This week, the Erie County Task Force released its draft Report and Recommendations for public review and input. On page 22, the report discusses the need for a mental health Crisis Response Team. While this is much needed, this effort should be led by the Commissioner of Mental Health--not the Erie County Sheriff's Office. 

Recent events in Western New York--the shooting of Willie Henley, the death of Daniel Prude, the pepper spraying of a 9-year old girl--make it clear that police are not sufficiently trained to respond to mental health incidents. These incidents could have been handled differently if each individual was interacting with a mental health counselor and not a police officer. As the Number 1 item on our 2021 Community Agenda calls for, we can remove police from frontline mental health response. 

Erie County residents can use the public comment period to show that we do not want police handling mental health crisis calls. Unfortunately, the public comment period is only open until Monday, March 1, 2021. Concerned residents should add their voices now. Download the report and add your comments here.

Tell Erie County that 911 calls for a mental health crisis can be handled differently; here's how: 

• A Crisis Response Team should have jurisdiction over all 911 calls for a mental health crisis.
• The Crisis Response Team should be exclusively made up of mental health professionals.
• The Crisis Response Team should be a  division of the Department of Mental Health and that department should be provided the resources and capacity to be the primary first responder to all mental health crisis calls in Erie County.
• The Erie County Sheriff’s Office and other police agencies should only continue to respond to mental health calls until the Crisis Response Team’s creation is complete. Once the mental health team is complete, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office and all other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in Erie County should only respond to mental health calls in a backup capacity, just as they may for other medical service calls.
• The Department of Central Police Services is a vital component to the creation of a Crisis Response Team. They should be provided improved training to assess and handle mental health crisis calls to ensure that 911 calls for a mental health crisis are dispatched to the Crisis Response Team once it is created.

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Given the short window for public comment and the length of the Task Force report, we're including all the recommendations in the report below, for residents to review more easily.

RECOMMENDATIONS INCLUDED IN THE REPORT:

"Identifying Essential Policing Functions and Community Needs (p. 21-23)

• The ECSO does not provide an annual report relating to : o its budget, o expenditures, o operations, o community outreach and resources o accreditations and awards given to its deputies or community organizations and leaders, o statistical reports on its essential functions, and o other information which the ECSO currently does not collect or report. Within the next six months, County officials, including the County Executive, the Comptroller, members of the Legislature and Sheriff’s Office, should meet and agree to provide information for the publishing and posting of an ECSO Annual Report.
• Based on the review of the County’s budget, the ECSO is sufficiently funded and should devote financial and other resources for training, community outreach, and other items recommended in this CR&R. Before the approval of the next County budget, Erie County and the ECSO should explore the availability of federal, state, or private grants to implement changes recommended in this report.
• Within the next six months, the ECSO, Erie County Commissioner of Health and local mental health professionals and organize should devise a plan for training deputies, as well as organize the creation and deployment of a Crisis Services Response Team to assist deputies in responding to police calls relating to the safety, mental, or emotional well-being of an individual. Once a Crisis Services Response Team is in place, county officials should decide the role of the response team and the deputy responding to the call and when such roles might change due to the circumstances evolving at the scene of the call.
• Within the next year, the ECSO, Central Police Services and other law enforcement agencies, including the Office of the District Attorney, should meet to a devise a plan to offer more training for all law enforcement officers including, but not limited to:
  • Deployment to and planning for Community Events, Large Gatherings, and Protests including
    • Risk assessment training
    • De-escalating high risk situations
  • Strengthening Community Relations with
    • Blacks and African Americans
    • Other People of Color
    • Members of the LGBTQ+ community
    • Members of under-represented communities
  •  Crisis intervention training (CIT)
  • Domestic Violence Calls
  • Mental Health Calls

...

Employing Smart and Effective Policy Standards and Strategies (p. 26-27)

• Prior to the preparation and submission of the 2022 budget, county officials should provide deputies with medical coverage including psychological assessment and counseling after experiencing a traumatic on-duty event, or any off-duty event that could impair a deputy from the performance of his/her public duties.
• Within the next six months, the ECSO should in consultation with mental health professionals to develop a form to evaluate a deputy after responding to a mental health call. The form should be used primarily for training and deployment purposes.
• Within the next six months, the ECSO, in consultation with community-based organizations, should review and enhance the provisions within Administrative General Order A-61 by, among other things, demonstrating the value to the ECSO and the community by making it part of the standardized evaluation report for patrol services.
• Before the preparation and submission of the 2022 budget, ECSO, the Erie County Personnel Department, and other appropriate County officials should review and consider adding a job title of Community Liaison charged with the duty and responsibility to develop and oversee a community policing plan working in collaboration with community based and faith-based organizations and with towns and villages.
• Sensitivity training regarding racial, sexual orientation, gender and gender identity should be added to the training list, outlined by Committee I in its recommendations.
• Within the next year, State and county officials, including the Erie County Personnel Department, should develop a racial diversity recruitment plan to encourage diverse applicants to take the civil service examination for the position of deputy, including early recruitment of promising young minority high school students to attend college leading to employment with the ECSO.
• Members of the public offering comments about ECSO strongly encourage the use of body and dashboard cameras. County officials should require the use of body and dashboard cameras by patrol deputies.
• The State Civil Service Commission should re-examine its current testing method for sheriff deputy, ensuring such examinations do not have a disparage impact on minority applicants and are sufficiently job-related.

...

Fostering Community-Oriented Leadership, Culture, and Accountability (p. 30-31)

• The Sheriff should immediately adopt a policy requiring members of the Professional Standards Division to be ranking officers within the ECSO and ensuring the investigating member will not be placed in a precarious position of investigating a member of higher rank.
• Within the next year, County officials and members of the ECSO shall meet and empanel a citizen review board with the responsibility of fielding, reviewing, investigating, and disposing of all citizen complaints made against a deputy.
• Prior to the empaneling of a citizen review board, the County officials should require the ECSO to make available to the public complaints filed against members of its department.
• Before the end of the year, state and county officials should enact legislation requiring any person being appointed by the Sheriff to an exempt, confidential, or policymaking position be vetted and approved by the citizen review board.
• The Sheriff, in consultation with CPS, should immediately update its use of force policy to include more specificity on what constitutes use of force and the circumstances triggering the reporting requirements.
• Upon the election of the new Sheriff, the ECSO should review and update its performance appraisal form.
• The ECSO should adopt a policy setting time limits for internal affairs investigations. The Committee recommends all investigations should be completed within 90 days, which may be extended by a PSD supervisor if the request is received 20 days prior to the original 90-day deadline.
• Within the next year, County officials should require that all standard form to be given to any member of the public must be translated into the language of the recipient.
• Within the next six-months, the ECSO shall retain the professional consulting services to design and implement an EWS.

...

Recruiting and Supporting Excellent Personnel 

1. Recruiting a Diverse Workforce Recommendations (p. 220-221)

• A greater effort should be placed on recruitment of minorities to better represent the community (assuming that it does not in all parts of the community)
• Recruitment should begin in minority communities through community centers, faith-based centers, high schools and local community colleges.
• Use of social media and building a strategic campaign to target specific populations is highly recommended. Targeted populations examples should include African American, and other underrepresented minorities.
• Furthermore, a greater effort should be made to discuss the benefits of having a diverse police force that reflect its community.
• As stated in the resources book, ECSO should consider eliminating tests both physical and written that do not directly reflect the officers actual job duties. This process may otherwise deter certain populations, or limits efforts of recruitment. (pg. 87 NYS Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, Resources & Guide for Public Official and Citizens). The process seems to favor a “friends and family” or connection type process to recruit deputies. This practice will most likely limit an effort on recruiting minorities.
• Circling back to the fact that the ECSO does not reflect that of the community served, it is imperative that the concentration of minority recruitment becomes a top priority. Then we would recommend efforts be explored on how the ECSO can better align trainings and wellness programs to maximize retention of a diverse department.

2. Training and Continuing Education (p. 222-225)

• Expanding upon community partnerships and stake holders. Ideally the use of people who have done this type of training before and can train the officers in deescalation and cultural sensitivity because they have these experiences and have completed such training themselves (such trainers could be peace-keepers, community leaders, community stakeholders, etc.)
• Use of community qualified trainers/subject-matter experts to deliver or assist in the delivery of in-service training in the areas of de-escalation, mental health responses, cultural sensitivity, trauma informed care, immigrant and refugee issues, etc.
• Removal of the state and federal training of the 21-hour requirement and instead make the 21 hours solely focused on relevant police duties o For ECSO to develop a training plan with an objective focused on specific subject areas that are prevalent in the community (i.e mental health, sex trafficking, de-escalation, cultural awareness, trauma informed care, racial disparity, etc.) o That the state and EC legislature allocate sufficient funding as needed to have a well-trained sheriff’s department that is current on issues affecting the community. o Maximizing the use of community resources available from grassroots organization and local academia to assist with training and to ensure that training remains community relevant.
• That the leadership of the ECSO develop a program in which community leaders and those leaders of the ECSO meet face to face on a regular basis to encourage meaningful dialog on issues affecting the community
• Providing community leaders the opportunity and/or mechanisms to provide the ECSO with community updates and areas of concern
• Frequent, relevant, mandatory training to officers on this topic ["avoiding incidents involving unnecessary use of lethal or nonlethal force"]
• There have been many places that use de-escalation training in the workforce, this same type of training could be applied in the police department. Focusing on deescalating the situation will ultimately help in avoiding incidents involving unnecessary use of lethal and nonlethal force.
• Frequent and mandatory training on the identification of different cultures and people within the communities being served, to better understand the experiences of people other than themselves
• All officers should receive the same aforementioned training, regardless of the populations or communities where they are located; just because an officer appears or has the same beliefs as the community being served doesn’t negate the benefit of this racial and sensitivity training 
• Commitment to enforcement of the idea of acceptance and understanding of cultural or racial differences
• [On training for mental health and substance abuse calls--] Although there are similar programs currently in place, they need to be expanded and utilized more often
• Expand on the crisis services model, and ensure all officers are trained on this
• Proper training from experienced health counselors/social workers would be very beneficial
• Creation of a Crisis Intervention Team, in place to help the officers when responding to calls of these sort
• Also having these mental health professionals do ride-alongs or be the only ones to respond to calls that are mental health related could significantly aid with the decrease of these incidents
• Flagging of mental health emergency calls to automatically immediately trigger a crisis services professional instead of waiting for the police officer to request them to come
• A periodic review of training programs is completely necessary. Times change and training programs should as well to incorporate anything that could be not covered as time goes on.
• Routinely survey officers to see if they feel they have enough training.
• Review of other county’s programs to see if there can be overlap training.

3. Support Officer Wellness and Well-being (p. 225-226)

• Mandatory educational programs focused on mental illness and funding for the same
• Creation of internal support groups or the suggestion of external groups that may offer some benefit to officers 
• Publication of statistics that would positively affect attitudes about mental illness and seeking treatment (i.e. chart of 1/5 officers have PTSD, etc.)
• Access to contact information of a mental health or crisis counselor, suicide prevention specialist, especially at night
• Reduce instances of overtime in single shifts o Develop overlap between shifts for officers to devote time to wellness on the job (i.e. gym/yoga/mediation hour)
• Reducing stigmas associated with mental health counseling; efforts or campaigns undertaken to put aside stereotypes through educational programs.
• Avoid the implementation of a timeline on the process of counseling/grieving; more accommodations and encouragement of officers to take the necessary time off to address mental health situations
• Changing the system of PTO, and allowing use of mental health days (in place of personal/sick time)
• Requirement of mental health screening before return of work after traumatizing or unusual incidences
• Routine staggered personal follow-up with officers involved in a traumatic event to ensure issues have not developed (i.e. 2 weeks post-incident, 1 month post-incident, 6 months post-incident, etc.)
• Implementation of officer peer program, whereby officers who have been through similar traumas or situation are available for consult."