The tragic police killing of yet another person in mental health crisis -- this time in Philadelphia -- underscores the need to dramatically improve community mental health services, including ending our overreliance on police officers as first responders. But the death of Walter Wallace Jr. also reminds us that the police will continue to respond to such crises on occasion, and that more must be done to ensure that when they do it is not a precursor to tragedy.
Wallace reportedly struggled with mental illness, and police had repeatedly been called to his home. More than 11 million Americans live with a serious mental illness, underscoring the need for a mental health care system
To handle the mental health crises that will undoubtedly still occur, communities should create teams of mental health responders to serve as alternatives to police. In addition, every 911 system should have available -- 24/7 -- behavioral health specialists to help ensure that police aren't dispatched when EMTs or mental health specialists would be better equipped to handle the call.
Still, it is important to recognize that even if a community has each of these components working perfectly, when the person in crisis appears agitated and has a weapon, as it seems Wallace did, there may still be a need for a police response.
We must reject the false dichotomy between a "safe" nonpolice response and a deadly police one. A police response to a person who has a weapon and is in mental health crisis does not need to devolve into tragedy. There are two big things every law enforcement agency should do to change this equation.
First, law enforcement agencies should ensure that every officer is comprehensively trained in how to de-escalate mental health crises without resorting to deadly force. A system developed by the Police Executive Research Forum provides such guidance. The group recommends integrating de-escalation training with crisis intervention training. This training should be paired with active bystandership training, which teaches officers how to intervene to keep each other from overreacting in crises.
Second, cities should consider identifying and deploying teams of individuals, either two officers or an officer paired with a mental health professional, to respond to individuals who are in mental health crisis and threatening to use a weapon. This intervention is more fraught, given the risks that a police culture of confrontation would undermine the effectiveness of such teams, or that they would be used in situations where a police response is unnecessary or even counterproductive. But such teams could fill a small but critical need.
We must adopt mechanisms to ensure that when desperate families call 911 seeking help for a loved one, help is what they receive -- even if it is the police who respond.
Lopez is a professor from practice at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.