Beach officers to be trained to handle mentally ill people

VIRGINIA BEACH

About 120 people in the city's jail take prescription drugs for some form of mental illness. The majority of those inmates, officials say, are in trouble for misdemeanors such as trespassing, disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct.

The growing consensus among officials is that most of these people - about 9 percent of the population at the Virginia Beach Correctional Center - shouldn't be incarcerated but should get help instead.

With a $100,000 federal grant and $30,000 in city money, Virginia Beach is creating a 40-hour curriculum to train 75 police officers - roughly 25 percent of the street patrol force - to deal with mentally ill people. Most officers now get only four hours of mental illness training with occasional refresher courses.

The goal is to create a unit of specially trained officers, called a Crisis Intervention Team, to defuse incidents involving the mentally ill, get them help and spare them jail time, which advocates say will save taxpayers money.

"We're designed for corrections, not mental health holdings," said Capt. Cassandra Lee of the Sheriff's Department. "There's nothing here for them. They're in jail. They're in lockdown."

The strategy will require a change of attitudes among the police force, many of whom are skeptical of enforcement approaches perceived as soft or "touchy-feely," said Capt. John Bell Jr.

"They're doing what they know, and what they know is putting people in jail," Bell said. "But these people are ill, and we need to know they need treatment."

The program is based on a model pioneered by the police department in Memphis, Tenn., after an officer there shot and killed a mentally ill man wielding a knife. The 1987 incident sparked pressure to change the department's approach to mental illness.

Since then, Crisis Intervention Team programs have spread, coming first to southwestern Virginia in the four-county New River Valley, which includes Blacksburg, in 2004. About 200 officers have been trained there. Portsmouth this year started a small unit, with 10 officers trained.

One of the challenges is finding a place to take mentally ill people instead of jail. Psychiatric ward beds in Virginia are mostly full and the waits are long, officials say.

The New River Valley program has a deal with a private hospital to use 12 to 25 beds if they are available, said Patrick Halpern, executive director of the Mental Health Association of the New River Valley. Virginia Beach is working to come up with similar solution.

The program also aims to bridge the gulf between mentally ill people and their families and police.

Before Memphis trained its officers, most people dealing with mentally ill family members were afraid to call the police for help, said Maj. Sam Cochran, who runs the program.

This meant people would call police only as a last resort, when the situation had escalated to a crisis.

Last year, the family of Janace Johnson of Virginia Beach called police after she began acting erratically when she went off her medication and began drinking alcohol. Johnson, 59, was arrested on a domestic disturbance charge.

While being booked in jail, Johnson struck a sheriff's deputy, who threw her to the ground, breaking her eye socket. Johnson was then charged with a felony - which was later dropped - for assaulting the deputy. Family members said they thought the police were going to take Johnson for emergency mental health screening.

Advocates hope by next summer that a team of police officers will be ready to deal with mentally ill individuals and keep more of them out of jail.

"We have a large system, and sometimes systems lose their humanness," said Alexis Zoss, director of the city's mental health and substance abuse division. "CIT is about building empathy and allowing people to get the services they need."

Aaron Applegate, (757) 222-5122, aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com