43
25 officers from 9 county police departments graduated Friday
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown police officer Michael Anderson is one of 25 officers from nine county police departments who graduated Friday from the Crisis Intervention Training program, aimed at helping law-enforcement officers deal more effectively with people with mental-health issues.
The purposes of the weeklong Crisis Intervention Training are to ensure officer safety and provide de-escalation techniques police can use to calm mental health patients.
Anderson, a 14-year veteran of the force, said as a policeman he is usually “mellowed out” or in “enforcer mode” without much middle ground.
He said the CIT program provided tools to help him talk to and calm down people with mental-health issues.
“I really appreciate this training. It helped me see the issue in a whole different light. I would hope more officers would take the training,” he said.
Another graduate, Officer Donald Cox of the Youngstown State University Police Department, said he was a negotiator and had a hard time talking to people in crisis situations.
“The class was tremendous. It gave me the tools I need. I feel we all learned a lot. I’d like to see every police have this,” Cox said.
Since its inception in Mahoning County in 2006, 230 county officers have gone through the CIT program, said Michele Petrello, CIT coordinator and community education and Probate Court liaison for the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board, sponsor of the program.
The reason the MCMHRB sponsors the program is not because it has problems with Mahoning County law-enforcement officials or because the board wants to make police departments into mental-health agencies or turn officers into social workers, said Duane Piccirilli, MCMHRB executive director.
Instead, said Piccirilli, because mental hospitals have been closing since the 1960s putting more patients on the streets, law-enforcement officers are often first-responders for people with mental illnesses in crisis.
The board wants police officers to be as well prepared as possible to deal with the large numbers of individuals they encounter in a crisis situation, Piccirilli said.
It is estimated that one in every 10 calls to which officers respond involve a mental-health consumer, he said.
Piccirilli thanked the participating police departments for being willing to take officers off their regular duties for 40 hours.