The statistics drive home a grim reality: people with untreated mental illnesses are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than other civilians.
In fact, current estimates show that at least a quarter of all individuals killed by police suffer from some kind of mental illness.
The cause for this is manifold: from a general misunderstanding of mental illness to begin with, to the widespread dismantling of the mental illness treatment system nationwide, which has created an unforeseen system by which law enforcement now must act as first responders for individuals going through a mental health crisis.
That’s why nationwide, local police departments and sheriff’s offices are getting involved with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to properly train officers to handle these situations.
That includes the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, although according to Sheriff Johnny Mack Brown, they’re still playing catch up.
“We’re behind on training,” Brown admitted, before adding: “We can only get 25 people in each training class at a time, so we just put 25 people through the NAMI training class to handle mentally ill patients. That only gives us 160 people trained in how to handle mentally ill patients.”
But Brown said the slow pace of training will not deter the office from committing to improving mental illness crisis intervention.
“We’re always looking to improve,” he said. “Every day I look for things that we can improve and we can make better.”
There are currently 450 deputies on staff at the sheriff’s office, leaving about 290 deputies still waiting for training.