On October 23, 2019, Karima McCrea-Wilson called the Cleveland Police Department following an alleged assault by her cousin.

In police bodycam footage of the encounter, McCree-Wilson, who also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from an unrelated incident, is clearly distressed while interacting with the officers.

“Don’t do that to me. Don’t do that to me. I’m trying to tell you you need help and you’re arguing with me.” That’s what it means to say.”

Officers defined assault as a misdemeanor, not the domestic violence that would have led to her cousin’s arrest.Mccree-Wilson declined to press charges.

Afterwards, the officers began to think about where she could go, which seemed to upset McCree Wilson even more.

“Can I talk? Can I talk? Can I talk?” McCree-Wilson said to one of the officers at the scene, who was not identified in the video.

“Yes, I ask you, he is the chief mate,” replied the officer.

Eventually, officers left McCree Wilson and found a safe place where she could be alone.

McCrea later filed a complaint with the Office of Professional Standards, a city agency that investigates citizen complaints against police officers.

A civilian police review board recommended disciplinary action against Constable Victor Claudio for failing to arrest McCree-Wilson’s cousin. That recommendation was overturned by Police Chief Wayne Drummond and Public Safety Commissioner Carrie Howard on the grounds that his relationship with his cousin did not constitute domestic violence.

The CPRB has notified the city that it will appeal Howard’s decision to the Community Police Commission once a new commission has been established and assumed its authority under Section 115 of the Charter.

voices calling for change

For 20 years, Cleveland has been training patrolmen in dealing with people like McCree-Wilson who are experiencing mental health crises. This training is based on a model developed 35 years ago in Memphis, Tennessee.

Elaine Schleiffer co-founded a group called REACH. The group advocates for changes in how police respond to the mental health crisis in Cuyahoga County.

“In 2020, my then-spouse had a truly terrifying episode of PTSD that lasted for months and went psychotic,” Schleifer said, adding that she had been her ex-spouse’s primary caregiver during this time. “There was a period of three months when we were in the hospital or the police were at my house.”

All Cleveland Police Department officers undergo annual training. Some years are on suicide prevention, answering calls about homeless people, or other training that falls into the crisis intervention category.

Some officers volunteer for more extensive training and become professional crisis intervention officers. However, the ministry is far from finding enough officers to fill the role.

Schleifer also said that at times he had to ask the police to evict the house because their presence made the situation worse. Also, the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model has not reached all executives within the department.

“We tried a lot. One of the first things that happened was that instead of calling 911, I tried to call my district desk directly and asked for a CIT officer,” says Schleiffer. “Then the sergeant said, ‘What is that?'”

Schleiffer said he tried Frontline Services’ mobile crisis service, but didn’t get their response overnight. So she began working with other supporters in Cleveland on alternatives.

Earlier this month, the Mental Health and Addiction Advocacy Coalition, Ohio Policy Matters, and the Center for Community Solutions released a policy brief explaining how Cleveland can completely eliminate police officers from calling people at risk. Released.

“Our neighbors, those who live in cities and counties, need support and compassion, but they don’t necessarily need the anxiety and danger that often accompany armed police responses,” said Ohio, the paper’s author. I am one of the authors.

The policy brief recommends that specially trained 9-1-1 dispatchers give certain callers options for non-police responses. The switch to what’s known as health clinician-only care responses has also worked in other cities, it argues.

Karima McCrea Wilson poses for a photo in a community garden near her home on Cleveland’s West Side. [Ryan Loew /  Ideastream Public Media]

“Think of a young 20-year-old recruit who doesn’t think about the mental health aspects of their job when they go to work,” says Van Lier. “It’s really not fair to them, and this approach would take some of that work off their plate.”

In Eugene, Oregon, where a mental health worker-led program began in 1989, more than 16,000 service calls were diverted to non-police responses last year. Of those, only 300 ultimately required police backup.

another kind of help need

Karima McCree-Wilson said police had to respond to a call about her assault three years ago. But ultimately she needed another kind of help.

McCree-Wilson, who has experience in mental health and chemical addiction counseling, said she was not adequately trained to handle situations facing police.

“Our officers just need a high school diploma. We don’t take anything away from them. Some have good training and have been doing this for a while, but they I’m not a mental health professional,” McCree-Wilson said.

Cleveland Police maintain that the current CIT model is valid. A spokesperson for the city of Cleveland said it was considering adopting non-police response measures. No plans yet.

Carole Ballard is in charge of training for the Cuyahoga County ADAMHS Board, which oversees crisis intervention training for the Cleveland Division of Police.

According to Ballard, police have improved their ability to keep records on crisis interventions since federal consent orders began in 2015 and the Cleveland Police Department’s federal observers were installed. There are fewer encounters that lead to the use of force or detention. Cops are learning to spend more time on these types of calls.

“The word I use is cultural change, and you see that in many of the communities that we’re putting officers through CIT training,” says Ballard.

Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration also launched a co-responder pilot program in each of the five police districts. In this program, social workers go out with police officers on specific phones.

There may also be new sources of funding for non-police models. The city has yet to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in coronavirus relief funds. Cuyahoga County and Cleveland will also receive funding from a nationwide opioid lawsuit against drug companies that could move to mobile crisis services.

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