POLICE CRISIS….(Training)

by MAri/Youth in the Media Intern

"People with mental illness have been shot by the San Francisco Police Department, and the SFPD haven't had any real training on approaching these folks in a non-threatening way.", Leroy Moore, head of Disability Advocates for Minority Organizations, (DAMO) and columnist of Illin' and Chillin' at POOR Magazine was angry. " These senseless crimes must STOP!" Moore's responses to my questions about the lack of police crisis training in San Francisco reminded me of a story told to me by one of my friends about a 15 year old girl named Molly X. She had sufferred from mental illness, and was emancipated from the foster care system. One day, she was at a shopping mall in Palo Alto. She started to break down and started screaming in the mall. Police came and told her to stop screaming twice, and she didn't stop screaming. Then the police shot, and killed her. There are many more stories like this, where the police's interaction with people in psychiatric crisis ends up in the death of the person they were supposed to be helping.

Idriss Stelly was another young man who was shot and killed by the police. He was having a psychiatric crisis at the Metreon Movie Theatre, so his fiancée called the police for help. But the police did not help him, they killed him. He was 23 years old, just two years older than I. He had a 4.0 GPA, and was enrolled in Heald College. He was a youth organizer. He loved and took really good care of animals; in fact he had three cats himself. He was also going to get married. I started thinking what can I do to make sure that this does not happen again? I am a Youth Commissioner; I represent youth at City Hall, so I decided to work on writing a resolution. A resolution is a piece of paper urging whomever to do what you want them to do. A resolution is one of the ways to get things done at City Hall.

After doing some research into the issue, I discovered there was a police crisis training program for police officers, which taught them how to interact with people who have mental illnesses. The police crisis training program reminded me of the Quaker's model called "moral treatment," which was based on a belief that people who have mental illnesses are human beings and should be treated as such. The odd thing is even with the urgent need for this training program, it only had trained about 20 "first responders" (patrol officers) since the program began .

So I started to work on the resolution pushing to get at least 25% of police officers trained on how to deal with people who are going through a psychiatric crisis within two years. Working on writing this resolution was very hard. I was working on something that a lot of people disagreed with, and/or had their own very specific ideas about.. The resolution went through so many revisions I can't even count the number of times it was changed. It took about a whole summer and a month to finish it.

On Monday, October 1, 2001 I introduced the resolution to the Youth Commission. The resolution was passed unanimously by the commission. Then on
Thursday, October 4, 2001 the Board of Supervisors' Rules Committee called a hearing on the Idriss Stelly's case. At that hearing, I read the resolution that the Youth Commission passed. Also some community advocates at the hearing stated that one of the Supervisors "pick" up the resolution. Before the end of the hearing Supervisor Tom Ammiano stated that he would "pick" up the resolution.

In December, the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee looked at the resolution to see if they wanted to recommend this to the Board of Supervisors, and to see if they wanted to make changes. They made some changes, but did not change the point of the resolution. The resolution states that "in two years, 25% of a First Responders of the San Francisco Police Officers per shift, per station complete this
training" and "that within one year at least 12-13% of First Responders per shift, per
station must have completed this training; including those who have supervising
authority when responding to an individual with psychiatric crisis" and "that this training is
maintained at current quality levels until such time all police officers are trained." The resolution also calls for semiannual reporting as stated "in June of 2002, and every six thereafter, the Police Department shall report to a Committee of the Board regarding the status and success of the Police Crisis Intervention Training for Police Officers."

In January of, 2002 the resolution passed before the Board of Supervisors. Every Supervisor who was present voted for the resolution. Supervisor Maxwell was not present. The resolution passed with ten votes.

The resolution is now being forwarded to the Mayor. He can do one of three things he can sign the resolution, not sign it, or veto it. If the resolution is vetoed by the Mayor, its back to the Board of Supervisors. for another vote. The mayor has until January 21 to make a decision.

As I looked at a beautiful picture of Idriss posted on Leroy’s column, his words reverberated through my mind "People with mental illness have been shot and killed by the SFPD and these senseless crimes against mentally disabled people must stop"

If this resolution passes, I believe it will.