Any time law enforcement interacts with a citizen, there is a chance the encounter might not go smoothly.
In some cases, those encounters might involve someone who is emotionally or mentally unstable, and it’s offen difficult to predict what might happen.
But officers in Sherburne County are learning to handle those types of situations in a more effective manner through Crisis Intervention Training (CIT).
Last April, a group of officers from different law enforcement agencies in the county underwent special training by the Barbara Schneider Foundation to become trainers themselves.
“It was a 40-hour course, followed by an eight-hour trainers training course,” says one of the trainers, Detective Joe Gacke of the Elk River Police Dept.
Once the trainers went through the program, they began training other officers in the county later in 2013.
“A session is an eight to eight and a half hour training day that begins in the classroom where we teach de-escalation techniques to the students,” says trainer, Elk River Police Sgt. Brian Boos. “We show powerpoints. We have people from the Sherburne County attorney’s office and also people from Mercy Hospital to speak about their part of the processs.”
During the second half of the training day, actors come in and simulate an encounter with law enforcement. The actors are also trained by the Barbara Schneider Foundation to act out different crisis situations.
“All the actors are trained and come from throughout the state,” says Deputy Michele Vlasek with the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Dept. “Some of them do commercials. Some do acting on stage. Some do musicals. They’re good. We actually have different scenarios we use in training.”
Acting the Part
The actors are directed to play the role of someone having some type of crisis.
“It could be a juvenile in crisis because of things going on at home, or somebody with a mental illness, or somebody coming back from the war with a brain injury,” says trainer Sgt. Jason Lawson of the Becker Police Dept. “They teach the actors different things they might say, how they might react or what they would do.”
The trainers observe as the students interact with the actors, and act as coaches to help the students during the simulation.
“We might stop the scenario to talk to the person to see how they’re doing - maybe give them other ways to approach the person,” says Lawson. “Then the actor will base their reactions off of that.”
The key to CIT is listening and evaluating the entire situation, says Gacke.
“It’s all about active listening instead of being the one doing all the talking and directing on what needs to happen and what’s going to happen,” he says. “A lot of times what people need is an opportunity to vent, and that’s not an easy thing for officers to do - to listen while someone is venting without interrupting and changing the way things are going.”
Officers are trained how to effectively listen as a means to build rapport.
“We hope we eventually get to the point where we have some trust. Then hopefully we’ll be able to do some behavioral changing - that they will trust us when we tell them the best option at that point would be to go to the hospital and speak with a mental health professional.”
CIT is also being used in jails to deal with the inmate population. Sometimes an inmate refuses to get out of their cell. Before CIT, a likely scenario would be a correctional officer physically extracting the inmate. But not anymore.
“It can also be used in non-crisis situations, just in everyday dealing with people,” says Dave Isaias, assistant jail administrator with Sherburne County.
“It’s understanding how to take a step back and get a big picture of the situation before you dive into it,” he says. “Corrections officers and police officers always want to be problem solvers - take the bull by the horns and get it done.”
Gacke says that’s why the training is so important, because officers are used to taking control right from the start.
Active Listening
“Officers are generally Type A personalities, so in the course of our jobs we tend to be the ones who are doing most of the talking and directing how things are going to go,” he says. “So our training challenges the officers to use some of the active listening skills we teach and other techniques to verbally de-escalate situations so they don’t have to go to the use of force.”
CIT is partially funded by a grant from the Community Adult Mental Health Initiatives. Although it is not mandated, county law enforcement agencies and the Sherburne County attorney’s office have decided that all officers in the county should be trained.
So far, four classes of 30 students consisting of county officers, city police officers and correctional officers have gone through training.
