For families with mentally ill members, particularly if the disease causes psychotic episodes, it's not uncommon to have interactions with the police.

Which is why many families will be relieved to learn that there's more of an emphasis being placed on training cops on how to deal with situations where they're called in when there's a mentally ill person involved.

NPR's Joanne Silberner reported on Morning Edition today about such efforts meant to avoid unnecessary escalation during these encounters, especially the type of incident known as "suicide by cop."

An excerpt from her radio report:

Darek Ardoin is a deputy with the Calcasieu parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana. He trains police officers to deal with people with mental illnesses, and he goes out on patrol himself. Last year he found himself in a situation.

ARDOIN: A LADY HAD CALLED .. SOMEONE WAS IN HER ATTIC AND TRYING TO GET TO HER.

Her husband wouldn't go into her bedroom, a clue to Ardoin that it wasn't safe for him either. He asked about weapons. The husband said she always carried a knife.

ARDOIN: AND I ASKED OF COURSE WOULD SHE HAVE IT WITH HER NOW AND HE SAID SHE ALWAYS HAS IT WITH HER.

Ardoin had his crisis intervention training to rely on. The idea is to give police an alternative to forcefully subduing someone, and to protect themselves too — studies show trained officers are injured much less often on mental disturbance calls.

Several hundred police departments across the country now offer the training, which was inspired by a Memphis Police Department program started in the late 1980s. Russell Laine, head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, says intervention training is seen as having real value.

LAINE: IF A PERSON IS BENT ON COMMITTING SUICIDE AND HAVING THE OFFICER SHOOT HIM SOMETIMES THERE ISN'T ANYTHING THE OFFICER CAN DO. BUT IF THE OFFICER HAS SOME DEGREE OF TRAINING HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO TAKE SOME ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS AND NOT HAVE TO SHOOT SOMEONE.

 

There are no national figures available on "suicide by cop." When it happens, it's hard on officers ... Ardoin has trained cops who had been involved in an incident .. they signed up for training as help for their own post traumatic stress disorder.

When Ardoin was dealing with the woman with the knife ... he used lesson number one from his training. Take your time. The woman was watching an episode of CSI on the TV in her bedroom. She was talking to the TV as if she was the victim in the show. He stopped at the door. He could see her knife.

ARDOIN: IT WAS LAYING NEXT TO HER ON THE BED. SHE DID NOT WANT HER HUSBAND TO TAKE HER TO THE HOSPTIAL, IT WAS DIFFICULT CONVINCING HER .. I WASN'T THERE TO TAKE HER TO JAIL.

For 20 minutes he quietly reassured her. And finally she agreed to go to the hospital.

This kind of police work is usually unsung, but it is crucially important, especially to families. I know this first hand.

My late sister Susan had schizophrenia. One day I was visiting my parents' Bronx row house in the early 1990s when the doorbell rang. It was my sister. Then in her 20s she was no longer living at home.

She was barefoot, unkempt and clearly agitated, accusing family members of all kinds of fictional wrongdoing. She had stopped taking her medication and the voices in her head had her in their full sway.

Fearing that she might hurt someone or herself, we called the police who drove up within minutes.

The officers calmly talked to her but she became abusive to them. They managed to talk her away from the front door and she continued her withering verbal attacks from the sidewalk. As best as I can recall the conversation, one cop told said something like: "We could net her" (they apparently had a net in their cruiser to subdue people at such times).

"But it's not pretty; it wouldn't be easy to watch, especially for your mother. Your sister might get hurt. It'd be better if we just keep talking to her and get her to leave that way."

I agreed and that's what they did. And she left. Fortunately, we never had another episode like that with her. But I will never forget and always be grateful for the compassion and patience of those police officers.