facilities and services, families and communities find themselves depending on the police to handle uncooperative or violent individuals who are mentally ill. However, police officers receive training in enforcing the law, not necessarily in interacting with individuals with mental illness. All too often, law enforcement officers find it difficult to determine whether they are dealing with an individual's mental illness or some type of unlawful behavior. In any case, officers generally lean toward their law enforcement training and follow procedures for interacting with criminals. If it turns out that subject actual has been diagnosed with a mental disease that was the cause of them resisting, or acting violent towards the police officers, the end result leads to citizen complaints and lawsuits. In most ‘911’ calls family members are only requesting intervention in dealing with their mentally ill loved one and do not necessarily want to involve the police because they felt that the situation is not a law enforcement matter. They also did not want emergency medical personnel to respond because the situation is not a physical medical emergency. However, a ‘911’ call is all that is currently available to them. With the help of outside psychologist, the Governor needs to develop a statewide training program that teaches specific police officers how to handle mentally ill citizens. The training cannot stop there but must include the police dispatch personnel so that they can send the right officers in potential violent situations. These officers can be designated as Crisis Management Officers (CMO’s).A major part of the training is to determine which police officers would make good crisis management officers. A psychological profile must be developed so that the program has the best opportunity to succeed. The Crisis Management Program will benefit the police, the community, and individuals with mental...
