[ad_1]
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – It’s a story you see first on 16 News Now.
A mental health professional says the community needs to work together when responding to situations like the South Bend police shooting of Dante Kittrell.
John Horsley, who has been at Oaklawn for 11 years and has been a clinical social worker since 2001, believes mental health professionals can be helpful in the most intense situations.
In July, Kittrell was shot and killed by South Bend police officers after pointing what appeared to be a handgun at those officers.
Body camera and dash cam video shows negotiators trying to defuse the situation for about 40 minutes.
City officials said officers used deadly force as a last resort.
“I believe a mental health professional could have definitely guided him, counseled him… He’s very emotional and powerful. You want to bring the best knowledge you can to those situations to get the best results possible,” Horsley said.
According to South Bend Police, evacuation training is very effective, and officers did everything they could to get everyone home safely.
“I believe this has raised some awareness of how serious these situations can be, and we’ve been working hard to figure out what additional training is needed … our mobile crisis team is trained in intervention, trained in assessment … do they have specific training for when someone has a gun and there’s a police confrontation? no! But the training they have is valuable in those situations, and if we want to cooperate with law enforcement and respond, we will absolutely do that,” Horsley said.
Horsley says mental health crisis teams are important, which is why Oaklawn is currently building its mobile crisis unit.
“I thought it would make sense, and going forward, that at least a member of the community crisis team, if not the crisis team, would link to the community mental health center, so we have seamless access to follow-up services, and there’s support for individuals in crisis, after the crisis… “Our community needs to work harder to work together and ensure we have a great crisis response system,” he said.
Horsley said Oaklawn already has funding lined up to continue building their mobile crisis unit.
Copyright 2022 WNDU. all rights reserved.
[ad_2]
Source link
