Baltimore meeting focuses on police response to mental health crises

The Baltimore City Council says it is trying to improve how the city police department responds to mental health crises.

Behavioral and mental health crisis calls came under fire last summer, after two people died after interacting with police during a crisis.

Dontae Melton Jr. died in police custody, and Pytorcarcha Clark-Brooks was shot and killed by police after experiencing a behavioral health crisis last summer. 

City's crisis response team questioned

The city already has a crisis response team, but the council called into question that team's timeliness and effectiveness.

"Why is it not working?" Councilwoman Odette Ramos said.

Officials from the police department and the mayor's office say that crisis response teams are already deployed for mental health calls. The city council says teams need to respond faster and provide more resources.

"I think what folks are looking for is when I call 911, when I call 980, that there is someone, a clinician, a peer, someone who can meet the need that I am having, that can respond quickly," City Council President Zeke Cohen said.

Plans to improve crisis responses

The city is also considering adding a civilian response team to help with non-criminal, non-violent calls. It is also discussing adding an incentive for social workers and those who work in crisis intervention, which could include paying off some student debt.

Experts from across the country weighed in on what works for mental health response in their cities, including the chief of the Durham, N.C. Police Department.

The city council asked questions about how to improve response times and what units are dispatched to a scene.

"We've had 39,325 responses… and we are averaging 6:05 minutes to scene," Chief Patrice Andrews said.

City leaders are now suggesting adding a civilian response team to handle non-violent, non-criminal calls, reserving behavioral health experts for critical scenes.

"We're talking certainly about mobile crisis and what is needed when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, a clinician on site immediately. And we're talking about this alternative response that addresses quality of life concerns," said Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, Baltimore City Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

The city council is still looking into how much it will cost to make Baltimore's system state of the art. The mayor's office says it will get those estimates in the next three weeks.

The Baltimore City Behavioral Health Collaborative is meeting at the end of the month to discuss how to improve crisis response.

Dontae Melton's response

In a preliminary report, investigators with the Office of Maryland's Attorney General said Melton Jr. approached an officer in a marked police vehicle at a red light. He had walked into the middle of the intersection of West Franklin Street and North Franklintown Road.

Officers restrained Melton for his own safety, according to the Maryland Attorney General's Independent Investigations Division (IID), and called for an ambulance that never came because of a breakdown in the dispatch system.

Melton's mental crisis became a physical one, too, as officers noted in body-worn camera videos that his pulse was racing and his temperature was high. An officer drove Melton Jr. to the hospital just three minutes away.

The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide and found he died "due to a combination of drug intoxication, hyperthermia and restraint." 

The Maryland Attorney General's Office said this week they would not prosecute any of the 10 officers who responded.

Eleshiea Goode, Melton Jr.'s mother, called this a failure.

"Dontae has gone to an officer before who helped them get to the hospital. That didn't happen this time, the complete incident was a failure, and I have to live with that every single day," Goode told WJZ investigates.

Pytorcarcha Clark-Brooks's crisis call

A 70-year-old woman was shot and killed by officers after she lunged at them with a knife in West Baltimore on June 24, police said.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said officers responded to a home in the 2700 block of Mosher Street where 70-year-old Pytorcarcha Clark-Brooks was having a behavioral health crisis.

According to Worley, the woman lunged at officers with a knife twice – once after an officer fell to the ground – prompting a second officer to fire two shots that ultimately killed her. 

"She wasn't just what you hear, Oh, been 20 some calls from mental issues. She wasn't just a mental person. She was a human," LaRae Taylor, her cousin, explained.

This incident happened less than 24 hours after Melton Jr.'s death.