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Police crisis-intervention training helps improve odds everyone goes home safe
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Two weeks ago, Warren police officers responded to a call involving a suicidal man standing outside in 14-degree weather in a T-shirt and sweatpants.
He had a gun to his head and told officers he “wanted to end it,” wanted “officers to shoot him.” After talking with a patrolman, however, he put down his gun and went quietly with police.
A trauma therapist from a Cortland counseling agency speaking with 15 Warren police officers this week during a training session said the man’s case isn’t uncommon.
“It’s easier to have you [police] do it than do it themselves,” Amber Stiles Bodnar of Blue Star Family Counseling Services said of the thoughts of suicidal people.
Training in how to approach such people can improve the odds that everyone will walk away safe.
The first two hours of Stiles Bodnar’s instruction only briefly mentioned people in crisis who have a gun, but she said officer safety is always the first consideration. Where practical, officers should use de-escalation techniques, she said.
Among them are using a calm voice, using first names, asking the right types of questions and standing the proper distance from the person in crisis. About 85 percent of communication is nonverbal, and “people in active stages of schizophrenia or high [on drugs] can still read body language,” so it’s important to convey non-aggressive body language and be “real” to the person, where appropriate.
The class is part of 40 hours of training 15 officers received as a requirement of the agreement the Warren Police Department has with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve unconstitutional-policing complaints regarding use of force dating back a decade or more. The other 45 officers will receive the training over the next three weeks.
A person in crisis may have a preconceived negative opinion of an officer in uniform, she said, so it’s helpful to avoid taking the person’s negative comments personally.
“If a person is calling you derogatory names, they don’t know you. It comes from ideas that go way back” in the person’s history, she said. People who have had mental-health or substance-abuse issues frequently have had negative experiences with police.
Other key ideas are “communicating in an open and honest manner,” listening to what the person says and showing you understand what they are saying.
“I get it; you’re frustrated” might be a good response, Stiles Bodnar said.
“It shows you are human; you’re not the badge. It shows you are the person behind the badge,” she said.
Open-ended questions starting with “How” and “What” do not provoke a person in crisis as much as “Why” questions, which tend to sound accusatory, such as “Why are you doing this?”
Lt. Jeff Cole, who has served as hostage negotiator for the department and was one of the officers in this week’s class, said Warren police officers “deal a lot with people in crisis.”
Being in control of your body language and voice can be invaluable in reducing the number of times an officer has to use force against a citizen, he said.
This type of training is just as important as the training officers get in how to use stun guns, firearms and hand-to-hand defense tactics, Cole said.
Since the Justice Department began to investigate the department about a decade ago, the department has increased its reporting and evaluation of officers’ use of force.
Police Chief Eric Merkel said topics covered by the training often come from use-of-force reports and incident reports written by officers, as well as internal-affairs reports. Most of the training costs are reimbursed by the state.
As for crisis-intervention training, about 35 officers have received a 40-hour course in it, Merkel said, adding that the Justice Department was fully behind the idea.
New statewide police- officer training requirements for new officers also call for 20 hours of crisis- intervention training instead of four, said Lt. Dan Mason.