There is so much deserved attention right now on the role of the police in crisis management. The attention is stirring up important conversations around questions like “what is the best management for different types of crises?” and “how do we respond with compassion instead of force when the crisis involves someone’s mental health?”.
Many would be surprised to know that I have first hand experience with the police during a crisis. In Toronto, in 2003 I had a psychotic event. My husband, Michael called 911. The police showed up quickly, but they didn’t believe I had a serious mental health condition. They accused me of using drugs. I didn’t want to go anywhere with them, and was waiting for the ambulance to arrive—but it didn’t seem to be coming.
Michael tried to explain that this was a medical matter and that I needed to be taken care of by paramedics, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The police showed no compassion to either of us. They did not try to reason with me but instead barged forward on the faulty assumption that I was strung out on drugs. As I resisted going with them, one police officer stood between Michael and me while the other dragged me kicking and screaming up the stairs to the main floor of the condo. The police officer told Michael in a very unsympathetic tone that he needed to stay back and out of the way because this was now a police matter. When the police officer dragged me to the top of the stairs, my screams turned primal, as he had me on the ground with his knee digging into my back, twisting my arm painfully behind it. At that point, the police officer accused me of assaulting him, forcefully handcuffed me and shoved me into the back of the police car. They whisked me away without advising Michael where they were taking me.
I was taken to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre to be admitted. But when we arrived, I refused admittance. The intake person said there was nothing she could do for me if I didn’t want to be admitted. The police put me back into the car and tried another hospital, but I refused admittance again. Judging that this would be a pattern, but not wanting to take me home either, they drove me to the downtown Toronto police station instead and put me behind bars in a holding cell. Meanwhile, Michael was frantically trying to find out where they had taken me. By the time he arrived at Sunnybrook, we had left. When Michael arrived and found out that I had refused admittance, he took off on a wild goose chase to find me. It took persistence, patience and detective work to find out where I was.
The night I spent in the holding cell was an unreal experience. I couldn’t understand why the police officer had cut the elastic out of my pants or whose clothes I was wearing (Michael had found me in the fetal position, naked in the corner of my room rocking myself – so he had dressed me but I was unaware of that and confused with the clothes I had on). I was not given any medication or sedatives. I was left with my own delusional, psychotic mind to try to make sense of where I was and what was happening to me. I was frightened and lost, felt powerless, and was not being listened to. I was unwell and in need of love, care and compassion that I wasn’t getting in the police environment.
Going manic is an experience that is profoundly difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced it. To date, I have not seen it depicted properly in any Hollywood movie. What I can attest to is even in the midst of psychosis, the “normal” person is still there behind the delusions; there are moments of clarity and normalcy as you oscillate in and out of madness.
Although I didn’t fully understand what was happening to me, I knew I didn’t belong in a jail cell. In the morning, I had to appear before a judge. Michael worked with the Crown attorney to convince the judge that I needed medical attention. This was the day of his convocation and graduation. His family had flown in to be part of it. And Michael missed it. He missed all of it. His father understood that he was doing what a medical professional should—he was caring for me.
After I was finally allowed to leave the police station, I was taken by the police to Toronto General Hospital, and this time, I agreed to be admitted. But it still wasn’t going to be smooth sailing. The handcuffs were replaced with a straitjacket. I was left strapped to the bed in the middle of the emergency admitting area, as there were no beds available in the emergency room or the psychiatric ward. I was not treated with dignity, like a human being should be—more like a wild animal. When the MD came near me to inject me with haloperidol (an antipsychotic), I flew into uncontrollable convulsions, which made it extremely difficult for him to inject me despite the fact that I was tied down.
On top of that, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS ) epidemic was raging at the time, so I was treated by MDs who seemed to be wearing space suits, which was disorienting in my state. Also, due to SARS , Michael was not allowed to visit me because he had already set foot in the lobby of Sunnybrook, and the health system in Toronto was working in overdrive at the time to try to prevent the spread of SARS between hospitals. If he had stayed outside at Sunnybrook, he would have been able to visit me at Toronto General, but because he had set one foot past the emergency room doors, he was deemed at risk for SARS and was denied access to the next hospital he visited.
Upon being discharged from the hospital, I had to appear in court to avoid a criminal record because the police officer had brought an assault charge against me. I don’t recall assaulting anyone, but I do recall being treated with unnecessary physical force by the police officer. To this day, an area of my neck and back remains traumatized from being forced into the police car against my will. Thankfully, when I appeared before the judge, he was very empathetic and compassionate, and threw the charge out. Upon recounting this episode, I now regret that I did not file a formal complaint with the Toronto Police Service for the way I had been treated.
Recalling this incident makes me think of the young woman in BC who was recently dragged through a hallway and had her head stepped on by an RCMP officer during a “wellness check” (warning: intense video in link), and countless others like her. I think about the recent deaths of Ejaz Choudry, Chantel Moore, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, and D’Andre Campbell, during police intervention during a mental health crisis. I think of all the police interventions that don’t make the news but instead leave a person who is genuinely having a mental health episode feeling like they’ve committed a crime, like they are bad, and therefore carry needless shame, something even more damaging to their hurting souls.
Although this is perhaps a topic for another book, my treatment during manic episodes has led me to believe that police officers in most cities need much more training than they seem to be getting in how to respond properly to people who are mentally ill. I have nothing but praise for the other first responders who have had to deal with me over the years (firefighters, paramedics), but the police have been the opposite of compassionate, understanding and patient. This needs to change. Even the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), also called for police to be removed from leading “this important work” of mental health crisis intervention.
Thankfully, there are some new joint mobile program initiatives in place in many major Canadian cities that require a mental health worker to respond to certain crisis calls with the police, and these have lead to significant reduction in arrests for people in mental health crisis. But this is just the beginning. It is important to emphasize that these initiatives need to be integrated into a broader strategic approach for all police agencies and, more broadly, the way we see and understand mental health crises as a society.
More is needed. Now. Today. By sharing this with you I hope to shed light on the fact that change is still needed. The above incident happened to me in 2003. Let’s hope by 2023, we can have made positive and necessary advances in caring for those experiencing a mental health crisis.
Images from Weston MacKinnon, Juan Rojas, Dominik Jirovsky on Unsplash, and from CBC.ca
4 Comments. Leave new
I’m sorry you went through this. I can only imagine what it feels like to be this scared and betrayed by an authority figure.
I want you to know that your portrayal of all police being this way is not accurate. We are not all the same. I agree that there are some situations that do not overly seem to be a situation that police should handle alone without a mental health professional or without prior training. 100%. I believe as of society we have failed as a whole, starting from recognizing a mental health issue, to treating it. It blows my mind that as a police officer (a regular patrol officer), I am required to ‘apprehend’ under the mental health act and bring a person to a doctor at the hospital. I am not one to put handcuffs on, words go much further. However there are times when it is called for, being spit on, weapons involved etc. Why police are required is for the safety aspect, I get that. But why just us? On the drive, I try and talk…help…do anything I can but most of the time it goes to a deaf ear. I am human and I am caring. Again, not all police are the same way as you portrayed. Just last week I was left devastated…I responded to a call where a young lady’s mother called police because her daughter was expressing thoughts of suicide. I arrived to find paramedics already talking to her. Before I could talk to her, I was pulled aside by one of the paramedics who informed me that it was more of a social issue: the young lady didn’t want to live with her parents anymore because her dad verbally abused her. The paramedic suggested to me that she wasn’t suicidal and just needed help finding somewhere else to live. I want to speak to her regardless. I pull her aside and she opens up, says she wants to get out of this world…escape by killing her self. I inform her that I would like to take her to the hospital. I do not lay a hand on her. She is hesitant but I convince her by talking (even though in the back of my mind I know the hospital won’t help the way she needs it). I drive her to the hospital, no hand cuffs, no force. She does not say a word to me. She doesn’t answer any of my informal questions, my way of trying to make her feel more comfortable. We get to the hospital and I explain the situation to the nurse and she gets booked in under a form 10. I do my report and that’s the end of my day. Fast forward to the next day, I come into work and I’m notified that she was released 3 hours after I brought her to the hospital. And after she got home, she took her own life. I cried. I left the office and cried. I had the chance to help her and I did everything I was trained to do but I failed her. But who failed her too? The paramedics chalking this up to be a housing issue. The health care system for brushing her off as not serious enough.
I know you had a horrible experience with police. But please recognize that we are not all like that. It pains me and I am incredibly angry at the bad apples in my job. They exist in all jobs. I get it that we are held more accountable. And we should be.
Thank you for your comment. I am recounting my experience and am not saying that all police behave this way and the article acknowledges that change is happening and needs to continue to happen. Thank you for what you do. You play an important role in the lives of many.
How should people dealing with people in crisis reach out for help? Do they have to say we need EMS, not police? My question is, what does a mental health issue or crisis look like? How should the public be educated to deal with this and/or how to ask for help? How serious does it have to be to call 911?
All excellent questions. In cities there are usually mental health crisis numbers, including crisis lines that are for people in distress or someone wanting to help a person in distress. In Edmonton the number is 780-482-4357 (HELP), but people can google for numbers local to them. Anyone can call a distress line and get help or advice on how to handle a situation if it’s not at an emergency level. *A good tip is that at many universities there are mental health help lines that are anonymous so if you have a university in town, find out if they have a help line and put the number in your phone. In order to call 911 there is risk or fear of risk of danger to the person or danger to someone else. This includes self-harm risk and property damage. When calling 911, you can request mental health help specifically but the police will still likely show up, hopefully with a mental health expert.
In terms of education for the public, the biggest hurdle that needs to be addressed first is stigma. When someone sees a person acting “strange” there is often a distancing, an alienation. We need to learn that people with mental health issues are far less likely to commit a crime than they are to be the victims of crime in fact. They need our help, and there are varying levels of help available, before it escalates. Call a help or distress line, get some advice, take mental health peers support training or mental health first aid and get familiar with the fact that most people with mental health issues are harmless, and in need of love, not the law.