Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — Casper Police Detective Tony Stedellie pulled up a chair and sat down next to a despondent man holding a nearly-empty bottle of Jim Beam bourbon.
The man's green jacket was buttoned wrong. He told the detective he took anti-depressants before drinking the whiskey.
Stedellie said he was calling for an ambulance, and then he talked to the man about what was bothering him. A break-up, the man in the green jacket told him.
"I understand why you're drinking," Stedellie said. "I understand why you're upset."
Stedellie was one of 16 law enforcement personnel who went through 40 hours of training to learn how to respond to incidents involving mental crisis. The man in the green jacket was a local actor.
The goal of the program, which is called the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), is to direct mentally ill citizens that police officers come in contact with to the proper care instead of sending them to jail. Officers are not trained to be mental health professionals, but learn how to de-escalate emotionally-charged situations.
"Officers who don't have this training don't understand how to communicate with people based on what they're going through at the time," said Casper police officer Mitch Baker.
Natrona County is one of five counties in Wyoming that have Crisis Intervention Teams. About 40 percent of Casper police officers have the training, and nearly 60 percent of sheriff's deputies have been through the class. Some dispatchers, Casper College security guards and Mills and Evansville police officers have also completed the program.
CIT training kicks off with a crash course on mental illnesses and disabilities, including mood and thought disorders, depression and suicide, personality disorders, anxiety and phobias, schizophrenia and developmental disabilities, such as autism.
Officers learn from experts who work for the Wyoming chapter of the Alliance on Mental Health, Central Wyoming Counseling Center and the Wyoming Behavioral Institute. Trainees hear from family members of people who are mentally ill and from people who have suffered from mental illnesses or disabilities
"It helps you build an understanding and a basic knowledge of what these people have to go through in their daily lives," Baker said.
Law enforcement learn de-escalation techniques, such as how to build rapport and establish a relationship with someone in crisis. They're taught to be respectful and polite and to validate the person's feelings. Officers then practice those techniques on actors who play out a mental crisis, such as having suicidal thoughts.
"We have some clients who will only interact with CIT officers," said Tabatha Madrigal, who works at the counseling center.
The CIT program began in 1988 in Memphis, Tennessee, following the shooting of a mentally ill man by a police officer. Public outcry demanded police learn how to better understand mental disorders.
Since the program's inception in central Wyoming in 2007, overall arrests and use of force has decreased, said Lt. Chris Hadlock, one of the directors of the training. The program has also saved the police department money by redirecting mentally ill individuals to the hospital rather than sending them to jail, Hadlock said.
"One of the things I try to impart on trainees is that suicide and mental diagnoses override crimes," Baker said.
Last year, Natrona County had more involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations than any other place in Wyoming. People are involuntarily committed if they are a danger to themselves or others, or are unable to care for themselves. During an involuntary committal, patients are evaluated for physical and mental health problems, and they undergo counseling and may receive medication or adjustments to their existing prescriptions.
Natrona County may lead in involuntary holds due to a higher awareness of mental health conditions, said Stefan Johansson, a Wyoming Department of Health policy analyst.
Law enforcement is a key part of that awareness, as many involuntary committals begin with the police.
Overall, the training teaches officers to better communicate with others, Baker said. In one exercise, trainees must wear a set of headphones for an hour. Coming out of the headphone are multiple voices, some giving praise, others saying negative things and some giving orders. The students must complete tasks while wearing the headphones.
The scenario is meant to help officers understand what it is like to suffer from schizophrenia.
"To this day, I can still feel what it feels like," Baker said. "When I'm talking to someone who is paranoid, I realize what they're going through."
He tells those people to look at him, to listen to his voice and ignore the other voices.
"If you do that and you get skilled at it enough you can talk to anybody, no matter what they're going through," Baker said.
Baker said officers who haven't done CIT training talk to everybody the same. They ask the bare necessities and typically disregard mental diagnoses, he said.
"In doing so, they're saying, 'You're no different than anybody else and what you did is gonna be treated the same,' when in fact it should not," Baker said.
The training has taught him to be less aggressive with people and to look deeper into situations that may involve mental health issues.
Tammy Noel, the director of the National Alliance on Mental Health in Wyoming, has a developmentally disabled child who sometimes has violent outbursts. She requests a CIT officer when she can't control her son.
"To have that officer come in and not come in blazing and yelling and screaming and giving orders makes a huge difference," Noel said. "They ask your name and talk to you while repeating your name and it builds rapport very quickly."
She said she thinks CIT is one step toward the ultimate goal of destigmatizing mental illness.
"We're starting to create awareness of whole health, of mental health and physical health," Noel said. "I think that message is getting out there. They're still whispering about it, but I think they're getting more aware of getting help."
Back at the training, Mills Police Cpl. Justin Smith talked with a crying man who just lost his job.
Smith worried the man, who was played by an actor, was suicidal. The officer talked the man into going to the hospital with him.
"I liked your compassion," Hadlock told Smith after the scenario was over. "You did not take away that man's pride."
___
Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, http://www.trib.com
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
