About 20 Hawaii Police Department officers underwent a 40-hour training program in Hilo this past week aimed at de-escalating the potential for danger in encounters with people experiencing mental health or addiction problems.
The Crisis Intervention Team training was sponsored by National Alliance for Mental Illness Hawaii. The nationally standardized training is referred to as “gold standard” training based on the “Memphis model” established in 1988 by CIT International, according to NAMI Hawaii Executive Director Kumi Macdonald.
“CIT started over 30 years ago in Memphis when there was … an African American person who had psychosis, and the police shot them,” Macdonald said. “A lot of people were outraged, and there was a big riot. The NAMI community there came to the Memphis Police Department and said, ‘How can we help?’
“We don’t point fingers. We’re here to help people learn about mental illness. Our goal is ‘help, not handcuff.’”
NAMI Hawaii received a grant from Hawaii Health Systems Corporation to cover airfare and accommodations on the Big Island for its trainers from Honolulu, according to Macdonald.
“And we’re donating our time, all of our time, free of charge,” she said.
According to Macdonald, this past week’s program is part of a community effort that was in the works for the past several months.
“In our first community meeting that was held in June, we had 42 community partners — police department, fire department, mayor’s office — so many of your major players present at that steering committee meeting. So, we know that your community is wanting this change,” she said.
Police Sgt. Jason Grouns, who is a trained crisis negotiator and has received the CIT training, is the department’s liaison for the training.
“I tried to gear the training toward the community police and the patrol officers, who are going to be the first ones responding to a call of somebody in crisis, specifically mental health crisis,” Grouns said. “We’re starting off with East Hawaii, and our hopes are that in a few months we will be able to train another 20 to 25 officers in West Hawaii.
“And if we can do this training annually, it would be good to see a large portion of our officers trained.”
Grouns described the CIT training as “another tool in our toolbox to help our first-responders on the scene hopefully de-escalate the situation.”
“Officers receive a lot of training in the academy,” he said. “They receive training in what we call ‘verbal judo’ — which is a communication technique. So, they have the basics. But this takes it a step higher. We have a lot of mental health professionals in different organizations in the classroom with us — not so much teaching us how to diagnose, because we’re not doctors and we can’t diagnose — but showing us signs of what to look for so we can recognize schizophrenia or PTSD or … what the crisis might be so we can be pointed in the right direction to get the person the help for that specific issue.”
Grouns said the principles and techniques taught in CIT can be the difference between keeping officers and the citizens they encounter who have mental or addiction issues unharmed. CIT-trained officers also can get an individual other help they need, rather than a jail cell or a hospital bed.
“Once we have officers trained, our dispatchers can request a CIT officer to respond to a situation,” he said.
Those situations, of course, vary in their urgency and intensity — with one worst-case scenario involving an individual hoping to commit “suicide by cop.”
“It’s absolutely out there. It’s a term that every one of our officers is familiar with,” Grouns said. “I know that over the course of this class, some officers have shared that they’ve seen it very recently, where that was the desire of the person at the call they’re responding to. I’ve experienced it. I’ve also been a crisis negotiator for a number of years.
“CIT and crisis negotiations are very, very parallel skills. And through the training I’ve received as a crisis negotiator, and the training in CIT, the aim is to avoid any harm to that person, whether it’s them harming themselves or wanting us, as police officers, to harm them and assist them in their end goal.”
In addition to CIT training, NAMI Big Island provides support groups and classes relating to mental health, Macdonald said.
For more information about support groups, classes, and crisis intervention, contact NAMI Big Island at (808) 756-6697 or bigisland@namihawaii.org.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
