"Bystanders can help make Edmonton transit safer, new campaign vows"
Edmonton is launching a bystander awareness campaign with the goal of making transit safer.
edmonton.citynews.ca
Hahahahaha I just want to make sure that this wasn't published on April 1st as an April Fools joke. Whoever put this together at the city could not have done it with a straight face or probably has not been in an LRT station in the last decade.
We as a general pop are absolutely not equipped to deal with safety issues in the LRT stations and honestly, why would you put yourself in harms way?
For example, those that are overdosing on PCPs can be aggressive coming out of their highs. So if you intervene with, say, a naloxone kit, they may become aggressive and harm the individual just trying to intervene. This is why first responders are facing violence when they arrive at scenes in which someone has overdosed. Is it worth it for an everyday individual to intervene?
I know of one university in the Edmonton area that discussed implementing intervention training because of the number of employees that took transit to the university and the proposal was axed because it was a massive health and safety risk to the university because employees are not equipped to intervene.
Furthermore, the intention for naloxone kits when they were first introduced is not for what they are being used for today. Naloxone kits were meant for people who may have taken a drug and had a bad high or if teens at a concert took a drug that ended up having something else in it. They were not intended to be used as the backbone of intervention in LRT stations to deal with addicts who are messed up beyond their mind on PCP.
To suggest there is a safe way for everyday people taking transit to intervene is not only a ridiculous thing to say, its actually a terrible thing to encourage in my opinion. If the city is not properly equipped to be dealing with a social health and crime crises like we are facing, how the hell are everyday individuals who are just trying to get to work or school? April fools jokes aside, this to me is actually a completely irresponsible thing to encourage.