| Are
You Providing Reasonable Training and Policy Direction
on the handling of the mentally ill and
emotionally disturbed persons?
By Lou Reiter
In Walker v. City of New York i, the United
States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit gave law
enforcement some direction for determining what
training officers must be provided with to do their
jobs professionally and with lower liability exposure.
Essentially the case indicated that if you know to a
moral certainty that officers will confront a certain
situation; and that encounter will force officers to
make a choice between different alternatives; and
making the wrong choice will expose persons to
potential Constitutional violations; then the agency
must provide these officers with reasonable training
to equip them to make these difficult and critical
choices. This is simply a further explanation of
United States Supreme Court case on training,
City of Canton v. Harris ii. .
Every police agency should know that this is the
case with officers encountering mentally ill persons
and others who are emotionally disturbed or of
diminished capacity. Of course, field officers are not
expected to make a diagnosis of these types of
clinical problems. These officers, however, are
expected to recognize that the persons they are
confronting are engaged in unusual, bizarre and/or
abnormal behavior and require field tactics to control
the situation that are different than those used
during a confrontation with a criminal. At the same
time officers know that these persons are engaging
in behavior that jeopardize themselves and/or others
including the officers who are responding to the crisis
brought on by this abnormal, bizarre, erratic personal
conduct whether it’s the product of a mental illness,
suicidal tendency, substance abuse, alcoholism or
other personal crisis. Some evidence of this policing
problem:
- Public beds for the mentally ill have continuously
been decreasing since the administration of President
Kennedy
- 7 to 10 percent of police encounters will involve
emotionally disturbed/mentally ill persons iii
- Emotionally disturbed/mentally ill persons are 5.5
times more likely to be the subjects involved in the
murder of police officers
- The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s jail facilities are
considered to be the largest confinement of mentally
ill persons in the country
- The Bureau of Justice Administration believed
that 16 percent of the persons in U.S. jails are
mentally ill and that 75 percent of those have
substance abuse problems (San Francisco Chronicle
1-23-06)
- The population of homeless persons, principally in
urban areas, has steadily increased and it is
commonly referenced that the mentally ill and
persons with substance abuse problems exceeds half
of the homeless population
The result of these societal and community indicators
is simply that law enforcement must provide its field
officers with the essential training and tools to deal
with these types of persons in a manner to minimize
the potential of injury to all involved. But is law
enforcement providing these officers with these
necessary tools? Take a look at police basic training
programs throughout the country. Most still are
providing only 4 or 6 hours of specific academy
training consisting of a recitation of clinical mental
illnesses and the procedures and documents
necessary for an involuntary commitment. Other
aspects of handling these types of encounters might
be in other segments of the basic training program,
but specific references might be difficult to locate as
they normally are embedded in patrol tactics,
defensive tactics or field scenarios.
Will this level of training help a new officer who is
confronting a knife wielding homeless person ranting
about an unknown oppressor invading his brain or a
naked, sweating male on the street at 7 in the
morning digging his fingernails into his chest trying to
mine the bugs invading his body? Probably not! So
what would be reasonable training and policy
direction to help this young officer?
What is disconcerting is the fact that law
enforcement has been aware for a long time of the
specific problems for dealing with these special
populations as well as reasonable field tactics for
confronting and handling incidents involving this
group. Back in 1955 law enforcement used a film
strip (not many law enforcement personnel today
would even know what that means) and a manual for
police handling of “abnormal people” written by
Rowland and Matthews. The IACP had reasonable
training bulletins issued on this topic in the 1970s.
Gerald Murphy, in his reports for the Police Executive
Research Forum on police handling of the emotionally
disturbed or special populations, in the mid and late
1980s, detailed a recommended training program of
16 hours. During that same period as an example,
the Oklahoma City Sheriff’s Office, responsible for
mental health pickups, provided its designated unit
with 24 hours of training in tactics and procedures
for dealing with these types of special populations.
In the late 1980s, the Memphis Police Department
created its Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) concept.
It involved a 40 hour training program for selected
officers. The program was presented by a blend of
professionals involved with the mentally ill community
and police experts in verbalization, confrontational
diffusing techniques, and subject control and
restraint techniques. It has not eliminated all
adverse consequences in the Memphis police
encounters with emotionally disturbed persons, but
the agency believes it has significantly decreased
this outcome.
The Cincinnati Police Department’s Consent Decree
with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2003
mandated that the agency provide at least one
police unit on a 24/7 deployment whose officers were
trained in a program similar to the Memphis CIT
curriculum and length of training. Cincinnati appears
to have taken the Memphis Plan to a higher level.
If this is not sufficient motivation for a law
enforcement agency to take immediate action in
reevaluating the length and content of the training
provided to its field officers in dealing with this
special population, consider recent case decisions
involving police encounters with these types of
persons which have resulted in deaths. These cases
appear to be a recent change in how courts are
viewing officers’ use of force when dealing with
obvious emotionally disturbed persons. A common
term finding its way into these recent court decisions
is “persons of diminished capacity.”
Marsall v. City of Portland iv: This case
involved a call for service concerning a fight between
persons in an apartment and one subject was
identified as having consumed mushrooms. When the
officers arrived on the scene, this subject jumped
out of a second story window. During the control of
the subject involving 7 officers, the subject was
struck with 10 beanbag rounds, sprayed with six
cans of OC, placed in maximal restraints and 2
officers stood on his upper body and head area. The
subject died. The court noted that there was “no
strong governmental interests... offense was minor...
risk to officers and the public was low... risk of flight
was also low...” Note how this decision tracks the
specific language in Graham v. Conner. The
court further stated, “The problems posed by, and
thus the tactics... against, an unarmed, emotionally
distraught individual who is creating a disturbance or
resisting arrest are ordinarily different from those...
(of an)armed and dangerous criminal who has
recently committed a serious offense...”
Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc. v: This case
involved a 32 year old autistic motorist who
was “unresponsive... unable to speak” during his
detention by officers. The court noted that “No
reasonable officer would have continued to spray a
chemical agent in the face of a handcuffed and
hobbled mentally retarded (subject)... (who was)
moving his... head... to breathe,... vomited several
times. No reasonable officer would continue to put
pressure on... back after... subdued by handcuffs, an
ankle restraint, and a police officer holding... legs”
when “...they knew (the subject) to be mentally ill or
retarded.”
A third representative case is Cruz v. City of
Laramie vi.
This involved a radio call concerning a naked male on
the street at 7 in the morning. When the officers
arrived they noted that the male was sweating
profusely and digging into his skin to get rid of
the “bugs.” Following his restraint, the officers
immediately called for EMTs, but the subject later
died. The court noted, “We do not reach the
question whether all hog-tie restraints constitute a
constitutional violation per se, but hold that officers
may not apply this technique when an individual’s
diminished capacity is apparent.”
The most reasonable approach your agency can take
to develop an enhanced training program for dealing
with this special population is to enter into a
partnership with your local mental health profession.
In Ohio, it has been found to be successful to involve
these professional resource persons in a focused
Citizen Police Academy to orient them to the police
side of the problem. This same collaborative program
involves police officers shadowing mental health
professionals during their work with their consumers
(a term preferred by the mental health profession).
Together this combined resource group has
developed a practical 40 hour training program
oriented to the specific needs of the field officers. It
appears to be similar to the Memphis CIT program,
but somewhat more current. (T. Victor Lloyd, Mental
Health Association of Southwestern Ohio)
Action steps necessary to ensure that your
officers are being given the necessary training in
handling this special population, are provided with
the specific references required to assist them in this
specific police task, and the development of
increased risk management elements for your agency:
- Conduct an assessment of what training your
officers are receiving from the Academy, in-service
training or specialized program offerings and delve
further into areas that may contain elements of this
training that may not be titled specifically on the
subject;
- Ensure that your training includes realistic
scenario segments involving elements of diffusing
tactics (elements of containment, coordination of
resources and command, communication strategies,
and elongation of the time of the encounter) for
encounters with this special population;
- Create a partnership with your local mental health
professionals to develop a program that will
incorporate the essential elements of the newest,
expanded police training for this critical task;
- Ensure that your written guidelines (manual,
orders and/or procedures) are up-to-date and
include the essential elements of handling by field
officers of this special population with emphasis on
diffusing field tactics; and
- Develop a reporting format that will capture data
on field encounters involving this special population.
(This could become very important should your
agency end up with a fatal or serious injury
encounter involving a member of this special
population. This type of documentation would show
that your officers normally handle these types of
incidents successfully without injury.)
Unfortunately, not all encounters with emotionally
disturbed, mentally ill persons will end peacefully with
the consumer being given the professional treatment
necessary for his/her special needs. But, most of
the time they will. The tactical approach of the
officers can assist in bringing these critical tasks to a
successful conclusion. In those rare instances when
they don’t, these steps may enhance the liability
protection for your employees, agency and
community.
Additional Resources:
Released from Department of Justice
Commonly Asked Questions About
The Americans With Disabilities Act and Law
Enforcement
Citations:
- Walker v. City of New York, 974 F.2d 293; 1992
U.S. App. LEXIS 21261 (2nd Circ. 1992). Back
- City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 103 L. Ed.
2d 412, 109 S. Ct. 1197 (1989).Back
- Judy Halls and Randy Brown, “Police Training a
Specialized Approaches to Respond to People with
Mental Illness,” Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 49,
January 2003, pages 52-61.Back
- Marsall v. City of Portland, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
8764 (9th Cir. 2004.).Back
- Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F. 3d
893 (6th Circ. 2004). Back
- Cruz v. City of Laramie, 239 F. 3d 1183 (10th
Circ. 2001).Back
 Lou Reiter is the author of Law
Enforcement Administrative Investigations which was released in its'
3rd edition in November of 2006.
|
