When people are having a mental health crisis, it's often police who are the first to respond. Not everyone knows where to turn when someone is in a crisis, so their first instinct is to call police. That's left police with a wide range of issues they have to learn to manage.
Reno Police, along with other agencies in our region, offer a crisis intervention program to teach officers how to keep everyone safe in these unpredictable and often dangerous situations.
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"The situation has either gotten to the point where the individual doesn't know where to turn and is reaching out for help, or family members are doing that for them," Reno Police Public Information Officer Travis Warren said.
A situation like this happened just a few weeks ago, when RPD got called to a situation where a mentally ill man was firing a shotgun into a building on Plumb Lane. He was suicidal, and asked police to shoot him. RPD officers were able to talk him down and get him to a hospital.
And last week, police were looking for a missing woman, suffering from a mental health episode. She was found safely.
Right now, RPD has a 40-hour crisis intervention program worked into the police academy, for all new recruits, But they're trying to get all their officers trained to establish trust with a variety of people, from those with disabilities, mental health issues, even brain trauma.
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"Learning how to talk to people," Warren said. "Learning how to interact with individuals and really learning how to identify crises and what they may look like early on."
In the cases where people dealing with a mental illness commit crimes and get arrested, they end up at the Washoe County jail. Managing that is a main campaign issue in this election's race for Washoe County sheriff. To hear how both candidates plan to address this issue, watch their interviews on Face the State, here.
