Tim Clemans gives Seattle Police Department, King County Sheriff’s Office, and Downtown Emergency Service Center gigantic heart thank you card for deescalating his crises
Media: my personal cell is 206–805–9236 (please text) and my email is tim@timsbots.com
So my background is that I have Asperger’s, Bipolar 2, Borderline Personality Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Major Depression, Impulse Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety. I wanted to be a police officer or FBI agent as a kid. Later in life I wanted to be a paramedic. I eventually figured out that my mental situation wasn’t where it needed to be to do those jobs. It dunned on me that I could use my epic brain to work on emergency services system design. I did projects such as EMS Compare where I records requested the survival rates for out of hospital cardiac arrest and publicly compared agencies. Then a few years went by and in the ER with my now ex-girlfriend I read about KOMO TV winning a court case to get access to hundreds of thousands of dash cam videos. I was annoyed that KOMO wasn’t publishing the videos online and only focusing on Seattle Police. So I launched a state wide records request campaign to get dash and body cam videos published to Youtube. That would launch my paid career starting at Seattle Police as resident hacker, see a very personal cover story in the New York Times Magazine. I left Seattle Police due to not having tools and support to control my emotions when told I couldn’t do something I thought would save lives.
In November 2016 I was arrested for domestic violence involving my parents due to a mental health crisis where I snapped. I’m still waiting on records to be released to me so I can publish them. The current outcome is I was required to get intensive mental health treatment and not get arrested for two years. Unfortunately over a year later I still have crises. Although in the last month they have become much more controlled thanks to use of an emergency button and going through extensive mentoring and training. I was texted out of suicide by cop on April 23rd, 2018. On Saturday (6/9/18) alone I had two major crises that Seattle Police responded to. The 911 call taker, who was the same both times, stayed on the line for until crisis intervention trained officers arrived. In the first one I was transported to Harborview Medical Center where they dumped me in the waiting room and two hours later I almost hit a state trooper for telling me none of my business and refusing to give name when I tried to get him and staff to have a social worker talk to homeless man they were kicking out. I promptly left and called 911 again outside the Seattle Public Library.
911 got me officers who ensured I became calm and then Downtown Emergency Service Center staff arrived, feed me, clothed me, ask questions, and role played with me. The role playing in grained in my head that I’m to tell myself over and over and over “not worth it”.
Then yesterday happened. I’m so proud of myself. Out of the blue was I dealing with a person in crisis who was pointed their right fist at their shoulder at me. I bumped into them when making a sharp right turn from escalator to library floor. I said excuse me. They said “You’re not the police.” I said “No I said excuse me” then it’s a blur from there. Just remember trying to figure out how to get help. King County keeps delaying texting to 911 here and I know calling 911 could be a death sentence because I was assaulted calling 911 in one incident and hit my dad for attempting to call 911 on me in DV case I was arrested for. There was a librarian coming towards us. I signaled her and she rescued me. Without yesterdays role playing this would have ended badly.
King County Sheriff’s Office deescalated a 10/10 mental health crisis with me at a motel 6. They were there for another call and recognized. Me more at https://medium.com/curing-mental-illness/king-county-sheriffs-deputies-kevin-bugosh-and-adams-de-escalate-tim-clemans-in-10-out-of-10-987a9801998
The police have a bad rap. The reality is in my case they are far better trained than others. And I love the accountability they have with body cameras.
