JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – On Sunday night, a man dealing with a mental health crisis shot at police, which is shining a light on the steps taken by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to address mental health concerns in the community.
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Melissa Camp, the executive director of behavioral health services at HCA Florida Memorial Hospital, spoke about law enforcement’s response regarding mental health calls in Jacksonville, saying it’s important to remember that when police respond to community calls, they don’t always have a clear picture of what they’re walking into.
“Officers are called on more and more for these types of situations, and you have to think for them when they’re responding to the community call,” Camp said. “They don’t always have a lot of information to go off of, so they’re not sure if a crime is being committed or if there’s someone in crisis and in need; they have to ascertain that very quickly.”
Camp continued, saying that officers are coming from other community calls that could affect how they respond at a given moment.
“Every officer brings into the situation their own set of skills and life experiences,” she said. “So you may have some officers who have a lot of experience with individuals who are going through a mental health crisis, and others who have none at all. And they’re also coming off of other calls in the community that may affect what their response at that moment is, you know, what they just came off of.”
Joe Cowan, JSO’s director of patrol and enforcement, said mental health training is something every incoming officer goes through when starting with the agency, which involves taking a course that’s been part of the onboarding process for over 20 years.
“One of the primary ones is what we call crisis intervention team training,” Cowan said. “The CIT program came online probably around 2000 under Sheriff Rutherford when he realized that we needed to do something different in how we deal with mental illness.”
Cowan said the program requires officers to go through a week of training in the form of a 40-hour course, along with “additional courses and training” that officers participate in throughout their career.
Furthermore, in 2019, JSO created a program that sends out two officers and a licensed clinician to help de-escalate a situation where mental illness is believed to be the root cause.
Camp and Cowan add that there are things to consider when making a call for help during a crisis.
“The earlier they can call us with any concerns or issues, the better,” Cowan noted. “We want that when they’re just seeing the signs of some crisis developing, as opposed to the crisis [being] out of control in a level that’s pretty challenging for us to deal with.”
However, if an immediate danger isn’t posed, there are other solutions.
“There may be the ability for the family member to take their loved one to the emergency room,” said Camp. “It may be that the best option is calling the outpatient provider who has been working with this individual, because, again, they’re going to know this individual the best. Does this person need to go to inpatient treatment? Do they need an added, more intensive layer of outpatient treatment? You know that provider is going to be able to help determine that a little bit better.”
