Crisis intervention team needed for mentally ill

THE EDITOR, Sir:

SOME YEARS ago, soldiers and policemen beat a defenceless man who, it turns out, was mentally ill. He was later taken to the hospital where he was simply looked on as a madman. He died days later from a ruptured stomach resulting from the beatings. No one was found culpable.

Today, while we look at the action of the policemen who were caught on video beating and then shooting a resident of Buckfield, St Ann, last Thursday, has anyone attempted to find out if he had any recent behavioural changes? For this resident to remain in his community after stabbing his common-law wife, and to have been throwing objects at the police might be a clear indication that mentally, something was wrong. How many reports have we had in months whereby alleged murderers are so easily caught? It was also obvious that the policeman with gun in hand had no experience in crisis intervention. I am, therefore, assuming that this resident might have had an abnormal mental status, hence could have been mentally ill.

Misunderstood and mistreated

There are so many stories of missed cases of mentally ill persons being mistreated by community members, including the police, because of a lack of understanding about their mental illnesses. This uncharacteristic, habitually inhumane nature that is possessed by some persons often leads to mentally ill persons being neglected, falsely accused and sent to be lost in prison, or even killed.

Watching this footage on national television reminded me of the enraged beatings I have seen inflicted to some prisoners and other atrocities against mentally ill and defenceless citizens. This act seems to me even more barbaric than Rodney King's experience. This tragic incident should, however, give the security force and mental-health departments an opportunity to establish an emergency-intervention team to deal with domestic crises, especially if mental derangement is suspected.

Effective partnership

On too many occasions, manifestations of untreated psychiatric disorders like severe depression, substance abuse and some cases of schizophrenia resulted in aggressive behaviours and, subsequently, inappropriate responses from the security forces. As the security forces advocate for more community policing, partnership with our mental-health system could be an effective approach in dealing with criminal cases and crises that might involve the mentally ill (known or suspected cases). This crisis intervention team (CIT) could provide an innovative programme that leads to prison diversion and improvement of police responses to mentally ill in crises. CIT was initiated successively in Memphis in 1988.

Their stated mission is set out below:

"The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) programme is a community partnership working with mental-health consumers and family members. Our goal is to set a standard of excellence for our officers with respect to treatment of individuals with mental illness. This is done by establishing individual responsibility for each event and overall accountability for the results.

"Officers will be provided with the best quality training available, they will be part of a specialised team which can respond to a crisis at any time and they will work with the community to resolve each situation in a manner that shows concern for the citizen's well-being." (http://www.memphispolice.org/crisis%20intervention.htm).

I am, etc.,

RAYMOTH NOTICE

mayornotice@hotmail.com