Observations from a CASA Guardian ad Litem;
Nationally, people suffering from untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in interactions with law enforcement. The police response to a mental health crisis is often the thing that makes it worse.
What’s it like to be the cop that shows up to engage a child or juvenile exhibiting violent/dangerous behaviors and you have no *significant de-escalation skills? This CASA volunteer guardian ad litem worked with a skinny 14 year old boy that planned his death by cop. He tried to kill himself on multiple occasions. Tortured from four to seven years old he became a State Ward child and my caseload charge as a CASA.
In the 14 years we were connected, he experienced 29 foster placements, was simultaneously required to take multiple psychotropic medications. He committed many police involved infractions, beat up his teacher (who quit teaching because of it) and had many hidden triggers to violent behavior.
Instead of cops and incarcerations (from the age of 9) this child needed significant mental health services that he did not receive.
Tasers, clubs and bullets are the norm much too often. Recently in Utah, a 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police after his mother dialed 911 to request help as her son was experiencing a mental breakdown. More of these cases: 1 2 3
Most big American cities experience this sadness because police training requires a “Overwhelming or Deadly Force” response by officers when they are attacked. This kind of deadly training and the lack of de-escalation training make life dangerous for growing numbers of American’s.
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Law Enforcement is now the accidental service provider to mentally troubled people in many communities. Racial and poverty issues add a thick layer of distress and distrust (hate) impacting public perception of law enforcement.
De-escalation training*, social workers and mental health providers make life better for police officers, the communities they serve and people suffering from childhood trauma. Something few people outside of child protection know; children traumatized by their caregivers fear and hate authority.
Policing them with uniformed officers often automatically ignites a fight or flight response and is much more likely to result in violence as the behavior and increased mental health problems that come with abuse
In Alexandria two social workers are now on the police department’s payroll. But while working for the police, they are not cops: they do not have arresting powers and they do not carry weapons. They ride in a Ford Focus instead of a police cruiser. They wear polo shirts, not police uniforms, and carry a radio with a panic button in case they find themselves in danger. Minneapolis now has a mental health unit to intercept these cases.
My young charge did not die by cop, but his violent behaviors and
multiple police encounters made it more likely that he would.
The evidence is not close. In Denver, a program that sent health care responders instead of police to targeted emergency calls cut reports of trespassing, public disorder and resisting arrest by 34 percent, with no increase in serious crime. In the first six months the team took 748 calls. None of them required police. Nobody was arrested. In hospitals, the pattern repeats at a smaller scale. One behavioral emergency response team pilot took staff assaults from 10 to 1, security interventions from 14 to 1, and use of physical restraints from 8 to 1. Meanwhile, the Justice Department looked at how the Minneapolis Police Department handles the same crises and concluded on 06/16/2023 that most behavioral health calls do not require a police response, that MPD responds to the majority of them anyway, and that the response is often harmful and ineffective.
My wife spent years at HCMC and watched this play out in real time. When her team handled a crisis, it ended. When the sheriff’s department arrived because the floor was overwhelmed, it escalated. Thirty years of my own work and KARA’s research on how we police traumatized people has brought me to the same place. De-escalation saves lives, and it spares the person on the other end of it years of damage that a set of handcuffs guarantees.
Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the author of The End of Policing,
said police work and social work should be separated and
police officers should simply not be the first responders on many types of emergency calls.
“The police see the world through a lens where every encounter is potentially deadly,”
Minneapolis now has a mental health response team!
This could lead to the change we need in policing everywhere.
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KARA reports on the issues of child abuse.
This article submitted by CASA volunteer Mike Tikkanen
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