Wednesday, Oct. 08, 2008

Richland cops get tailored training

By Paula Horton, Herald staff writer

Richland police officers frequently respond to situations involving someone with a mental illness and need to know the best way to calm them down.

Officers end up doing some type of crisis intervention probably every other day during a routine shift, Capt. Mike Cobb said.

The problem is not unique to Richland, but the training they are receiving is.

About two dozen Richland officers, along with two officers with the state Department of Corrections, participated in an eight-hour mental health training class this week designed specifically for them.

Last week, about a third of the department went through the class, which is taught by John Simpkin, a local mental health professional. The rest of the department will go through the training next week.

"John's been working with us to identify the needs of the city of Richland," Cobb said. "He's spent a lot of time assessing the level of skills our officers have, he's talked to the officers and been out on the street with the officers."

Simpkin, who runs Simpkin Consultation and Training, spent about a year analyzing the needs of the community and how Richland officers interact with mentally ill people.

The goal is to provide the officers with practical skills to use when they're called to a potentially volatile situation. They watched videos and heard from a person with a mental illness to help them get a better understanding.

After the officers watched a video simulating a psychotic episode, Simpkin said, "You can just imagine, one, how disturbing it can be, and two, how typical it is. You can see they're overwhelmed. ... They're exhausted, exhausted defending themselves, being hypervigilant and ready to fight or flee."

They often think someone is out to get them, and when an officer shows up with a gun and a badge it can increase the fear, he said.

The best thing to do is keep things slow, simple and minimize the stimuli around the mentally ill person, Simpkin said. Officers need to try to identify what's triggering the issue, remove the problem or redirect the person and connect them with help.

"It's not therapy. All you're trying to do is resolve the immediate crisis," Simpkin said.

Several Richland officers have been through weeklong crisis intervention training, but not all officers can spend a week off the streets, Cobb said.

"This is not designed to make police officers mental health professionals -- that's not the goal," Cobb said.

"This will give the officers additional tools to have resolutions that are more likely to be interpreted as a positive outcome -- where everybody goes home safe."