SAINT ANTHONY – Law enforcement officers are trained to go, go, go, but when it comes to responding to mental health calls, they are trained to slow down and engage.
Danny Herrera is part of the San Antonio Police Department’s mental health unit. He said every officer is trained to understand what’s in front of them when they arrive.
“Ask open-ended questions to gain some kind of perspective on what’s really going on, why this person might be behaving a certain way,” Herrera said. “So we’re really trained to slow down the call as much as possible to be able to get a better understanding of what’s actually going on.”
It’s a different approach, but one that the community has been looking for to safely end situations involving mental crisis calls. Most agencies in Bexar County have officers who have received 40 hours of crisis intervention. Every officer takes a refresher course every three years.
Herrera is part of a specialized unit that follows people and families who include a chronic person who has ongoing problems. He appears in simple clothes to engage the person.
“When it’s a chronic person who has a problem where maybe just that one-time patrol can’t fix it and they need something where it’s a commitment from us over time, months, sometimes years, we’ll get a reference, an email from him. patrol officer and then it will be assigned to someone in our unit,” he said. “From there, we will actually engage with these individuals to ensure long-term stabilization. Sometimes you can’t solve that call within that time. It becomes a matter where you have to continue and engage with this person over months and sometimes years.”
Mike Davis, an instructor with the Alamo Area Council of Governments, teaches cadets and officers how to assess whether a person is having a mental health crisis, suffers from a mental disability or is a danger to the public.
“The goal is for everybody to go home at the end of the day, not just them, but the people they’re helping, and build trust and that’s really what it’s all about,” he said.
An officer’s initial handling of a mental crisis call will set the tone with that person, family and neighbors.
Cadets use simulators to practice how to respond to people in mental distress and practice negotiations.
Much of the training that was once reserved for specialized units is now in the hands of everyday officers, dealing with some of these mental health crisis calls every day.
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