Bill Seeks for Police to Receive More Training to Handle Mentally Ill

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Last July, a California Highway Patrol officer was captured on video savagely beating a woman, 51 years old at the time, on the side of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles. The incident might have seemed to be an isolated tragedy, except for one detail: the victim, Marlene Pinnock, was described by law enforcement officials as mentally ill. In public remarks, CHP Commissioner Joseph A. Farrow said the beating was reflective of a greater problem, a failing among law enforcement officers to appropriately handle people in poor mental health.

(Pinnock's beating ultimately led to the resignation of Officer Daniel Andrew and a payment of $1.5 million dollars to the woman's family.)

This legislative session, lawmakers in Sacramento may have a chance to address Farrow's concerns. Though it is just a placeholder awaiting specifics, SB 11 will call for increased police training to handle the mentally ill or disabled. In an interview with KCET, the bill's author, Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose), said he wants to increase the minimum training for prospective officers as well as field training for more experienced officers.

Beall said he'll never forget one day about 20 years ago, when he was a San Jose City Council member, that "a mentally disturbed person wrestled a service gun from an officer and shot and killed him."

Oftentimes officers get into altercations with mentally ill or developmentally disabled people, Beall said, which leads to a felony offense. "We essentially end up putting mentally ill people in prison or jail when they really need to be in a treatment facility," he said.

Beall added that training for dealing with mentally ill suspects pales in comparison with training that officers receive for firearms, fitness, or even filing reports. He would like a new training requirement to center on skills to recognize mental illness and de-escalation techniques aimed at keeping both the officer and the suspect safer.

According to a recent report by Disability Rights California, an advocacy organization, "In California, academy recruits are required to receive only six hours of instructional time -- covering all disabilities: mental health, developmental and physical -- out of 664 hours of basic training." Half of police shooting victims suffer from mental illness or disability, the report stated.

"What's offered in the academy needs to be increased," agreed Pamila Lew, a Disability Rights California staff attorney.

Minimum training requirements are established by the state Commission on Peace Officer Training and Standards, or POST, as it is known. Academies for prospective sheriff deputies, police, and highway patrol all must meet the minimum requirements.

Jan Bullard, the agency's assistant executive director, said POST is "doing an analysis of training to see if there are gaps that need to be addressed," and that it is working with Sen. Beall.

Authorities in Ventura County have developed a system that many in California point to as exemplary. At present, nearly three quarters of Ventura County's 1,400 sworn officers have been through a 40-hour training covering topics like psychiatric medication, psychotic disorders, suicide by cop, and military veterans and the homeless.

Beginning in 2001, the sheriff and all five police departments formed a countywide response system. Each department has a coordinator for mental health service calls, and together all departments pay for two joint employees who form a "bridge between mental health officials and law enforcement," according to Kiran Sahota, who holds one of those positions. She is the program administrator for the Crisis Intervention Team.

"Our county is very fortunate that we are large enough and also small enough to have this partnering," Sahota said.

Law enforcement can also opt to send a licensed clinician on such service calls. The Los Angeles Police Department and Long Beach Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff, among others, use this so-called co-responder model.

Long Beach Police Chief Robert G. Luna said he believes additional training would be helpful, but that a solution may not be that simple. For officers in Long Beach, the academy lasts 26 packed weeks, during which officers are trained in "legal issues, verbal judo, driver's training. I wonder if it's oversaturation at some point?" he asked.

He said that good arguments exist for either extending the academy for a week for mental health training, or waiting until officers have some experience and then training them. He also pointed out that to take an officer off the street and train her for week requires paying another officer to take her place.

SB 11 doesn't yet include specifics about how it might be funded, but Beall said DMV fees, federal grants, and Proposition 63 were all possibilities.

Through spokesperson Sara Dwyer, the California Police Chiefs Association said "we look forward to working with Senator Beall" but declined to offer more.

In its report, Disability Rights California recommends that, when appropriate, county health officials should be involved in police responses.

"The problem is that law enforcement is the first responder to the vast majority of these calls," Lew said. Under her group's recommendations, calls involving suspects with mental illness or disability would get routed to mental health officials, "the same way that if you were having a heart attack, the paramedics would come."