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Training to make law enforcement officers more sensitive to explosive situations involving the mentally ill is expanding rapidly, not only in Utah but throughout the world.
Police officers have dealt with unstable people who perhaps needed not so much force but empathy to bring them down.
Layton City police confront a man in his apartment. He has warrants against him but is also a Vietnam veteran who is suffering from post traumatic stress. This really didn't happen except on stage. It's a way to teach officers about situations not always requiring excessive force.
Officer Chet Schowalter convinces him to get rid of a knife and come out of his bedroom. But when the door slams, the man goes ballistic believing the Viet Cong is shooting at him.
"It's all right," the officer says. "It's all right. You're in Layton. Nobody's shooting."
Schowalter said, "I was just trying to bring him back to reality by asking him if he knew where he was -- he was in his apartment - identifying myself, bring that little piece of reality and speak calmly."
The officers use a very unique training center. It includes a quick-stop mart, a school, a bank, hallways, rooms, houses; almost every scenario that an officer might encounter can be simulated there.
The Weber County Sheriff's Office, which operates the center, served as host today for multiple law enforcement agencies.
In another scenario, the actor plays a man with the mental level of a child, who's locked himself in a classroom.
"Do you like SpongeBob?" the officer asks. "What's your favorite episode?"
Police talk him out with things he relates to like SpongeBob, hamburgers and fries.
Salt Lake City Police detective Ron Bruno coordinates the training program statewide. He says officers get a clearer understanding of mental health issues, in which somebody is simply a victim of their own illness.
"That gives them the insight and the empathy to be able to deal with a situation a little bit better and a lot safer," Bruno said.
The training academy involves a broad partnership between police, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and mental health centers across the state. Mental health issues -- in some form or another -- affect approximately 25 percent of the population.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.com
