DPD Rolls Out New Program to Help the Mentally Ill

Protesters marching to the NYPD’s 71st Precinct in Brooklyn, NY in response to the killing of Saheed Vassell. Image courtesy of Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

It was another stark reminder that our mental health system is broken, and that the police have been trying to pick up the pieces.

Last summer, Darrien Walker was having a psychotic episode, dressed as a ninja warrior and brandishing swords near Grand River and Meyers. Police were called, and he was eventually shot and killed after throwing a dagger at an officer, leaving a large gash just below his right eye. It was later reported that Mr. Walker was no stranger to the Detroit Police Department, having threatened a neighbor and barricaded himself in a house with weapons just a few weeks before. He had been taken to the Crisis Center at Detroit Receiving Hospital but released less than 24 hours later, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.

Tragic encounters between the police and mentally ill have been happening around the country. People with a mental health diagnosis are 16 times more likely to be shot by the police than those who are not mentally ill. Also, an estimated 25% of those who die in an encounter with the police have a mental health diagnosis. Detroit’s 911 Call Center receives more than 20 mental health-related calls a day, on average.

Police departments around the country have been taking notice and taking action. The Detroit Police Department, under the auspices of the new Office of Internal/External Relations, is piloting a program which it hopes will lessen the load on the police and prevent encounters between the police and the mentally ill from ending in death or serious injury.

According to Capt. Tonya Leonard-Gilbert, who is part of the team overseeing the program, it has been in the works for a couple of years. The program has been rolled out in the downtown area and will soon expand into Northeast Detroit, the North End, the far Westside, and the far Northside. The “mental health co-response team” will be led by the DPD’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) in partnership with the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network (DWIHN). Because the problems of mental illness and homelessness often overlap – 30% of our homeless population has a mental health diagnosis - the city’s Housing and Revitalization Department and the Homeless Outreach Team are also involved.

Residents will still call the 911 system, but behavioral health specialists will be embedded in the call center to recognize the warning signs of possible mental health issues. If the situation doesn’t involve an obvious violent encounter or crime in progress, a certified behavioral health clinician will be dispatched to the location, along with two police officers who have received CIT training.

Nearly 60 DPD officers have received the 40-hour training, as of this month, and will be given a yearly refresher course in handling different mental health situations. The longer term goal is to train at least 20% of the patrol officers on the force. Not all people with a mental health diagnosis can be treated in the same way. An autistic person, for example, who has difficulty understanding and following commands but is unlikely to be aggressive, may need to be approached differently than a paranoid schizophrenic suffering from a psychotic outburst. And in some cases, the main problem that needs to be addressed is homelessness.

The success of the program, says Capt. LeonardGilbert, will be determined by whether they are able to identify the appropriate services for the individual, help them access those services, reduce hospitalizations and incarcerations, and see a reduction in crisis calls, especially repeat calls.

Coincidentally, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department is also starting out a new program to address mental illness, but this one uses a very different model - one that is the first of its kind in the country. Rather than giving police officers training in mental health, Oakland County will recruit mental health professionals and give them police training, in partnership with the DPD and Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network. Although the demographics of Oakland County look very different from Detroit’s, it will be interesting to follow the progress of the Oakland County program in a city like Pontiac, which is very similar to Detroit in its racial and economic makeup. For more information about the Oakland County program, follow this link.

The best trained police officers and mental health professionals, however, cannot make up for the larger failures of our state and nation’s mental health system. Gov. John Engler began dismantling that system in Michigan in the 1990’s, closing down facilities like Lafayette Clinic while promising resources for a community-based system that never materialized. For decades this problem has been hiding in plain sight, and has only gotten widespread public attention as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

All those with a stake in rebuilding a ruined mental health system – the mentally ill and their families, mental health professionals, city governments, police departments, and the unions that represent police officers – will need to lobby for more funding for mental health services, so that the mentally ill will have somewhere to receive adequate treatment after the police encounter. If we don’t, we will be seeing more Darrien Walkers.