Roanoke Crisis Intervention Team

Overview

Jurisdiction Level

County

Description

The CIT Program begins with the 911 Call Center, which tries to flag any calls that involve people with mental illness. Dispatch makes an effort to assign these calls to CIT-trained officers. As of 2001, there were eight CIT-trained officers with at least one CIT officer on duty for each shift at the department. However, limited staffing makes it impossible to ensure that a CIT officer handles every call involving a person with a mental illness. In response to the lack of available resources, officers must fill out a special form for every call in which it is suspected that a person may have a mental illness that is a factor in the incident. This form includes all pertinent questions to help officers without CIT training to ask the appropriate questions. These forms are later reviewed by the sergeant to determine whether the officer reacted appropriately and to flag whether the person is acting in a way consistent with mental illness and is receiving necessary services.

Once an officer has determined that a person has a mental illness and may be a danger to him-or herself, or others, the officer must fill out paperwork for an emergency custody order (ECO). When the ECO is granted, the officer brings the individual to a designated facility for evaluation. Roanoke’s designated facility is Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare. If, upon assessment, the facility agrees that the person is in imminent danger, they must go to the magistrate and get a temporary detaining order to have the person hospitalized for 72 hours. The department has an excellent relationship with Blue Ridge Healthcare (the designated facility) and the Louis Gale Clinic. The clinic has donated staff time to help develop the training and provide instruction for the CIT program.

At the time of this writing, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services is reviewing this training for possible use as statewide in-service training. Additionally, the department will be working toward statewide adoption of their training.