Guns may not kill people, but when the mentally ill do, it can—and has—resulted in mass slaughter.
As social service providers struggle to meet the demand for psychiatric rehabilitation programs, many police agencies are finding themselves reluctantly cast as community "caregivers of last resort." And when the next mental health-related mass shooting inevitably occurs, the public will again question whether law enforcement could have prevented the carnage.
Two agencies in Southern Arizona, the Pima County Sheriff's Department and Tucson Police Department, are taking on that challenge. The joint Mental Health Support Team—part special investigations unit, part information clearinghouse, and full-on crime prevention task force—serves with a three-pronged approach: Identify individuals at high risk for violence. Connect (or reconnect) them with local behavioral health service providers. Then hold them accountable to court-ordered treatment plans.
"It's long overdue for law enforcement to take a more proactive approach," says Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor. "Mental health may not be the main component of our wheelhouse, but it has an effect on so many things we do, and so many of the significant violent acts that have occurred over the years, that it can't be ignored."
It's Our Problem
According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, more than 43 million Americans experience a diagnosable mental illness each year. And while being mentally ill is not a crime, these individuals' bizarre behaviors too often bring them face to face with law enforcement.
"We didn't think it was our problem, but it is," says Sgt. Terry Staten, who oversees the Pima County Sheriff's Department MHST unit. "We're dealing with these people on a daily basis, and have more face time than [even] their doctor would."
While the vast majority of people with mental illness are non-violent, the link between psychiatric illness and multiple-casualty incidents cannot be overlooked. Of 35 mass shootings since 2000, fully 31 involved a suspect with serious mental illness, according to Jim Kirk, a retired Tucson Police sergeant who oversaw the agency's Behavioral Sciences Unit.
"There is no way to determine the exact percentage of calls that are related, or have some nexus, to mental health," he says. "But I think it is indeed safe to say that one-third is a conservative estimate."
In Tucson, law enforcement has witnessed mental health-related mass casualty incidents firsthand.
On Jan. 8, 2011, Jared Loughner—an undiagnosed schizophrenic armed with 93 rounds in high-capacity magazines—attempted to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a public outreach event. After shooting the congresswoman in the head, he turned his gun on the waiting crowd and gunned down an additional 19 people. Six were killed, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
Tucson suddenly became ground zero for a national debate about mental illness, gun violence, and missed intervention opportunities.
A sheriff's department investigation later revealed that Loughner had been repeatedly identified as mentally unstable by Pima Community College teachers, as well as students. A month before the shooting, his behavior became so erratic that campus police delivered a notice of immediate suspension to his parents—who never arranged the mental health evaluation they were supposed to.
"We didn't have the connections or communications between mental health providers and law enforcement that we do now," Staten says. "Authorities did everything they could, with the resources they had at the time."
The driving force behind MHST is Byron Gwaltney, a Pima County Sheriff's Department bureau chief who served as incident commander at the Loughner shooting. The unit began with two full-time deputies assigned to serve petitions for evaluation or treatment, and expanded to include three deputies, two detectives, a sergeant, and a civilian researcher.
Tucson Police Department joined the team earlier this year, adding two additional officers, a detective and a sergeant. The group meets monthly with local behavioral health providers and other stakeholders to debrief significant cases, and is actively seeking to bring other Southern Arizona law enforcement agencies into the mix.
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