MESA

Mesa police create crisis-response team after shooting autistic transgender man

Christopher Silavong

The Republic | azcentral.com

Mesa Police Chief John Meza announcing new programs to help deal with mental health crises.

Mesa police are creating a full-time crisis-response team to help the department better interact with those suffering from mental illness or cognitive disabilities.

The team will include four full-time detectives, who will help patrol officers deal with challenging situations, Police Chief John Meza announced Friday.

Mesa police dealt with 2,600 suicidal-person calls in 2015, demonstrating the need for a special unit, Meza said.

Additionally, Meza said the department will create a “mental health advisory board to assist the police department in developing, recommending, and reviewing policy and training.”

The announcement comes eight days after the fatal shooting of Kayden Clarke by Mesa police officers. Officers were sent to Clarke's east Mesa residence on a suicidal-person call Feb. 4. A Mesa police spokesman said Clarke was armed with a knife and charged at two officers. Both officers opened fire.

Clarke, 24, had hoped to transition from female to male but, in chronicling his journey on YouTube, said he faced numerous obstacles in the process because of his autism-spectrum disorder.

An agency spokeswoman says some of the team's responsibilities will include:

Escorting persons experiencing mental-health crisis to hospitals for evaluation.
Utilizing Mesa Fire Department’s community medical unit to assist in crisis situations.
When possible, making sure mental-health incidents are not treated as criminal offenses.

Other police departments with crisis units include Glendale, Chandler, Scottsdale, Surprise, Tempe, Peoria and Goodyear.

Meza also plans to increase the percentage of crisis intervention officers on patrol above the national average by the end of the year. The national average is 20 to 25 percent, he said. The department added 8 hours of basic crisis training for new recruits, mental health refresher courses for current officers and increased the number of first responders with training, Meza said.

Of about 800 officers in the Mesa Police Department, 130 officers have received crisis training so far, according to Det. Esteban Flores, an agency spokesman. About 300 to 400 officers are on patrol.