MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS: Law enforcement across Virginia strained

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — Law enforcement officers across Virginia are in the middle of a mental health crisis.

More and more, police are called to deal with someone with a mental disorder. They can be suicidal or a threat to a friend or family member.

In many cases, they are seniors who live alone but are no longer able to care for themselves, and therefore could be a danger to themselves.

“That’s not a law enforcement issue,” said Virginia Sheriff’s Association Executive Director John Jones. “They shouldn’t be placed into the back of a police car, to begin with. It’s demeaning.”

The number of issued TDOs, or Temporary Detention Orders — documents obtained by law enforcement by magistrates to have someone detained and placed into a mental facility for 72 hours — is up across the state.

Prince William County police last year took 555 people that had been issued a TDO to a mental institution. An officer places the person with a mental health condition in handcuffs into the back seat of the car and, in some cases, can drive hundreds of miles roundtrip to Central State Hospital near Petersburg. It, along with Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Merrifield, make up nine mental hospitals in the state.

The hours that Prince William police spent with people with a mental health condition increased last year by 31.5% to 15,672 hours. In most cases, a police officer, when to called to work with a mental patient, can spend the entire shift watching them.

“Transporting these patients puts a real resource crunch on us,” said Prince William County Police Chief Barry Barnard.

The General Assembly passed legislation this year to help relieve the burden on police that must transport mental health patients. It approved $7 million for a private security firm to take over the duties of transporting patients to hospitals.

It’ll be a big help to smaller sheriff’s departments in rural areas of the state. In population-rich Northern Virginia, however, where departments have more resources, officials here don’t expect to see much relief from the new program.

Officers can spend their entire shifts with one patient with a mental disorder. Sometimes, that officer has to be relieved by an incoming officer working the next shift.

“We’ve had to call in people on their days off. We have to pay overtime. There are 911 calls that are going unanswered in some cases,” said Jones.

Turned away

Before magistrate issues a TDO, law enforcement must first find an available bed at a mental hospital for the patient. On Memorial Day, however, there were none to be had anywhere in the state.

“It didn’t go very well,” said Jones. “Sheriff’s deputies were bringing patients into hospitals and were being turned away.”

That prompted the Sheriff’s Association to issue a statewide message to law enforcement officers that every bed in all nine of the state’s mental hospitals were full.

Jones says mental hospitals must take patients no matter what, following legislation passed by the Virginia General Assembly. In 2013, Bath County State Senator Creigh Deeds’ son, Austin Creigh Deeds, stabbed his father and then killed himself after being turned away from a mental hospital.

“Streeting” patients, as Jones put it, is against the law. Fortunately, he adds, his association didn’t issue a similar alert over the Independence Day holiday because, this time, there were enough open beds.

Medical evaluations

It’s not just the time transportation the individual to a hospital that eats up police officers’ time. Whether a TDO or an ECO (Emergency Custody Order, like a TDO, but expires eight hours after it is served) is issued, officers must first take patients to have them medically evaluated.

It can be a long wait in a hospital’s emergency department before a doctor can evaluate the patient. After a doctor certifies the patient, only then is a law enforcement officer then able to take the patient to a mental hospital.

In Prince William, police hope lawmakers will also allow trained EMTs to make mental health determinations on the spot. That, they said, would speed up the process.

“We need more beds”

If you ask Jones what he thinks is the answer to all this, he’s got a quick response.

“We need more beds. That’s the answer. Or, get private hospitals to take them,” he said.

Jones says he’ll meet with Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services Commissioner S. Hughes Melton on August to discuss that need.