united states. been built this is policing for the 21st century. -- one comment was that this is policing for the 21st century. we have been honored by a number of organizations. amnesty international thought that this program early protect the individuals with mental illness. what we were struggling with in 1987-'88 was a situation in which people have lost confidence in the police department. what we look that was to see if we could do a better job. ba our program was taken up in washington, d.c.. some captured the issues of some

of the training and things that would have been accomplished. there is publicity and community support that developed throughout the nation. we are redirecting individuals from the judicial system. can we have had the individual safer as well? that was really our focus. the program has not been called the effort that was talked about. there are those who are advocates and those who had mental illness that could be part of providing feedback. i will tell you, i am very impressed with the local resources in san francisco. i have been impressed with your

resources and your dedication and concern. we are looking at the structure. this was developed by the planning group to compromise this area. -- mental health care gets involved. those who provide this back to the planning group, you end up with a feedback loop. we have constantly change this based on feedback from the citizens, police, and the advocates. our officers have given us the feedback to help them develop this over the years and they have played a role in helping us understand what works better turned down -- works better. when you get individuals involved, you can come up with

exciting solutions. we not only involve the community but we are talking about what we have in the police department itself. there needs to be training. we need to have new procedures. from that outgrowth comes an officer who is a volunteer who would become involved in a new role that they have been specially selected for. we're looking at alternative options. we want them to maintain their safety skills and for them to get new skills that will allow them to intervene in a productive fashion. they will lead the intervention. they will not override supervision. this is the person that will have the responsibility for the immediate crisis. we expect them to use their

discretion turn to one of the nice things we found is a dramatic impact on the arrest rates. nationally, if you look at the data, this is about 20%. this really begins to change the nature of the flow of individuals. there is a lot of resources available. programs are not charged, this is a duty that people want to offer. this includes other agencies as well. -- provides for us around the country. many experts will provide the training for free. there are programs all over, we

have them in miami, etc.. we have a -- population like you have here. we have a very large call volume in memphis. these calls which involve individuals were thought to be at high risk and the need for additional help and support and are an additional crisis. we have transportation which has those who are brought for evaluation which runs at about 4500 a year. there is a need to transport people to emergency services less. the number that actually began to be brought in began to drop because of the information that they brought to this service.

we can have less restrictive service which i thought was positive. this is what has happened to officer injuries. the light blue line was 84-87. if you look at what happens, it begins to dramatically decrease. you will find that the injury rate on all calls is that different from the calls on high-risk calls such as those involving a person with drug or alcohol abuse. we can see any dramatic decrease and this is very powerful. let's take a look at some of the other data. this is from a health and human services that we did. we had a group that was not intervening with the officers and not brought to health care. -- and then arrested and brought to jail and identified as having

a mental illness. we controlled for a number of variables to look back a whole host of history, the economic resources, hospitalization. one thing was very powerful is that the individuals who have intervened with the officers and up likely to be in treatment on their on the court than those who are not intervened with our program. there is a positive impact on their willingness to be involved in treatment at a later point. in addition, we took a look at mental status symbols. we found very strong results. we found that individuals that were intervened with were much more likely to have a positive report that their symptoms had improved and they have gotten much better. some of that was independent of

treatment. one of these is very powerful in the lives of individuals. this other data that i have shows the arrest rates. i want to focus on these and it shows a better connection to a community treatment. i want to ask sam to talk to you about something and look at a tape that one of our officers provided us with as to why she thought that cit was important. >> this slide is mrs. chapman, she is one of our members and she presents during the graduation, --

mr. chapman was elected president and i attended for my first time. i was introduced as the coordinator for the cit program. we became familiar with some of the family issues and those related to individuals. i remember very vividly that some of the new members that were attending because a lot of publicity had been extended and they said, how did you know so much about the mint is police department? of course, was only one of many -- mothers that were agitating for change.

i have seen them go into a police station not far from where i live and i don't know what they do inside of the police station. they know what they're doing. they go outside and they get in cars and they have no idea what car to get in. they know which one. there are some things that i do now. she said, i know what is right and i know what is wrong and i know what it is kind and i know what is unkind and that is all i need to now. those words back in 1988. those officers that are very special and very unique, i will

play a short video for you to capture that heart of cit. >> i'm with a crisis intervention team i have had the opportunity to go through a -- process where we had to go through an interview and answer the question, of one to know about the experience. i did not know what to say at the time. i was growing up with my mother

who had a mental illness. it was very hard, it was like walking on eggshells constantly. you did not know what to say at certain times. there was a lot of anger issues, trying to help and not knowing what to do. for whatever reason, which will never know, it has left a

complete whole, this is like something i cannot describe the. i will always miss it. we don't really talk about it in. we have never been in groups about it. we do the best we can. when the opportunity became available to come and see us, i felt that the assumption that i had needed to do. i was able to help people.

back i made it and i got through the class. this was kind of stressful. working out what you would do in that case. that was a little stressful but this was a good experience and this has helped me to understand what exactly was going on with my mother on a personal level. the other cases, or people can take to help them. this is a healing process. >> ladies and gentlemen, this is our presentation we are very thankful for the kindness and hospitality that you have extended to us and we appreciate you examined this and

looking at the crisis. >> i am sure the commissioners will have some questions for you. if you have questions, we can move into them. we will have an overview of the model and we learned in los angeles. >> thank you very much. this evening, the policy analysts will discuss with you observations that she has made in the 10-years that she has studied police interaction with mentally ill in crisis. through the indication, they were able to observe model in memphis, tennessee as well as

the lapd model. -- has been committed to to excising the police department and making recommendations on how to enhance the interactions with mentally ill persons and crisis and i would like to give her the opportunity now to discuss the observations that she has made. >> good evening. i want to touch upon the agency history. i would like to address some of the highlights from the trip to memphis. there are a few aspects of the resolution before you that i would like to highlight.

we play a unique role because not only do we look at misconduct but we're able to make policy recommendations so we have this opportunity to meet with 20 members and hear their concerns as well as looking at this and do best practice research. in this role in the last decade, we have made a number of recommendations concerning the police response. some of them have involved training so that there is an increase escalation skills and tools and resources. the extended range impact weapon, another tool for officers, we have looked at that because mentally ill individuals is the last lethal weapon that is used for them. we're talking about ways that we can have a review this.

most recently, we were invited to provide recommendations and to work with the department. we are looking at the mental health response because of those 15 cases, five of those involved the cases that were mentally ill. we appreciated the opportunity that the department was giving to look at those kind of cases in general. at that time was when we provided a series of recommendations as to improve the mental health response. we have been talking with the individuals in memphis, talking with community individuals, we were able to put together recommendations that highlighted a way that it could be implemented. through the year, we spoke how to implement what we thought were the best components of the model.

the chief agreed to look at the memphis model and we greatly appreciate that. we went to see what the model was about. i want to make a few comments. before that trip, i had read everything possible. every article that had been written. why isn't being used about the country? as i read it materials, cit is not training alone. to be honest, i did not really understand. i understand what that means and i know that we and other departments have an excellent training so what they doing in memphis that is different? when i went there, the moment i

began meeting with the individuals from insists, i began to understand what is different. first of all, i met officers, mental health advocates, mental health providers, all of whom knew each other and knew what worked and you have been committed for many years to solve problems and who were communicating with each other. also i have met individuals who are passionate about the issues. that went from members of the police department to members of 58 hospital to the officers who drove us around. -- members of the v.a. hospital. this was overwhelming. it was what i brought back and what i wanted to meet with and speak with my director at meet with people to be able to convey that level of commitment and compassion and work.

that is one of the key components that i took away was that type of partnership where there is leadership from the resmae segments where i was meeting with leaders from the police department and mental- health and the advocates of himself. there was that leadership, partnership, and commitment. the other aspect that was unique and different was the way in which officers operate. in addition to going through training, they volunteered to be officers which means there's something unique about them that they believed that their best to do this kind of work. there are officers to choose to be a different kind of specialist. the officers i met were -- officers and i wish they were

able to communicate. because they are selected, there was a process to insure that they were the best fit. there is a maturity level, a decision-making process. the other -- was that they wore a badge. this might not seem important. i thought, great, they have a badge. when i saw it, it was the difference between something in isolation and learn some skills and isolation valve. an officer that i went with recognize the badge. first of all, they had plenty of contact with those individuals and to talk to them and knew their history. they had a report in addition, because they wore the badge,

other people knew who they work and to new that they were special. they came with a special kind of skill and they were acknowledged and their department and that was the other piece. i was impressed with the level of respect that other officers had. the skill set that was respected. they were rewarded and commended for being able to use their desolation skills and able to strategizing and plan an incident that resulted not in a shooting but in the lack of a shooting. those were some of the main take a ways from that meant his trip and it was expiring. los angeles was inspiring. this is for different reasons. the commitment of the officers

that we meant, their specialized expertise was absolutely first- rate. the take away was to see how departments are training individuals to specialize. police departments are dedicating vast resources or the have employees who are resolving instances with the mentally ill. the programs they have was that they are a resource-rich department. the amount of funding and what is astounding so they have the units which have been discussed with turn not first responder units. these are units that after the patrol has gone out and secured the scene, if there is the

availability of the smart units, there is a limited number, then the model goes out and those are officers who are skilled in handling mentally ill calls as well as clinicians. they also have some other programs that enable them to redress the and address individuals who are frequently using services so they have an investigative team and a particular approach. this is a well-funded program. we thought that we should look at this more when we saw more funding. in terms of the components, i it is want to highlight one or two of those aspects. part of this does have a working good relationship with 911.

the ability to make sure that the officers are the first responders. this will take us to creative and address and build a small partnership. another aspect is the patrol division being cit drained. when there is a call, we should have those who are first responders. another has to do with those who are the lead officers. this is building upon the model

and the department knows well and we have supported it quite strongly. with that, i am happy to answer any questions. thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this discussion. >> if the commissioners don't have any questions, move on. >> our next speaker, thank you to the mental health providers. this is the president of the national alliance of mental and on the. course commissioners, -- >> commissioners, i appreciate

the opportunity to be here. we are friends of the family members of the mentally ill. typically, i am just reminding you that it is one of the drivers which helped to bring the program up and running in memphis. we are really hoping that you attack because of the good attributes you are starting to hear about. i will shorten my presentation on the agenda. obviously, there is increased efficiency and effectiveness. police are familiar with the delivery system and working with

partners. they're very comfortable. the day don't have to spend five hours waiting around in the er, etc.. this can let them miss -- respond appropriately and get back to their regular responsibilities. they are doing this because they're forced to go through training and might not have the interest to do so. there's also increased consumer safety and satisfaction. for consumers, the advantage is that you are more likely to get a prompt assessment right into treatment, not necessarily going directly to drill. the statistics to are those undiagnosed and sitting in jail