Sanchez, Krey and Oberhelman: Crisis intervention training for law enforcement

Recently, several law enforcement agencies in Santa Clara County have unveiled specialized units designed to de-escalate interactions with citizens who may be in mental health crisis. San Jose PD launched a one-year pilot program in October 2020 that links specially trained officers with clinicians from the County’s Behavioral Health Services (BHS). BHS has been active with its Mobile Crisis Response Teams (MCRT) since January 2018.

Our government officials are to be applauded for these efforts to improve outcomes between police and citizens in mental health crisis.

But more should be done at a time when this issue has the public’s attention like seldom before, in large part because of the Black Lives Matter and defund-the-police movements.

The 2018 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury (CGJ) focused on this issue in its report, “Police and the Mentally Ill – Improving Outcomes.” The report states 31 individuals were killed in interactions with police agencies in our county from 2013-2017, nine of which were citizens undergoing a mental health crisis.

Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) exposes officers to the varied mental conditions that could be encountered and how to deescalate such encounters. The grand jury discovered that law enforcement agencies were providing CIT beyond the training received in the police academy. The CGJ report recommends that each law enforcement agency continue in their efforts to provide the additional CIT training to every officer. The CGJ report also recommends agencies activate MCRT teams and expand the use of these teams. Nearly every agency responded to the report by stating it intended to give additional CIT training to every officer.

Now, two years after that grand jury report, law enforcement has taken some positive steps, but concerns remain.

Positive developments include the BHS MCRT deployment. Currently there are six available MCRT teams to respond both to calls from a community help line and at the request of law enforcement. Calls for assistance can result in service referrals or field visits.

MCRT delivered 310 field visits in 2019, but the number of responses soared to 675 in the first nine months of 2020, based on a November 2020 status report to a Board of Supervisors subcommittee. Law enforcement made 386 referrals to MCRT in 2019 and 487 between January to September 2020. Nearly every police agency in the county utilized MCRT.

Not so positive is the number of deaths in police encounters. From June 2018 to October 2020, 11 citizens died at the hands of law enforcement in Santa Clara County, five of which involved factors of mental illness based on the website FatalEncounters.

Clearly, this must improve. Our association’s recent survey of selected law enforcement agencies showed incremental progress (Milpitas) and great progress (Gilroy, San Jose, Mountain View and the Sheriff) in exposing every officer to additional CIT training.

But troubling is the county’s decision more than a year ago to reduce Sheriff’s Office CIT training to a 24-hour course from 40 hours. The other major local CIT provider, San Jose PD, continues with a 40-hour course. It is our understanding that the class discussing the various kinds of mental conditions, previously presented by the professional organization NAMI, has been eliminated.

We, the Santa Clara County Grand Jury Association, fear this is the wrong direction for the times.

The Black Lives Matter movement catalyzed a re-examination of the role police should play when confronting persons in mental health crisis. An April study from a Stanford Law School policy practicum, Safety Beyond Policing: Promoting Care Over Criminalization, supports the use of mental health counselors rather than officers in many situations involving the homeless and mentally ill.

Police interactions with people in mental crisis will always be fraught with danger. But the numbers of persons in mental health crisis who die in incidents with law enforcement are still too high. The six MCRT teams are a great achievement, but having CIT trained officers can only increase good outcomes.

County law enforcement agencies must ensure all of their officers receive additional CIT training, while the county boosts funding and deployment for its MRCT teams.

Luis Sanchez, Michael Krey and Harry Oberhelman are members of the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jurors Association.

Comments (3)

KYFGOOSYM Training May 17, 2021 at 3:30PM

Okay, this is a start. Now, how about some KYFGOOSYM training? You know, Keep Your Fecking Gun Out Of Sight You Moron. Train cops how to not fondle their gun every time they do a traffic stop, or stop a cyclist for occupying part of the roadway, or approach someone walking down the sidewalk after dark. Just seriously keep guns out of it to start with instead of bringing guns into the discussion at the very first — and smallest — opportunity, as if that was the entire point of the interaction. Because it looks to the rest of us like you are there mostly to give yourself an opportunity to White-rage and terrorize people on account of you feel your historic and unjustified privilege being eroded, or some other diseased mental construct you compulsively obsess over. With a gun. Please stop.

transparency and accountability are needed in San Jose May 18, 2021 at 9:45AM

I think crisis training for officers makes a lot of sense – but this goes back to the real issue of the community expecting too much from police, outside of their scope/expertise, and depending on them to be public safety officers, counselors, crisis intervention specialists (for unique emergencies with the mentally ill). Then, we use the prison system as a holding area for the mentally ill – and again, that is not the fault of SJPD or the Sheriff – that is a failure of the Behavioral Health System and local law-makers to address the actual problem and sitting back as officers go into these tough situations, then get heavily scrutinized. Police officers are not LCSW’s, and jails are not facilities for the mentally ill – and officers have no other places to take people who are suffering from severe mental illness. Nowhere.

So, yes, please provide additional training – and actually understand the trainings that have been done before. But, come up with actual solutions that do not continue to ask officers to do this work without additional support from the experts. The County can assign social workers and mental health counselors to work with specialized units…

Let’s be realistic and this article continues to show how officers are being asked to do too much – then thrown under the bus when they have a challenge managing an episode where someone is having a mental health breakdown or episode of psychosis. Then we have the “Monday morning quarterback” authors and critics who would have NO idea how to manage these situations, yet act as the experts.

Bruce Sullivan May 18, 2021 at 5:33PM

The police have powers. It really comes down to who has the power and are they willing to give it up. Once empowered I know of no one which voluntarily relinquished such power. In the Charter City of San Jose that power lies within the offices of the City Manager over the San Jose Police Department. If and when David Sykes wishes to use the power of his office for the citizens of this city versus the Police Department’s hold on social justice and the advancement thereof, we will continue to see our citizens punished in ways that will create acquiesce to the Police Powers that be.

Sanchez, Krey and Oberhelman: Crisis intervention training for law enforcement

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