When you need to check up on someone you are worried about, who are you going to call? For some families that have turned to the police for help, or strangers that have made wellness checks on others etc, it has unfortunately turned deadly.

This might not be the outcome in all circumstances for wellness checks, that this is the case, but even one event where an innocent life gets taken is unjustified and is one too many.

Police departments get thousands of these calls every year and there is a growing suggestion being made today that perhaps the police aren't the best ones to be responding to mental health calls and other non-criminal situations.

If they are going to increase the risk of violence and therefore increase risk that threatens the community, then it is better to send someone else who has more training and intelligence to deal with the situation.

To increase the odds that people don't end up dead.

The list of people who have died at the hands of police during wellness checks continues to grow, in the United States and elsewhere.

Now, for some victims of those wellness checks who are suing police over the injustice they allegedly suffered, they are calling for a change to procedures. And it is going on in more than one area.

In San Francisco, police there will reportedly stop responding to non-criminal calls which comes as a new change to police reform in the area. This change is going to take place over several months.

Replaced with trained, unarmed professionals.

For wellness checks, and a variety of non-criminal matters, it might be better to send unarmed professionals to the scene first, someone who might be more suitable to handle the situation.

It is an idea that is being tested in some places anyways and if successful it could catch on. Imagine the pain and suffering those families must feel when they were simply reaching out for help, calling the police to come and check on someone to ensure their wellness, but instead it goes terribly wrong.

Law enforcement agencies around the country can and should strive to do much better than this. There might be many of those mental health cases etc that can be handled without involving the police and that leaves those resources to focus on other more important matters, more pressing threats to their communities.

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