Story reference: Police Mental Health Workers
Producer: Lonny Shavelson
Time: 5:00
Contact: lonny@photowords.com  510 849 9382
Streaming Audio: http://www.photowords.com/sound/cops.m3u 
Transcript on the web: http://www.photowords.com/radio/cops.htm

Host’s Intro: California opened the doors of its psychiatric hospitals in the 70s, so that mentally ill patients could be cared for in their communities.  But neighborhood mental health clinics never received the money to serve tens of thousands of new patients.  The San Francisco Department of Health has come up with an innovative program to get more skilled people to work with the mentally ill.  The new mental health workers – are the police.  Lonny Shavelson has this report.   

SFX1:
Sounds of people milling about a room, ducks under TRAX1 

TRAX1:
At a police training session in San Francisco, twenty-six officers standing in a circle pull on latex gloves, and pass around a human brain. 

 SFX1 (continues to officers crying out “oooooh,” and then fades into AX1) 

AX1: (Dr. Emily Keram)
All this stuff on the outside is your cortex, this is what makes humans human (ducks under TRAX2)    

TRAX2:
It’s the first of four intensive days of police training about schizophrenia, bipolar disease, depression.  Dr. Emily Keram explains that mental illness is a disease of the brain, not a character flaw. 

AX2: Dr. Emily Keram
You may see sort of low level violence in people who are in a manic episode, (fades under TRAX3) you know when people are… 

TRAX3:
The trainings are an alliance between police and the city’s mental health board.  The goal -- to teach street cops how to keep encounters with the mentally ill from becoming violent.  Officer Ray Mahvi is one of SFPD’s newly trained cops.  He’s driving his squad car through the down and out Tenderloin district. 

SFX2: (Officer Ray Mahvi and street scene. Starts ducked under TRAX3, then comes up to full volume at the sound of the car radio, then Mahvi):
“800 is just our police code for a generic mentally disturbed person.  So somebody called and said there’s a black female adult, purple and red sweatshirt, she’s in the middle of the street holding a bottle and standing in the way of traffic.  Ooop, there she is.” (car door closes)
Inez: That bitch hit me to hurt me.
Mahvi: Hey, chill out. (scene ducks under TRAX5) 

(TRAX4, was cut, go to TRAX5)

TRAX5:  As of today, 25% of the police force has been trained to work with people suffering from depression to schizophrenia. They’ve learned techniques more common to therapists than cops. They learn to hear feelings, to talk in a calming tone of voice with agitated or hallucinatory citizens, to use empathy before aggression.  But can this work?  Imagine a street cop calmly asking a drugged out, screaming mentally ill guy on the streets, “What can I do for you right now?”   (SFX2 comes back up) 

SFX2 (continued):
Inez: I was cracked out when my daughter was 1 lb 7oz 5 months 3 weeks. 
Mahvi: Why are you so unstable right now? I was just talking to you last week…
Inez: If you want to know ask me.
Mahvi: But you’re in the middle of the sidewalk screaming and yelling and spitting.
Inez: Hey, hey, I didn’t get physical, I didn’t kill him, I didn’t…
Mahvi: So what can I do for you right now?
Inez: Nothing.  Leave me alone.
Mahvi: Come here and stand still for a second and talk to me. Can you take a deep breath?
Inez: (sobs quickly)
Mahvi, aside to mic: “Sometimes she just gets so stressed out with being on the streets, and…Why are you grabbing his microphone?”
Inez: (screaming, then SFX2 ducks under TRAX6) 

TRAX6: While many cops might see this screaming, incoherent woman about to head into traffic as just a police issue, officer Mahvi sees a social and psychiatric challenge.

SFX2 (continued):
Mahvi: Now I’m at a crux here.  Now we’ve got to determine if she’s mentally unstable, or if she’s going to be in need of detox.  She does drugs in order to get out of her funk and depression, and it just makes everything that much worse.  I cannot in good conscience leave her out on the street in that condition.  There’s no way.
Inez:  Are you going to arrest me?
Mahvi: Yes.  Now don’t freak out on me.
Inez: Hold on!  (sound of handcuffs closing)
Mahvi: Inez, have I always been cool with you?
Inez: No you haven’t been cool.  What is the problem?  (Ducks under TRAX7, then fades to zero at “Barbara Garcia…”) 

TRAX7: 
In San Francisco, two thousand severely mentally ill people live on the streets – and it’s the police who are at the front lines of their mental health care.  Three of every four patients brought to California’s state mental hospitals get there through the criminal justice system.  The reason, says Barbara Garcia, Deputy Director of San Francisco’s Health Department, is limited resources.

AX3: Barbara Garcia
Do we have enough money to put psychiatrists on the streets?  No.  Do we have enough money to put them in the clinics?  Barely.  So the changing of the tide of how we’re serving this population has made it into a criminal justice issue.  

TRAX8:
That’s why Lieutenant Dave Lazar, who heads the SFPD’s homeless outreach team, wants all of his officers to go through the mental health training.

AX4: Lt. David Lazar:
Police officers acting in a social worker role really works a lot better than the traditional law enforcement model. A  person hearing voices, you have to really focus in on talking to that person so you get their attention. These are great tools for police officers.  

TRAX9:
But some cops on the street are concerned.  Police officers can calm a person in crisis.  But then what?  Officer Mahvi says that a homeless, mentally ill drug user will not get better without long term housing, medications and substance abuse counseling.  But the wait for housing is at least four to six months, drug rehab programs even longer.  Officer Mahvi is frustrated by the lack of resources for the mentally ill whose only home is on the street. (car sounds of SFX4 come up during last sentence of TRAX9.) 

SFX4: Officer Mahvi:
If the services aren’t available for these people, there’s nothing I can do. And the worse thing I can do, actually, is to make these people false promises. We just simply don’t have the resources. (car background ducks under TRAX10) 

TRAX10:  San Francisco’s mental health board is headed by Helynna Brooke.  She says that until the mentally ill get a roof over their heads, the police training program will have only limited success. 

AX6: Helynna Brooke:
Police officers would be more effective in dealing with people with mental illness, if the community resources are available to back them up.