LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – We get 10 calls a day. This is the number of mental health calls the Lincoln Police Department responded to in one day in 2022.
“This affects almost every call for service that we do,” said Trooper Doug Headley.
Although the introduction of 988 has given people a new option to call during a mental health crisis, such calls still come into dispatch lines every day.
Jessica Roos, 911 communications manager, said mental health training begins as soon as a dispatcher picks up the phone.
“We respond to these calls to coordinate responses for suicidal depression, panic attacks, trauma, missing loved ones, etc.,” Ruth said.
Roos said dispatchers gather information, assess needs and build relationships with callers before handing the case over to officers on the street.
“Our job is to respond to individuals who are out in the community, try to de-escalate and problem-solve, and connect them with whatever resources are most appropriate for them at that particular moment. ,” said investigator Tim Dolberg.
The Lincoln Police Department officials we spoke to said they have a tremendous amount of resources to work with. Whether it's Center Point experts or people with experience in mental health associations. But finding places to go can be a problem for hard-to-reach people.
“Part of the challenge that police officers experience on a daily basis is capacity within the system,” said Headley, the department's current mental health response officer. “Obviously, there are limits to the resources we have and in some cases there will be capacity issues.
Captain Ben Kopsa said officers are dealing with the same battle with a shortage of hospital beds that affects the entire region.
“Improving the capacity of both our crisis centers and subsequent regional centers will help reduce the amount of time our officers spend with people,” Kopsa said.
Meanwhile, the department has worked in recent years to expand internal resources and partnerships to improve its mental health efforts.
This includes adding mental health officers who work specifically with community members who have mental health needs and are often the clients for dispatch.
“You know, you might have someone that you run into multiple times a month, and by the next call they might be ready to make some changes,” Dolberg said. Ta. “They are ready to go their separate ways and officers arrive on scene.”
Dolberg was the department's first mental health officer. That individual attention to these people made a big difference, he said.
“We're seeing that some of the people who at one point may have called dispatch once a day or several times a day are now connected to a community provider so they can thrive and continue. I was able to see him become a great success and live a happy and successful life,'' Dolberg said.
The department also appointed Melissa Ripley as homeless assistance officer.
“It's important for us to have a friendly face who can be willing to participate not only on the enforcement side of things, but also on the advocacy side of things,” Ripley said.
She spends much of her time roaming the areas where unsheltered people spend their time, building relationships, asking for help, and providing supplies like hand warmers and socks in the winter.
In another attempt to reduce criminal justice involvement with homeless people, the department partnered with CenterPoint's street outreach team to specifically respond to calls related to concerns about homeless, non-criminal people.
This frees up police officers, but that's not the only benefit, Kopsa said.
“It's going to reduce the amount of contact people have with law enforcement, and it's going to reduce criminal justice involvement.”
Ripley said that's the key.
“If we continue to put people in prison and it's just a revolving door of the criminal justice system, that doesn't really address the whole picture,” Ripley said. “We're never going to arrest people to get them out of homelessness.”
Lincoln Police also said they want to create a joint response program in which mental health professionals respond to scenes alongside police officers. There's no timeline yet for when that will happen.
In the process of gathering interviews for the 10/11 mental health documentary Suffering in Silence, concerns were raised about the Lincoln Police Department's response to mental health calls. Two parents in Lincoln argued that the department does not take people into emergency protective custody even when it is deemed necessary.Watch that story on Tuesday, February 6, 10/11 at 10 p.m.
Watch the full documentary “Suffering in Silence” here.
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