♪ hello and welcome to kqed "newsroom." i'm thuy vu. the roadblocks for people seeking mental health services. plus, a look ahead at the republican national convention next week. first, the recent deadly shootings of black men in louisiana and minnesota as well as the killings of five officers in dallas have generated much debate over the relationship between race and police use of force. law enforcement agencies across the nation and here in the bay area are under intense scrutiny amid demands for change. a new study by the center for policing equity found that african-americans are considerably more likely to be subjected to officer use of force than white americans. u.c. berkeley professor jack glaser is one of the authors of

the report. he joins you now. also with us is richmond police lieutenant felix cahn who manages tactics training for the department. welcome. first, you and your co-authors studied thousands of use of force incidents across the nation. what did you find? >> generally speaking, across continuum of use of force from putting hands on all the way up until what's called less lethal force like using a taser, that african-americans were more likely to be subjected to force even when we benchmarked against the rates at which whites and blacks and other groups are arrested. kind of controlling for what you'd expect to see the rate of use of force that there is more force applied to african-americans above and beyond that. we also found for lethal force that there was no racial disparity, but the numbers are very small. and given all the other evidence including data on fatal incidents, we're taking that with a grain of salt.

>> so are you then also taking with a grain of salt another study that's making headlines lately, and that's the one by harvard economist roland fryar who found that police are not racially biased when it comes to lethal force incidents? >> yes. friar looked at a different set of departments and drilled deeper into the houston data and found across the board, again, similar findings, and also with lethal use of force. although, he found in fact in his report that whites were more likely to be subjected to lethal force. and again, that's something that we're skeptical of because it flies in the face of the other data including fatal incidents including fatal incidents with off-duty police officers and all of the psychological evidence on how these things play out. >> and lieutenant, in richmond minorities make up the majority. you manage some of the training there. how is your training different than that of other police

departments? >> our police department, we have monthly firearms training at the range. a lot of police departments do it every six months or twice a year. since 2007, we've incorporated what we call force-on-force training, scenario might have based training where you have instructors participating in the traini training. we'll pull officers off the street while they're policing and put them through the training. we evaluate how they perform. >> how does that work, though? how is it different from normal training? most of the academies, for example, you shoot at static targets, right? the force on force, is it role playing, you play out scenarios? >> yes, it's actual role playing. the instructors, the firearms instructors will take one or two instructors to participate in this. and they are dressed down in civilian clothes. and a lot of the scenarios involve police with car stops.

and sometimes also with suspicious persons. so what happens is we have the officers take off their bullet proof vests and take off every live weapon that they have on their duty belt, and we arm them with what's called -- what's known as air soft guns. those things shoot off plastic pelts about 300 feet per second. also they don a facemask to protect their eyes. and we present them a scenario. and one scenario could be you're making a car stop for a car making, running a red light. that is the only information that they received. and they start the scenario. and we have a script for the role player. and depending on how the officer reacts, the scenario can go either lethal, nonlethal, or nothing happens. >> and why do you do that? what are you hoping to accomplish through that? >> a lot of times training at the range, it's really one or

two dimensional. you're standing static. you're at the firing line, and you have a firearms instructor telling you you're going to shoot one or two rounds at the paper target, but it does not engage with you. >> and in real life, you don't even feel the impact of when you shoot somebody, right, if you're shooting at a paper target? >> that's correct. and in real life, you're not waiting for a firearms instructor to tell you to shoot, when to shoot, and when not to shoot. we thought that it would make sense that we went a step further by having our officers think more about the, all the level of force that they can use and what they're armed with on their duty belt. and it's very much a thinking game. >> and has this made a difference in your department, in terms of how often use of force is deployed? >> i would say so. i think if you look at our amount of officer-involved shootings that we have, it's -- it's not as high as you would

think for a department that finds guns on a daily basis. i mean, we have officers that are always encountering armed subjects. and they're able to defuse the tension a lot of times. >> professor glaser, do you think this kind of training could make a difference in terms of the types of disparities that you have discovered in your report? >> absolutely. the training itself isn't actually targeted at the disparities. it's targeted at force itself and lethal force. and potentially its excessive use. potentially if you can bring down the use of force to lower levels, those racial disparities are also going to be reduced. and i think this is the -- at this point, i think this is the gold standard of what can be done because it introduces this element of fear and threat into the officer's training that doesn't exist in the target range. >> and we reached out to our

viewership, the responses on this. a number of viewers wrote and had questions about deescalation including a question from kyle on twitter. he wants to know if there's training on deescalation, and if so, what are the methods that you use for that. >> well, i'll -- that goes hand in hand with force-on-force training. lethal force is always the last resort. therefore, we want our officers to think about the outcome and think about what options they have. >> what are some of the options that you go through with them? >> the very first things is your presence. and the most important things is your mouth and your brain. to think about how you can react, how you can mitigate any potential issues and problems. and we train our officers to listen to the subject that they're engaging with. and perhaps the person's having a bad day or has some type of mental illness that needs to be dealt with, and the officer's not aware. then that comes, that brings

into the cit training that a lot of our officers have been trained with. >> crisis intervention training? >> that's correct. that to me, to us is part of deescalation. so we don't only focus on the firearms. although firearms is very important, and we have to hone in the skills. that's just as important as making the correct decision. it is a full package deal. therefore, we train a lot. and with the amount of training that we do, it gives the officers confidence in their ability to utilize whatever tools they have on their belt. the most important tool is their mouth and their brain. >> do you do implicit bias training, as well? >> we have. we've done it once, and that was about a year and a half ago. >> was there perspective -- >> that's difficult to gauge. you're talking about each individual's implicit bias, and whether or not it was brought up, surfaced, and whether or not it was -- it changed them. we don't know.

>> so professor glaser, do you think implicit bias training works? >> as far as we know at this point, the existing implicit bias training doesn't work in terms of changing actual performance outcomes on police officers. it works in the sense that officers seem to learn something from it and maybe their explicit attitudes change. the science on implicit bias indicates that implicit biases are almost impossible to change, and they're very difficult to prevent them from influencing their behaviors. again why i think the actual performance training is potentially more important because what you really want to do is create scenarios and shape scenarios as an officer that prevent the implicit bias, the sort of lower brain functioning from influencing your behavior. that deescalation prevent you from getting to that decision point where you're deciding whether or not to shoot in the first place. >> let me understand this, then. you're basically saying that implicit bias training does not work. if it doesn't, then what works

to try to reduce implicit bias? >> right. so there are a lot of laboratories around the world trying to figure out how to lastingly reduce implicit bias. so far, due to no lack of effort, we've not found a way to make implicit racial bias, for example, a preference for whites over blacks or association between blacks and crime or weapons, to make those go away in any lasting way. they videos in both shootings in

minnesota. do you think this is a tipping point? >> honestly, i'm afraid not. i say that because as much as i'd like to be an optimist about it, we've seen this movie before. and these kinds of shootings have occurred before. and it always feels like it's going to be a tipping point just like newtown felt it was going to be a tipping point in gun control. and then the new cycle turns, and it's already turned to the election, back to the vice presidential picks. it's unfortunately turning to nice, france, as well. i don't see anything so qualitatively different this time. >> it is unfortunately a sign of difficult times we live in now. professor jack glaser of u.c. berkeley, thank you very much. also lieutenant of richmond. moving on now, more than 43 million americans have a mental health condition. more than half never get help, even those who have insurance. state and federal laws were supposed to fix this. even in places like the bay area where there's an abundance of

therapists, insured patients struggle to find mental health care. kqed's health reporter explains. >> reporter: on a sunday afternoon, natalie and her boyfriend, russell, head to the park with natalie's 13-year-old son. >> you can't hit me. >> he has autism, a developmental disorder that affects about one in 70 children in the u.s. >> he has strength -- one side of the brain, and weaknesses on the other side. to control your emotions or this and that, you know? strengths could be like coding or, you know, focusing on one things for hours. >> reporter: each week an applied behavioral analysis or aba therapist comes to the house. aba therapy helps kids with autism learn life skills and how to control their temper.

he and his therapist schedule carefully timed activities so he can get better at transitions. >> this would be i.d. right? >> uh-huh. >> this is the widths, heights, speed x and speed y. >> a favorite activity can trigger a meltdown. >> i can't do it. i can't! >> if your kid doesn't get aba therapy and they're having these defiant and difficult behaviors, these kids end up in jail. >> reporter: as a single mom working full-time sh, money is tight for natalie. she can only afford a few hours a week. >> i want my son to be as successful as possible. every time i get a raise, i increase hours. >> reporter: she has insurance through blue shield. getting mental health treatment has been really tough. >> i went on the site. you can see it says like

doctors, sfilts facilities, dentists. nothing about where to find a therapist. i called them, and they e-mailed a list of providers. this is the list. yeah. they all have a three-month waiting list. then after the three-month waiting list, you have like a two to eight weeks of intake. then hopefully you get approved. >> reporter: she pays $50 an hour out of her own pocket for her son's therapy. and now she faces similar hurdles finding a clinician for herself. >> she sent me a list like i should be fine. just make a few phone calls. i'll find somebody. i called everybody on this list. only one place called me back. >> i remember they would -- >> i have to be as emotionally healthy as possible so that i can be there for straz bases -- because he has good weeks, and he has bad weeks. >> reporter: her experience is

not unique. i called 00 psychologists in san francisco who take natalie's insurance. i wonder if you are taking new patients with blue shield coverage. half are no longer taking insurance or new patients. a quarter never even called back. thank you very much. bye-bye. only eight had appointments outside of normal work hours. i contacted blue shield for an interview, but they declined. instead, they sent a statement saying that the provider has to notify blue shield if they're no longer taking new patients. they also said california is facing a shortage of mental health providers. >> insurance companies are saying that there's a shortage of mental health providers? that's hard for me to believe. i have many colleagues that are trying to get on to panels. and they run into the problem again and again where panels say, sorry, we're closed, we have enough providers in your area. >> reporter: dr. hartman is a psychologist who accepts a variety of insurance plans. she can get up to 20 calls a week from people asking for her help. >> makes me really angry.

really is upsetting, and it makes me wonder whether the insurance panels -- why are they limiting how many therapists they take on to their panels. >> reporter: why do you think they might be limiting the number of therapy scientists. >> if you make things too difficult to access, then patients will stop trying to seek the therapy and the treatment that they need. i guess part of me thinks that that's probably a good things for the insurance companies. >> reporter: another difficulty patients face is outdated or missing information about a therapist's specialty. >> for instance, i need a cardiologist for a heart problem, and i get a list of all mds that are on my health insurance panel. i'm not going to know who to call about my particular issue that i'm needing help with. >> reporter: many therapists complain that reimbursement rates are too low. >> over the past 18 years of being on their panel, they have not increased their reimbursement rates. and yet, the co-pays and

premiums are increasing for most of my patients. >> reporter: under state and federal laws, insurance plans must cover mental health services equally compared to other forms of compare. millions of patients across the country, like natalie and her son, straz, struggle to get the help they need. >> we're almost done with this. i like this. >> getting services through my plan, the hardest one by far is getting mental health services. there's nothing more difficult. i needed to find a doctor. i found one instantly. but mental health, behavioral health, psychiatrists, to have that be even harder, it's almost unbearable sometimes. >> our reporter is with us in the studio now. april, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me.

>> so many interesting issues brought up in the story y. did you decide to do the report? >> i started looking into it about two years ago when kaiser permanente was fined by state regulators for having problems with mental health access. and they were -- they were, patient there had to wait sometimes up to six weeks for individual therapy appointments. and there were ten to be many reasons why kaiser got so much attention. one is the fact that there is what's called a closed system. it's both the insurer and the medical provider at the same time. that means if somebody calls to get an appointment, there's a centralized record about how long they had to wait. the other point is that the moneyal health commissions at kiser are unionized. they went on strike over the issues. there's a lot of attention. made me wonder why other insurers weren't getting the same attention. >> because of those things. you know, other insurers, they don't work that way. they have -- they contract with thousands of self-employed, solo

practicianers who all answer their own phones. it's difficult to get reliablegate how many people somebody had to call. how long they had to wait, and how many people just give up. >> you eliminated some of the problems in your report. you mentioned poor reimbursement rates are a major reason for difficulty finding care. were there any other reasons not mentioned in the story? >> yeah. i mean, you know, again, these are solo practitioners. sometimes they can get up to 20 calls a week from people looking for care. and so they're overwhelmed, can't return that many phone calls. also, even if they do call back just to say, you know, i can't -- i don't have time to see you, a lot of times people will immediately launch into telling their story or explaining their problems. so not only does that take 20, 30 minutes, it creates an ethical complication for the therapist. they're basically establishing a therapeutic relationship at exactly the time they wanted to

say they don't have time to do that. >> that kind of further compounds the difficulty in accessing care. is there a potential greater economic cost to insurers if they don't take care of mental health problems up-front? >> it's hard to say because that's not the way we've done it in this country. there are certainly a lot of studies who have found associations. people who have mental health problems tend to have more politics, more expensive physical health problems. so there's certainly a lot of arguments being made that addressing mental health problems up front and more consistently could lower health care costs overall, but also, you know, further economic costs. if people are not, if their mental health isn't being cared for, they can lose their job, and that becomes even more expensive for society. >> and we only have about 30 seconds l. -- seconds left. i have to ask about the 13-year-old boy, straz. has he gotten therapy after the

report? >> yes. we had a version of the story that aired on the california report, the radio. the day the story aired, blue shield, a repative from blue shield called natalie to ask how they could help. natalie said there were a funk of haggling and arguing over different policy points. but it looks like he's being evaluated now and looks like he will be getting aba therapy that's covered by his insurance. >> that's good news. april, thank you very much. >> thank you. well, we turn now to politics and the upcoming republican national convention. kqed's senior editor for california politics and government, scott schaefer, has more. this morning, donald trump revealed his pick for a running mate in a tweet. it's indiana governor mike pence. with the republican convention kicking off in cleveland on monday, trump is expected to claim the party's presidential nomination. despite lingering opposition from some quarters within the

gop. security concerns also loom large given that the violence we've seen breaking out in other protests at trump rallies. joining me now talk about all that is republican strategist sean walsh. good to see you. >> thank you. >> let's start with mike pence. your thoughts about the choice, what impact it could have on the ultimate outcome in november. >> there's a lot of mainstream republicans who are very, very pleased and relieved of this choice. number one, that it's not newt gingrich. number two, some concerns about mr. christie with regards of a lack of foreign policy. mr. pence brings to the table congressional experience, and as vice president he is the actual president's representative in the senate and casts tie-breaking votes number one. two, he was in the republican leadership in the congress. it should help repair and enhance mr. trump with congress, and three, actually has extensive foreign policy experience. >> nonetheless, a lot of leading republicans took themselves out of contention. nikki haley, for example, governor of south carolina. so this is what he was left with in a way, not necessarily the best of all choices if he had

more options. >> the bottom sideline he's a guide who covers a lot -- bottom. line is he's a got who covers a lot of areas of vulnerability and weakness on donald trump's part. basically joni ernst gives you someone starting out, senator from iowa. she has lack of experience like barack obama had himself. >> the rancho cucamonga is meeting in cleveland. they're going to set the process for the nomination. there was a bit of a coup attempt i guess you could say, a group of opponents of trump trying to free the delegates to vote their conscience. that failed. so what is the significance of that? >> actually, nothing. the bottom line was it was expected. the only things that happened was it was weaker than some people actually expected. it was knocked down and is no longer a news issue. put away and done. i expect that there will be people on the fwloor try that. similar to what happened with ron paul in the last election cycle. you'll see that on the floor. it's irrelevant now. >> there was a lot of energy in california at one time to stop trump here when it was still in

play. what happens to all that energy now? >> the question is, it probably goes to either hold your nose and vote for trump, or more likely not vote for anybody at all. i think that's a huge problem for mr. trump is the fact that there's a lot of mainstream republicans who probably can't cast a vote for him, particularly republican women. >> in fact, if you look at who's going to the convention, conventions are high-profile events with lots of national coverage, chance for networking, facetime with important people. yet there's a large number of republicans, people like chad maze, assembly leader for republicans here in california, john mccain, marco rubio, they're not going. why? >> they're not going because they didn't like the way that donald trump ran his campaign. they don't like some of the comments he's had with regards to undocumented immigrants coming forward. people have a whole host of reasons why -- >> do they war at the could hurt their own election or re-election? >> they think it hurts their own election, re-election. they don't want to be associated with not only the trump brand,

but they don't want the party associated with donald trump. that helps trump because the fewer people you have causing every reporter in the world is coalescing in cleveland. so if you actually have people like that that are critical of donald trump or make criticism of him, that makes news. helps trump that they're not showing up. >> yeah. california is the biggest state. biggest delegation. how much clout does california have at this convention, and within the party as we sit here? >> i don't know if you've seen national lampoon's "vacation," but it's like holiday road in sandusky -- >> they're staying 60 miles outside of cleveland in sandusky, ohio. >> i'll let you draw your own conclusion for how important california is going to be -- >> is that a slap in the face? however you describe it? >> no. we get that news story ever year. in tampa, we were far away from the convention site. the delegation's the biggest. it's hard to find hotel space. the truth is component for

money, it doesn't cast a deciding vote. >> kevin mccarthy is one of the speakers. the bakersfield republican. house majority leader. he said earlier this year that he thought with trump at the top of the ticket, the party could pick up seetsz in do-- pick up seats in california in congress. >> i think that's probably right. much like brexit where people actually lied to pollsters and other folks, trump does motivate certain people in certain districts to come out in bigger numbers. he may be right. we may pick up seats. >> quick question, sean. there's talk always of the october surprise, the unexpected event that really shifts the race dynamic. this week we saw this another terrible attack in france. what -- what do these attacks do to the dynamics of the race? >> i think quite candidly, it -- it strengthens mr. trump's hand and makes people have serious concerns about immigration policy, the protection and strength of our border. i've said this before, i've said this the last time i was on the program. if we have a terrorist attack, someone who comes across the border or overstays his visa and

does this, it changes the dynamic of the election fundamentally and hurts the democrats. >> meanwhile, we're gearing up for next week in cleveland. fasten your seat belts. going to be a bumpy ride perhaps. >> indeed. >> thank you very much for coming in. >> thank you. and that does it for us. i'm thuy vu. thank you very much for watching. for all of kqu died's coverage, to kqed.org. ♪

the following production was produced in high definition. ♪ and their buns are something i have yet to find anywhere else. >> 'cause i'm not inviting you to my house for dinner. >> breaded and fried and gooey and lovely. >> in the words of arnold schwarzenegger, i'll be back! >> you've heard of connoisseur. i'm a common-sewer! >> they knew i had to ward off some vampires or something. >> let's talk desserts, gentlemen, 'cause i see you