Clackamas County Trains Officers on Dealing With Mentally Ill

from The Oregonian, Emily Tsao

When business owners along Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard complained about a man trespassing on their property, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office stepped in to help.

Normally, deputies would have made an arrest. But in this case, the man was mentally ill and didn't seem to understand the idea of trespassing.

So the deputies tried to think of a way to reach out to him. They learned that the man processed information visually. "He had an incredible memory for things he had seen," Deputy Angela Brandenburg said.

So instead of telling the man that trespassing was wrong, Brandenburg and Deputy Jeff Murray showed him: They gave him a tour of the Clackamas County Jail.

The two deputies are part of the newly formed Crisis Intervention Team, a group of Clackamas County law enforcement officers trained to deal with mentally ill people. The program teaches officers how to recognize signs of mental illness and developmental disabilities, and how to best handle those cases.

About a third of the calls to the sheriff's office deal with mentally ill people, said Sgt. Nick Watt, who helped set up the crisis team program. From suicide attempts to disorderly conduct reports to welfare checks, many times, officers are the first to respond.

While many such cases are resolved peacefully, the county has its share of high-profile incidents, including the shooting of sheriff's Sgt. Damon Coates by a mentally ill teenager in 2003 and the fatal police shooting of a mentally ill woman, Joyce Staudenmaier, the following year.

Watt and others at the sheriff's office said the mental health program was not established in response to a particular incident but because of the constant contact officers have with people who are mentally ill.

Jail officials have said they've seen an increase in mentally ill inmates as health programs that help the mentally ill see their budgets cut. Officers have said they are dealing with more calls related to mental illness.

The sheriff's office has been working on a crisis intervention program for more than a year, and it has been a priority of Sheriff Craig Roberts, who took office in January, Watt said.

The Portland Police Bureau and Washington County Sheriff's Office have similar training.

Watt worked closely with Jessica Leitner, a senior program manager at Clackamas County's Community Mental Health Center, to establish the program. Both Watt and Leitner said the team strengthened the partnership between the sheriff's office and the mental health center.

In February, the sheriff's office graduated its first team of 12 sheriff's deputies and 13 officers from Lake Oswego, West Linn, Canby, Gladstone, Milwaukie and Molalla police agencies and county Community Corrections.

For one week in February, officers underwent 40 hours of training, mostly from mental health workers, and met with mentally ill individuals who shared their experiences when they were confronted by police.

Officers learned to better distinguish whether a person was intoxicated or suffering from hallucinations.

The participants also toured sites including the Portland campus of the Oregon State Hospital, the Hooper Memorial Detoxification Center in Portland and the Chez Ami apartments in Clackamas where Staudenmaier was killed.

Watt and Leitner said they are working to graduate another Crisis Intervention Team in the fall. They also are working to establish a shorter course to expose more officers to the training.

Before this training effort, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office last offered a four-hour session about three years ago, Watt said.

The trained team members will respond to requests from mental health workers or emergency dispatchers.

The sheriff's office is working on a system to track calls handled by the crisis team, Watt said. But he had no figures on how many calls team members have handled so far.

Even though the team is relatively new, it appears that the intervention is working. Since the jail tour, Watt said the sheriff's office hasn't heard any complaints about the man along McLoughlin.