(Editor’s Note: Peter F. Boyce is a Dacula attorney in private practice in Atlanta and General Counsel for the National Narcotics Officers Association Coalition. For much of his career, Peter has counseled and defended police officers, their supervisors, their departments, and the governmental entity which employs them when they are threatened with suit or sued for allegations of wrongful conduct. He has represented large metropolitan police departments, as well as small city police departments. He was born in New Jersey, is a graduate of Furman University and the Atlanta Law School. He has practiced law in Atlanta since 1977.)—eeb
By Peter Boyce, Dacula, Ga. | Law enforcement has been thrust into a role of crisis intervention when confronted with persons suffering from mental illness and/or drug induced behavior.
Boyce
The media now asserts that the police, as first responders who frequently confront individuals with severe mental illness or who are under the influence of drugs, must fulfill a legal obligation to protect the safety and welfare of the community as well as assess and safeguard the rights of people with disabilities such as mental illness or drug induced behavior. Many assert that law enforcement, as part of its duty to serve and protect the rights of every citizen, must now assume the responsibility to manage and access if the person they confront is a criminal in need of arrest or a person with a disability who needs medical intervention.
Law Enforcement has been trained to arrest someone involved in illegal activity. It leaves the criminal justice system to determine, after the arrest, if the person charged with a crime should enter a mental facility, a drug rehab program, or face criminal charges. Police officers receive little or no comprehensive training in dealing with people with mental illness, which often appear to the officer to be drug or alcohol related.
Officers must be trained in crisis intervention. Specialized teams composed of a mental health professional and the police should be available to every officer who confronts a situation related to a mental health crisis or drug induced behavior. Police departments do not have the financial resources to provide a crisis intervention team. It seems unlikely that the politicians will allocate the funds necessary to train each officer on crisis intervention and de-escalation.
What can law enforcement do to meet this challenge of evolving law and public perception that the police should alter their approach when confronted with a mental health or drug induces critical incident?
Law enforcement and mental health professionals should adopt policies and procedures that promote the value of working together, using joint resources and expertise, during interventions. Police officers and mental health professionals need to work as a team to train, equip and share resources in a crisis situation.
Police officers must be cautioned, however, that the use of force, even lethal force, must be an option when confronted with a suspect who poses a danger to the public and/or the police. The reality is that while some encounters can be de-escalated, the officer must make the split-second decision regarding whether to use force or attempt to de-escalate the encounter. The public must understand that as guardians, officers also assume the role, when necessary, as warriors in order to protect the public interest and the lives of their fellow officers.
The responsibility to make sometimes instantaneous decisions regarding the mental health of a suspect or their degree of drug intoxication has been thrust upon law enforcement in an era of de-institutionalization of the mentally ill and drug crazed individual.
We need to train police officers to better identify symptoms of mental health disorders and substance use. We also must give them access to mental health professionals and facilitate ongoing collaboration between police and health care professionals.
Only when all of these many issues are faced and funded, can law enforcement hope to curtail the crisis of dealing with the mentally ill and drug addicted citizens. Until the issues are addressed by elected officials and the courts, law enforcement finds itself caught between being a guardian for the mentally ill and drug offenders and the mandate that law enforcement must protect the public safety.
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