According to a Washington Post analysis, 462 people have been shot and killed by police officers in the United States in the first 6 months of 2015. 124 of these people were in the midst of a mental or emotional crisis. While most of those 124 were armed, the majority of them had not actually committed a crime; the police were called because the person had been acting erratically and, in 40% of the cases, were explicitly suicidal.
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, says, “This is a national crisis.” Many police departments do not offer training to deal with these mental crisis cases. Mentally distraught people in a crisis need help; they need a doctor. With nationwide budget cuts for psychiatric services made in recent years, police are being called on to fill in the gap, yet they are often not trained on how to deal with these difficult situations. The training many police DO receive for dealing with mentally ill individuals is often counterproductive. Officers are encouraged to seize control quickly, and shout stern commands. Instead of trying to rush things, these types of situations often deescalate when the first responders slow down, try to calm the individual down, and convince the person to come with them. Sandy Jo MacArthur of the LAPD says that mentally ill individuals “do not process what is happening like a normal criminal. There’s a lot of white noise in their head.”
While big changes still need to be made nationwide, progress is already being made here in Phoenix. About half of the Phoenix officers have recently undergone crisis-intervention training, and a dedicated mental health squad of 7 officers will now be handling mental health crisis calls.
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