Good Sunday Afternoon Facebook Friends I know most of the folks that read these updates live for the weekend and dread Monday morning. Let me tell you, after the weekend we’ve had here at the police department, we are ready for Monday to get here. It’s been a very busy weekend with a number of significant events. Our officers make a difference daily in our community, but this weekend our team has been exceptional. There have been a number events this weekend where the actions of our officers made a drastic difference. Let’s look at Saturday’s events. First shift officers assisted a motorist who had run out of fuel. One of our officers spent a great deal of time with a citizen on the city’s east side who has been having serious side effects from a surgery that took place last year. The surgery has left this person with some mental health issues and police respond to her home several times a week. The citizen’s husband recently had surgery and is physically unable to care for his wife. The officer took time to buy groceries for the couple, and stayed in the home to cook them a meal. The officer made sure they both had plenty to eat before returning to his patrol duties. First shift officers assisted the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office with an arrest on Lee Highway and assisted EMS with an unconscious party. Second shift officers booked a couple of people who turned themselves in for misdemeanor citations. An officer observed a vehicle driving along the edge of some train tracks, and advised him of the danger, and encouraged the young man not to continue the behavior One of our second shift officers was dispatched to WalMart to investigate a suspicious person in the electronics section. The person had been in the store for almost 6 hours and store management was concerned. The person seemed very agitated and aggressive when the officer made contact with him. Because of his disposition WalMart requested he leave the store. He complied with the request but remained in the parking lot for some time. The team patrolled the parking lot numerous times throughout the evening and made visual contact with the person a number of times. A few hours passed and the team decided to check on this person’s wellbeing. He had been sitting in the parking lot for several hours. One officer approached the vehicle and spoke to the party. He was still very agitated and it became apparent fairly quickly that the party was a mental health consumer, and had not taken the medication he needed . The subject was referring to the officer by another name and claiming they knew each other, although the officer had never dealt with this individual before this event. He was also randomly stating things and made comments about eating people. Sheriff’s deputies joined the team and took the party into protective custody. He was transported to Erlanger hospital for treatment. Third shift took a credit card fraud report. They also answered a suspicious activity call on the city’s east side but nothing was located. An officer issued a misdemeanor citation for drug paraphernalia found during a traffic stop. I gave a little extra detail about the mental health call to give insight into the thought processes officers work through. We deal with people on a daily basis from a number of backgrounds in very tough situations. We never know how people will respond to our interactions with them. Our officers are currently working through a mental health class as a portion of our yearly in-service requirement. We also have a number of officers who are trained in crisis intervention. We are actually sending three more officers through Crisis Intervention Team (CIT)training in October. The CIT officers are trained to help assess mental health consumers in crisis, and get them to the help they need. For far too long mental health consumers were not understood by law enforcement, quite frankly the resources to train law enforcement on the subject were just not there. There are now a number of opportunities available for officers to better equip them in dealing with mentally ill citizens. It’s important to remember these folks aren’t purposefully functioning this way. They are ill and should be treated with respect. Please know your Collegedale Police Department takes training officers very seriously. There was a recent editorial article published in a local newspaper that attacked the caliber of officers in our area and their training. I can’t speak for other departments in our area, but I can for this one. Your police officers are VERY well trained and we take our responsibility to serve our citizens very seriously. I hope you have a great week……..Stay Safe..!! Officer D. Myrick
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 23:29:30 +0000
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