Section 2: Bias and Judgment: Not Assuming Drugs, and Telling Addiction, Mental Illness, Trauma, and Poverty Apart From Danger

School: Minister Destiny Testimony Schools Track: Law Enforcement Section: 2 of 12 (one section every 4 weeks; self-paced) Founded and presented by: Muslim Ordained Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

A note on what this school is: this is community-designed training — Minister Destiny's program, built from lived experience in the neighborhoods being policed. It is not agency policy and does not replace your department's training, general orders, or the law. Where this program proposes new approaches, they are taught and labeled as proposals. Nothing here is legal advice.

Before you start

• This school never collects your name. Progress and quiz answers stay on your device; pass the section quiz (80% or higher, retakes allowed, answers are not shown) and your certificate downloads with a blank name line to fill in after saving.
• Section 1 taught you to slow down the first ten seconds of reading a scene. This section slows down the next judgment: what is wrong with this person? A wrong answer there can turn a medical call into an arrest, a frightened resident into a suspect, or a person in withdrawal into a fight nobody needed. The habit taught here is simple to say and hard to practice under pressure: describe what you see, consider more than one cause, and let danger — not difference — drive the response.

The lesson

1. The drug assumption — why it comes first, and why it misleads

Many officers reach for a substance explanation early because patrol work makes it familiar. You have seen intoxication often, you have been trained to watch for contraband, and calls are frequently dispatched with a label — "possible drug activity," "man acting high" — that frames the scene before you arrive. Dispatch language is useful information, but it is not a diagnosis. It is one person's report, filtered through a phone call, compressed into a few words.

The assumption misleads for three practical reasons. First, several very different conditions share the same surface signs: unsteady walking, slurred or rapid speech, sweating, confusion, agitation, glassy eyes, or a person talking to someone who is not there. Second, the assumption changes your hands and voice. An officer who believes he is facing drug use tends to move toward searches, commands, and testing; an officer who suspects a medical emergency tends to create space, ask about health, and call for medical help. The person in front of you gets a different encounter depending on a guess made in the first minute. Third, the label sticks. Words written in a report — "appeared high," "drug-seeking," "uncooperative" — follow a resident into the next stop, the next call, and sometimes into court, even when no substance was ever confirmed.

This school does not ask you to ignore drugs. Substances are present in many calls, and officer safety matters. It asks you to rank the explanation honestly: a substance cause is one hypothesis among several, to be supported or ruled out by what you can actually observe, ask, and verify. Section 1's rule stands here in full: the substance assumption is the last hypothesis, not the first.

2. Four different doors behind the same behavior

Learn the broad patterns below as field orientation, not as medical diagnosis. You are not being trained to diagnose anyone. You are being trained to avoid collapsing four different human situations into one enforcement response.

Addiction and intoxication. A person who is intoxicated or in withdrawal may smell of alcohol, have pinpoint or unusually wide pupils in some cases, move between calm and irritable quickly, or focus intensely on leaving, obtaining something, or avoiding withdrawal sickness. Withdrawal can bring shaking, nausea, sweating, anxiety, and a powerful sense of urgency that looks like defiance. Intoxication can also hide injury: a head wound, internal bleeding, or a dangerous blood-sugar problem can be missed when every sign is credited to drinking. When in doubt, treat unexplained confusion, vomiting, seizures, chest pain, trouble breathing, or a person who cannot stay awake as a medical problem first and request medical evaluation.

Mental illness in crisis. A person experiencing a mental-health crisis may hear or respond to things you cannot hear, believe with total conviction that someone is following or harming them, speak in rushed or tangled sentences, or swing between laughter, tears, and fear. The key field distinction is that the person is often frightened rather than hunting for advantage. Commands that multiply, crowd the person, or demand instant eye contact can raise that fear. A quieter voice, one speaker at a time, simple sentences, and extra distance often gather more information than rapid orders. A crisis is not the same as noncompliance, even when a frightened person cannot follow an instruction the first time it is given.

Trauma responses. Trauma is the body's stored alarm from earlier harm — violence, captivity, abuse, a prior frightening police encounter, military or medical trauma, or years of being watched and controlled at home. In the field it can look like freezing and silence, sudden shaking, a person who cannot seem to hear you, explosive startle at a touch or a light, or anger that arrives far faster than the present moment seems to explain. A trauma response is not a performance and it is not, by itself, evidence of a crime in progress. It tells you the alarm system is firing. Slow, predictable movement, announcing what you are about to do, and avoiding surprise contact reduce the chance that your necessary actions re-trigger the alarm.

Poverty and exhaustion. Poverty has its own visible signs that are routinely misread: sleeping in a car because there is nowhere else, wearing the same clothes for days, carrying belongings in bags, smelling of a workplace or of having no access to a shower, guarding food or paperwork, or becoming upset over a small fine or a towed car because that car is also a bedroom, a job, and childcare transport. Add night-shift exhaustion, caring for children alone, or sleeping in short fragments, and a resident may be slow, forgetful, short-tempered, or tearful without any substance or illness involved. Poverty is a circumstance, not a character flaw and not a danger sign by itself.

3. Danger is a separate question — ask it separately

The most useful mental move in this section is to split one muddled judgment — "something is wrong with this person" — into two clear questions. First: what condition or circumstance might explain this behavior? Second, independently: what is this person doing right now that creates a specific, immediate risk, and to whom?

Danger is shown by actions and means in the present moment: a weapon being reached for or used, a person advancing while threatening harm, active violence against another person, a driver creating an immediate hazard, someone stepping into traffic, or a medical emergency that will worsen without help. Danger is not shown by a diagnosis, an address, a record, a style of dress, slurred speech by itself, or the fact that a person is poor, ill, addicted, or afraid of you.

Work the two questions in order:

1. Stabilize the immediate scene. Address fire, traffic, weapons, injuries, and people in immediate peril before you sort out explanations.
2. Name only what you observe. "Walking into the roadway, unsteady, holding his head" is usable information. "High and causing a scene" is a conclusion.
3. Screen for medical urgency. Ask, when you can: "Are you hurt? Do you have diabetes or another medical condition? Have you taken anything today? When did you last sleep or eat?" A "yes," an incoherent answer, or no answer at all can each point toward medical help.
4. Offer the least harmful door that fits. That may be an ambulance, your department's crisis-intervention team, a quiet place to sit with a family member present, transportation help through an approved channel, or — when a crime and a lawful basis are actually present — enforcement. Match the door to the facts, not to the first label.
5. Reassess after each step. People sober, panic, calm, disclose, and deteriorate. A read that was reasonable at minute two may be wrong at minute ten. Changing course when the facts change is good judgment, not weakness.

4. Bias in judgment — how it operates on a busy shift

Bias in this section does not mean a bad heart. It means a shortcut the brain takes when time is short, information is thin, and a shift is long. Shortcuts cluster around familiar patterns: a neighborhood you have answered hard calls in, a person whose family you have arrested before, an accent, a car, a group of young men on a corner you have dispersed before. Each shortcut feels like experience. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is one memorable call doing the thinking for fifty ordinary ones.

Three checks interrupt the shortcut without slowing urgent work:

• The swap check. If this exact behavior happened in a wealthy neighborhood, in a hospital parking lot, or from a person in a suit, would I describe it the same way and choose the same response? If not, find the reason in the facts — or admit the reason is not there.
• The record check. Am I responding to what this person has done in front of me, or to what I know, or think I know, about their past? A record can be relevant to a lawful investigation. It is not evidence that today's confusion is drug use or that today's fear is guilt.
• The language check. Listen to your own radio traffic and report draft. Replace labels with observations before you transmit or file. "Erratic male" becomes "man walking between lanes, talking loudly, not responding to his name." The second version protects the resident, the next officer, and you — because it can be tested against what actually happened.

Fatigue deserves honesty here. Judgment narrows at the end of long shifts, after violent calls, and during personal stress. Where department practice allows, a pause, a partner's fresh eyes, or a supervisor's question is not a failure of confidence. It is how professionals keep one bad hour from becoming someone else's worst day.

5. Talking with the person — gathering truth instead of winning

How you ask decides what you learn. A person who feels accused of drug use in the first sentence often stops giving medical information that could save them. Try an approach built on observation and care, in your own words:

1. "I'm Officer [name]. I'm here because someone was worried about you."
2. "I can see you're unsteady and having trouble finding words. I want to get the right kind of help here."
3. "Have you been hurt, or do you have a medical condition I should know about?"
4. "Have you had anything to drink or taken anything today? I'm asking so medical can help you safely."
5. "When did you last sleep? Is there someone I can call who knows how you usually are?"

Speak to companions and bystanders the same way. Family members, neighbors, and store clerks often know the missing context — "he's diabetic," "she just lost her mother," "he hasn't slept since his shift ended" — that turns a guess into a read. Weigh what they say; do not let any one voice, including your own first impression, end the inquiry early. And document disagreement honestly: "Wife states subject has diabetes and missed medication; subject declined ambulance; medics evaluated on scene" teaches the next reader far more than "subject uncooperative."

6. What not to do

• Do not treat the odor of alcohol, by itself, as proof that every symptom is explained. Injured and ill people can also have been drinking.
• Do not use a person's poverty — bags, bedding in a car, an address at a shelter — as a shorthand for suspicion in your notes or conversation.
• Do not mock, imitate, or narrate a person's crisis behavior for other people at the scene. Bystanders are learning how police treat people at their lowest.
• Do not promise a medical outcome, a ride, or a charge decision you do not control. Say what you will do next, and do that.
• Do not let a substance label end a search for weapons, injuries, children out of sight, or another person in distress. A tidy explanation is not the same as a safe scene.
• Do not write a diagnosis you are not qualified to make. Write observations, statements, actions taken, and who evaluated the person.

Words to know — Section 2

• Bias — a shortcut in judgment, conscious or automatic, that treats a person or place as riskier or less credible based on a pattern rather than on present facts.
• Working hypothesis — a temporary explanation you hold lightly, test against observations, and replace when better facts arrive.
• Intoxication — impairment from alcohol or another substance affecting speech, balance, judgment, or awareness.
• Withdrawal — physical and emotional symptoms that occur when a body dependent on a substance no longer has it, which can be medically dangerous.
• Mental-health crisis — a period when symptoms such as panic, psychosis, mania, or suicidal thinking overwhelm a person's ability to cope or stay safe.
• Trauma response — a body-and-mind alarm reaction shaped by earlier harm, including freezing, startle, shutdown, or sudden anger.
• Differential read — the practice of holding several possible explanations for the same behavior and testing each one before acting.
• Present danger — a specific, immediate risk shown by current actions and means, separate from a person's condition, history, or circumstances.
• Collateral label — a judgment word in a report or radio call that follows a person into later encounters even though it was never proven.
• Crisis-intervention team — department or partner clinicians and specially trained officers who respond to mental-health and related crises.

Myths vs facts — Section 2

• Myth: Slurred speech and unsteady walking mean a person is on drugs or drunk. Fact: Stroke, low blood sugar, head injury, exhaustion, medication effects, disability, and panic can produce the same signs, and several causes call for medical help first.
• Myth: If a person in crisis will not follow commands, they are choosing to resist. Fact: Fear, hearing voices, trauma alarms, confusion, and language or hearing problems can all prevent a person from processing an order; how the order is given changes what is possible.
• Myth: Poverty at a scene — bags, a car someone sleeps in, worn clothes — is itself a warning sign. Fact: Poverty describes a person's resources, not their intentions; danger must be read from present actions, not from circumstances.
• Myth: Experienced officers do not need to check their first impression. Fact: Experience speeds up pattern recognition, including wrong patterns; the swap, record, and language checks are how experienced judgment stays accurate.

Think it through — Section 2

The situation: At 6:10 a.m. you are sent to a gas station for "a man high on something, scaring customers." You find a man in his forties near the pumps, swaying, repeating "I need to get home," dropping his wallet twice, and pushing past you when you step close. He smells faintly of alcohol. The clerk is filming. A woman pumping gas says, "He does this every morning — just arrest him."

Walk it through:

1. The observations are swaying, repeated speech, clumsiness, a push when crowded, and a faint smell of alcohol. None of those, alone or together, proves drug use, and the push happened when you closed distance — information about crowding, not yet about intent.
2. The differential read includes intoxication, but also low blood sugar, stroke, a head injury from a fall, medication problems, and exhaustion. Repetition and dropping objects widen the medical possibilities rather than narrowing them, so medical evaluation moves to the front of the plan.
3. Present danger is specific: a confused man near fuel pumps and moving cars. Move the risk, not just the man — create space from pumps and traffic, keep bystanders back, and give the clerk a simple job: stop filming commentary and hold customers inside if needed.
4. Ask the medical screen out loud and simply: hurt, diabetes or other condition, anything taken today, last sleep. Ask the woman what "every morning" actually means — she may know he walks from a night shift, has a known condition, or was fine twenty minutes ago, which changes the timeline.
5. Call for medical help and, if available, your department's crisis-intervention team. If a crime is later supported by facts, it can still be addressed; a missed stroke or blood-sugar emergency cannot be taken back. Document observations and statements, not the clerk's label.

Try this — Section 2

Use this four-line differential card on your next ten non-urgent person calls, on paper or in your notes app, and review it at the end of the week:

• Observed: three facts only — no labels, no conclusions.
• Could also be: at least two non-substance explanations that fit those facts.
• Danger now: the specific present risk, or "none observed yet."
• Next door: medical, crisis team, family contact, resources, enforcement — and why that door fits.

Then re-read two of your own recent reports and rewrite every judgment word as an observation. Notice how the rewritten version would read to a supervisor, a judge, the person's family, and the next officer who meets them. That rewrite habit, kept for a month, is the drill.

Resources to keep — Section 2

• 911 — for immediate danger, serious injury, or a medical emergency that cannot wait.
• 988 — call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, for a person in emotional distress or for guidance on helping someone else.
• Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741 to connect with a live, trained crisis counselor by text.
• SAMHSA National Helpline — 1-800-662-4357 — free, confidential treatment referral and information for substance use and mental-health concerns.
• Poison Control — 1-800-222-1222 — for suspected poisoning or a harmful substance exposure; when in doubt about urgency, call 911 first.
• Your department's crisis-intervention team — request it early on crisis calls, in line with your department's procedures.
• The local hospital — the destination and evaluation point when symptoms may be medical; a hospital bracelet, discharge paper, or medication list at a scene is information worth protecting and passing on.

What you earned / what's next — Section 2

✅ Section 2 complete (quiz score 80% or higher): You can hold more than one explanation for the same behavior, separate a person's condition from present danger, run a plain medical screen, and write observations instead of labels that follow a resident from call to call.

Your certificate

Minister Destiny Testimony Schools Minister Destiny Testimony Schools — Law Enforcement Certificate of Completion — Section 2: Bias and Judgment

This certificate is presented by Muslim Ordained Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

Awarded to: ______________________________ (write your name here after you download — your name is never collected or stored by this school)

Date completed: ______________

Congratulations. You have practiced the discipline of seeing a person before a label — asking what else could explain what you see, and letting real danger, not assumption, decide your response. That fairness is remembered on every street where you practice it. — Minister Destiny Marie Morgan

This is a certificate of educational completion from Minister Destiny Testimony Schools, a community-designed training program. It is not a state license, a POST certification, or an agency qualification, and this program is not agency policy.

What's next: Section 3 — De-escalation Without Profanity or Unnecessary Force: Voice, Distance, Time, and Respect

Minister Destiny Testimony Schools — Law Enforcement. Community-designed educational training; not agency policy and not legal advice.