Helping cops deal with all the chaos

from The Oregonian, by Steve Duin


In 1987, the city of Memphis was rocked by a police shooting as tragic and pointless as the death early Saturday morning of 18-year-old Lukus Glenn.
The 27-year-old victim had a knife. He was cutting himself and threatening family members. He was also mentally ill, and the Memphis police, ill-equipped to deal with that population, shot him more than enough times to end his life.

"The outcry," Major Sam Cochran of the Memphis Police told National Public Radio last year, "was so intense, it spilled over into the political arena." The mayor got involved. A task force was formed.

And said Officer Paul Ware of the Portland Police Bureau --the University of Tennessee Psychiatric Hospital stepped up with suggestions on how the police could better deal with the mentally ill in crisis situations. For the safety of everyone involved.

The suggestions were so on target that police-inflicted injuries to mental health patients in Memphis dropped 40 percent in less than four years.

In a front-page story Wednesday, several law enforcement types suggested the fatal shooting of Lukus Glenn by two Washington County sheriff's deputies was "by the book."

A 1987 book, perhaps. An updated manual based on the Memphis model is making the rounds, said Angela Kimball of the Association for Oregon Community Health Programs, and a number of police bureaus and county sheriffs long ago memorized the chapter on crisis intervention.

That includes the Portland Police Bureau, where Ware coordinates the training program. You may remember Ware. In January 2005 --on National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Day, as a matter of fact --Ware confronted a knife-wielding man in the state Senate chamber and spent 45 minutes talking the guy down off the proverbial ledge.

Ware has set up a voluntary 40-hour program in crisis intervention; he estimates one-quarter of the city's patrol officers have undergone training in mental disorders, personality disorders (including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder), suicide prevention, hostage negotiations and post-traumatic stress disorder.

That program is embraced, said defense attorney Laura Graser, by all the major players in law enforcement and mental health because it reduces the incidents that "cause everyone pain, including the police officers."

By all accounts, Glenn was simply drunk, depressed and angry early Saturday when he set out on the rampage that forced his mother, Hope, to call 9-1-1. But as Graser says, "I don't know if it matters whether it was genetics, alcohol, methamphetamines, poor nurturing . . .: He was acting crazy. When that 9-1-1 call came in, it could have dispatched someone with the training to deal with the mentally ill."

The Washington County Sheriff's Office also has voluntary crisis intervention training for its deputies, but spokesman Dave Thompson said the two officers who responded Saturday --Deputies Mikhail Gerba and Timothy Mateski --have not taken the course.

Ware said there's no guarantee, however, that additional training --which mandates "the most effective and compassionate response possible" --would have saved Glenn's life.

"I try to slow down the situation. I try to contain the person. I try to talk to them about what the problem is," Ware said, but it would have been difficult to have a quiet, calm conversation with Glenn while honoring the "21-foot-rule," the margin of safety officers maintain when confronting someone with a knife.

"Crisis intervention training increases the odds of me having a successful intervention," Ware said, "but I can't control human behavior. I don't know the Jedi mind trick. People put that burden on us. People have seen too much Hollywood hype."