St. Elizabeth police to be trained to deal with mentally ill people

By Kimone Witter    

 

Members of the St. Elizabeth Police are to be trained to better respond to incidents involving people with mental illnesses.

 

Speaking at the recent monthly meeting of the St. Elizabeth Municipal Corporation, Medical Officer of Health for St. Elizabeth Dr. Tonia Dawkins-Beharie said the intervention is necessary to avoid injury or death.

 

In a subsequent interview with the media, Dr. Dawkins-Beharie said the health department and St. Elizabeth police leadership have been in discussions to educate frontline officers to deal with mentally ill people. 

 

"We are planning, along with our local police, to have a training with our officers, just to strengthen our approach in handling mental health crises in the community. So we're already out there, but this is just to strengthen our capacity and ensure that the appropriate measures are taking place. So that's part of the efforts that we're putting in place to address this issue," said Dr. Dawkins-Beharie. 

 

She said support will also be provided to the police to deal with stressors of the job.

 

In recent weeks, the St. Elizabeth police have been called to communities following reports that people said to be mentally ill have been causing mayhem.

 

The latest incident occurred at the Retirement Primary School when a machete wielding man invaded the school compound and injured an ancillary worker.

 

Days earlier, a man killed his sister in Thornton during a dispute. 

 

Dr. Dawkins-Beharie said the St. Elizabeth Municipal Corporation has formed a subcommittee that will be tasked with developing concrete strategies to assist with the care of mentally ill people across the parish.

 

"There are some things that within our scope locally, we can address and tighten up. There are other things, policies, procedures that we have to advocate for at a higher level. But we will closely examine the situation on our side of the regular committees that are here, with a specific focus on mental health issues across the parish," she said, noting that mental illness is "not a police problem, it's an all of us problem as society".