of telling naysayers to STFU. :-)


The light of action travels further than sound of lament warning of danger. Just saying my friends…VOLUNTEER. It will do the soul some good.


11

Wow, shooting rubber bullets at suicidal people who want to jump off buildings? I hope you don’t work at any help lines, genius.


3

Instead of building homes for the homeless (LA is spending over $650K for each unit), let’s spend the money on a really good mental health system. Once the crazies are taken care of the remaining 10% of the homeless can be helped into jobs and housing.


50

Why not convert all the prisons they are closing in the state to mental health facilities? I think you are absolutely correct, then all the help that is currently available is not wasted on people who don’t want help.


30

Why not get rid of bail bonds, the rich, and restore Eden and ban Satan and his red apple Ferrari, swimming pools, dead earth and revelation soon to be?


-24

We already have state mental health hospitals. What we don’t have are enough prisons.


5

CA has 5 state mental health hospitals. While we have 34 state run prisons and that’s not counting the privately run for profit prisons

We have a ratio of prisons to hospitals that exceeds 7 to 1


Many years ago, I used to sit at a local coffee shop and drink coffee with the warden from the Men’s Colony and he said something to me I’ll never forget “Prison should be for the people we are scared of, not the people we are mad at”


For a country that claims to value freedom more than any other country, we sure take it from people for some really trivial things.


We need to rethink policing and punishment


1

We have a mental health problem in this county, this state, and this count. Worse than Covid!


5

Ya, those darn crazies. Too bad empathy only applies to those who’ve been through trauma, otherwise everyone is a psychopath narcissist.


-21

Non-lethal shotgun rounds are very effective at taking the fight out of combative criminals. They should be used more often.


35

Yeah, I agree, shoot the mentally ill, lock them up, and dump them back into the creek then do it all over again at our dime. Why not drone strike them and the kids at night too? Non lethal obvi.


-22

I had a front row seat to this one, as I was stopped at the Broad St. crosswalk in full view of the activities.


This guy has been a violent problem in the downtown for a long time. But, thanks to “progressive policing”, he’s not been held long enough to get any real help, nor does the state allow it “without consent”.


SLOPD used the 40mm launcher about 7 times with little effect, before moving in to taze him (which dropped him like a sack of…well, you know), and now were able to overwhelm and secure him from doing further harm to himself or others. Why he was not incapacitated from the vehicle hit, is a mystery itself. He tore off a large chunk of wheel well liner (could have been a piece of bumper) as he was initially struck by the car, yet showed no sign of being injured.


19