Health grants helps Conn. police train for crisis

The Hartford Courant

WINDSOR, Conn. — About 90 police officers and mental health care professionals from around the state spent part of their mornings this week listening to voices in their heads.

The voices — which intermittently whispered, encouraged, soothed, berated, belittled and threatened — were transmitted through ear buds by an MP3 player in an exercise designed to give participants insight into the minds of people experiencing a mental health crisis, while trying to handle everyday activities such as banking, shopping or encountering someone on the street.

The participants were taking part in a weeklong seminar on crisis intervention training that included sessions on suicide assessment, medication, crisis communications, excited delirium, de-escalation tactics and how to respond when a suicidal person deliberately attempts to provoke a lethal response from police officers.

"Traditionally we expected people we came in contact with to accept our instructions and correct their behavior," said Ray Hassett, a chief instructor for the Connecticut Alliance to Benefit Law Enforcement, or CABLE, who led several sessions of the seminar. "We've learned that people with mental illness perceive us and themselves in different ways.

Hassett, a retired New Haven police lieutenant, said the goal of crisis intervention teams made up of police officers and mental health professionals is to de-escalate tense situations involving people experiencing an emotional crisis.

"By taking the time to slow things down you decrease the anxiety," Hassett said. "Once you decrease the anxiety, the opportunity for trust and rapport comes into play."

And by doing that, Hassett said, incidents that used to end with physical force and arrests, many times do not anymore.

"Instead of getting rid of the problem, we're helping them reset," he said. "We're not always the hammer, we're the helpers."

The men and women who participated in the panel sponsored by CABLE, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Windsor Police Department will go back to their workplaces with the basic skills to handle incidents involving people in emotional distress.

Windsor Police Lt. Christopher McKee said crisis intervention training has been around since the late 1990s and that Windsor began training some of its officers as far back as 2005. The department has trained more than 70 percent of its officers in crisis intervention, with a goal of 100 percent, McKee said.

For McKee, crisis intervention training has resulted in "small local victories" in which de-escalation has prevented someone, including police officers, from getting hurt.

"If I can recognize basic things, I can maintain my own safety and also increase the safety of the person we are dealing with and the public," he said.

Beyond the incident itself, McKee said crisis intervention includes follow-up visits and getting people counseling they need for a variety of issues.

"People get help instead of arresting our way out of a situation," he said. "There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work besides a call for service."

The department was able to help sponsor the 40-hour program with the help of a $200,000 mental health collaboration grant it received from the U.S. Department of Justice last year.

Copyright 2016 The Hartford Courant