In an opinion piece titled "Police Brutality, Mental Illness and 'The Memphis Model'" in Monday's Athens NEWS, Amy Goodman criticizes the shooting of two men - both in mental health crises - by New York and New Rochelle police. Tragically, she could have pointed to dozens of other such incidents that take place across the country every year. The fact is that mentally ill persons in such crises - about 10 percent of all police calls - are often confrontational and scary. And police are taught that they can use deadly force if their or other citizens' lives are in jeopardy. So the police in these shootings were doing something that, while regrettable and tragic, was not illegal.
However, as Goodman points out, police best practice is no longer to "shoot first and ask questions later." Almost a quarter of a century ago, an incident similar to those she criticized took place in Memphis, Tenn. This resulted in an interesting collaboration between the local affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the Memphis Police Department called "Crisis Intervention Team" training. The objective of CIT was and is to give police a week of training about mental illnesses and the skills to de-escalate potentially confrontational situations and then help the disturbed person rather than shoot or take him/her to jail.
CIT has been a grand success in many parts of the country - Ohio being the leader in terms of numbers of police who are now CIT certified. And Athens - which has been doing CIT for over a decade - is one of the leaders in Ohio. To date, our Southeast Ohio CIT Committee - an informal group comprised of police officers, people from the criminal justice and mental health systems, and members of NAMI Athens - has trained around 250 regional first responders from over 15 different departments or entities. They, in turn, have helped hundreds of people to stay out of jail and move toward recovery. In several dramatic cases, our CIT-certified cops have actually saved lives.
Now, if family members or citizens in general feel that they are dealing with a person in extreme mental health crisis, they need only call local law enforcement and ask for a CIT-trained officer. Virtually all OU police and Athens City police officers are CIT certified. It is very unlikely that something as ugly or tragic as what happened in New York or New Rochelle will ever happen here. Our citizens can expect persons in mental health crises to be treated respectfully, politely and professionally by our wonderful cops.
