(Oct. 3, 2013) Glenn Broadnax told police he wanted to commit suicide as he walked in and out of cars in Times Square last month. Police shot at Broadnax after they say he reached in pocket, but the bullets hit two bystanders instead.
Law enforcement officers in New York City get limited training about how to deal with people in a psychiatric crisis and the incident in Times Square “highlights the fact that when police and the mentally ill come face to face, the situation can quickly become deadly,” reports Julia Dahl for CBSNews (“Times Square Shooting: Experts say police need better training to deal with the mentally ill,” Sept. 16).
Ironically, a group of advocates met the day before to discuss bringing police Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) to New York City. The timing of these recent events in Times Square seems like proof that the City Council needs to listen.
New York has been a leader with assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) with Kendra’s Law, but it lags behind in training its police to work with those with severe mental illness. CIT teams are comprised of officers who have received substantial training in working with people with mental illness in the community. The Treatment Advocacy Center found CIT teams are only available to 5% of the population in New York State. (Read the complete study “Mental Health Diversion Practices: A Survey of States”).
Employing a CIT team in New York City could potentially have prevented last month’s gunshots in Times Square, but getting Broadnax into treatment before a crisis would have been the best solution.
The two bystanders who were shot in Times Square survived, but too often encounters between people with untreated serious mental illness and police have deadly consequences. Read our study “Justifiable Homicides: What is the Role of Mental Illness?,” in which we review incidents where an individual with severe mental illness is killed by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.
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