When a person calls a crisis hotline, sometimes they only need to be heard. Sometimes family is encouraged to take them to the nearest emergency room and sometimes, depending on the situation — what’s said, what’s sensed — police are sent.
It’s a case-by-case call.
“The people who answer the phones on the crisis hotlines are well-versed and trained in collecting information and engaging the appropriate people in response to the dialogue that takes place during the conversation with the caller,” said John Martins, spokesman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Police say Jessica Byrn-Francisco, 25, called a crisis hotline Tuesday and later, when police responded to 77 Maine St. in Rumford, Bryn-Francisco allegedly attacked them with a knife. One officer shot her twice in response.
Details about the initial call remained unclear Wednesday. An official at Oxford County Mental Health Services, which answers a local crisis hotline, declined to comment on whether they’d had anyone at the scene.
Greg Marley, clinical director for the Maine chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and a former crisis clinician who supervised a crisis team, said police are called in a minority of cases. When that happens, frequently a crisis worker has offered to meet with a caller and once there, asked police for backup, or they ask police to assist them from the start if they have any concerns about safety.
“(The caller) may be thinking about suicide; they may be really depressed,” Marley said. “In that conversation, a crisis clinical might recommend, ‘I think it would be really helpful if we met with you and talked about what your options are.’ They’re going to be listening very carefully to what seems to be clinically appropriate and safe.”
For nearly 12 years, NAMI Maine has offered a 40-hour training program for police and corrections personnel for responding to people in crisis. The classes, which are free of charge, aren’t mandatory, though some police departments, including Bangor and Portland, are mandating it for their officers, Marley said.
“A big piece of the training is skill development and role-playing to practice skills in de-escalation of someone who’s in a mental health crisis, so (police) have more tools than their firearms or their handcuffs or arrests,” he said.
Without knowing details in the Rumford case, Marley said it was difficult to know whether Bryn-Francisco could have been reacting to a past trauma or even if she wanted to be shot.
“It’s a horrible, horrible situation for an officer to be in,” Marley said. “He feels like he’s a failure no matter which way it goes.”
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